For A Sunny Saturday Morning

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bad news, coffee, forgivenes, Fully Human Divine, Good News, guidance, Hebrews, hospitality, lightness, Michael Casey, sleep, support, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

A page from Michael Casey’s book Fully Human Fully Divine gave me pause this morning. After a “short night” when sleep evaded me until about 1:30am, I needed some encouragement and it seems I have found it. Perhaps it might set the course for someone else today as well. I’m a little late in “coming to the table” that Casey offers as I’ve already had one cup of coffee, but it’s better late than never for me today. What about you?

Each morning as we rise from sleep we can say, “This day God will send me whatever support, whatever guidance, whatever forgiveness I need.” It is only a matter of remaining alert, watching for God’s agents. “Do not forget hospitality since in being hospitable some have unknowingly entertained angels” (Heb. 13:2). What a difference it would make if I were to welcome everything that happens as good news. It may require some extra digging in some situations to get beneath the surface affront to discover the pleasant surprise, but what a different person I would be if I were to jettison my readiness to qualify everything unexpected as bad news. What an incredible sense of lightness would infuse my heart and mind, and thus modify the way I present to others. (p. 151)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If Only…

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coffee, gladness, noise, offering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, thinking, thoughts

This morning the calendar in my head began ticking off events of the day even before my feet touched the floor. When I sat down, having retrieved my coffee and my eye glasses, just for a change I opened the book entitled Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. Here is what I read:

If only for once it were still. If the “not quite right” and the “why this” could be muted, and the neighbor’s laughter, and the static my senses make – if all of it didn’t keep me from coming awake – then in one vast thousandfold thought I could think you up to where thinking ends. I could possess you, even for the brevity of a smile, to offer you to all that lives, in gladness.

What a lovely thought with which to bless this day!

Everyday Blessings

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blessings, coffee, conscious, grateful, morning ritual, service, small blessings, Thanksgiving, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I just took a sleepy walk down the long residence hall where I’m staying to find one of the Sisters making a second pot of coffee before the first one was empty. I remarked to her how lovely it is to have that service done by someone else who is awake enough to accomplish it! She responded, “We’re all grateful for that!” (as I am every day because my housemates are earlier risers than myself). As I came back and settled in to drink and think about my offering of words for the day, my eye fell on the objects around the room and I was struck again about the extraordinary daily blessings in my life. First I saw three books. (I never leave home without at least one or two.) The top one of these was the gift of a friend who lives in this house so I was grateful in three ways: for Katie, the books and the ability to read. Next was the lamp that allows me to see, then a skein of yarn soon to be a prayer shawl for which I give thanks for Sister Jean who taught me to knit. Then there is the bed – with sheets, blankets and pillow – in which I was privileged to sleep in comfort and warmth. Lastly I have this computer which brings the world to me and me to the world each morning for prayer.

All of this came to me in a flash – just a quick look around – after the blessing of coffee prepared by one of over a hundred of my Sisters dwelling under this roof. Would that every day I would be so consciously awash in the small but significant blessings that mean so much! May I spend this day in thanksgiving no matter what the day brings. May you find enough in your day to call you to the same task.