Contemplating Hercules

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action, challenges, crisis, heroism, Optimize, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today feels so much like a Saturday I’m tempted to go back to bed! Don’t ask me why. It could be the weather that promises more snow and sleet. It might be the result of so many events already come and gone this week, or the energy it took to achieve their completion. It’s interesting that Brian Johnson’s “Optimize” sounds today the way I feel but he’s such a cheerleader for moving forward that I should have expected his rather colorful post. It made me smile and he does have a point. Entitled “Getting Out of Bed and High-Fiving Hercules – Aka: Moving from Theory to Practice,” he quotes Epictetus (paraphrasing, I presume.)

What would have become of Hercules, do you think, if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar? — and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of those challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul without crises or conditions to stir him into action? (www.optimize.me)

So, Johnson says: “Let’s not roll over and go back to sleep!” and then he asks: “Got any heroic choices you need to make today?”

And your answer is…?

Earth in Crisis

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crisis, disturbing, Earth, earthquakes, Holy One, John Philip Newell, Prayer of Awareness, Praying With the Earth, recycled, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

We who live in this blessed region of our vast country watch with concern this week the news of earthquakes in California (Are they the harbinger of “the Big One?”) and flash flooding in the nation’s capital, while at the same time giving thanks for the minor inconveniences that we encounter close to home. “Disturbing” is certainly a word that we might use to describe our feelings about what is happening to the Earth, our home, but we should next be asking how we are complicit in the degradation and what we are doing to counteract it.

There has been a commercial on television lately about Rothy’s shoes, made out of recycled plastic. A person twists a plastic water bottle in her hands and it turns into a shoe and then there are all sorts of pictures of shoes. I couldn’t imagine that the message they were conveying was actually about plastic becoming wearable shoes so – of course – I went on the internet to do some research and, believe me, whoever had the idea certainly did their homework. Not only shoes but now clothing is being made from the huge amount of plastic that we discard each day. Statistics are mind-boggling as are the concepts of what can be done with what we throw away.

The lack of concern for the earth is monumental and shame should be our only reaction as we see pictures of the debris being scooped up from the oceans and littering our highways. I am somewhat calmed by the efforts of creative people like the Rothy’s company leaders but the earthquakes this week have (pardon the word) shaken me awake and hopefully have done the same for many people.

I know that much work has to be done and I can only hope I will enter the realm of the active reformers, doing my part in conscious and responsible citizenship. This morning, however, I have decided it might also be time to use John Philip Newell’s book, Praying with the Earth, as a consciousness-raising tool for my morning and/or night prayer. Today’s offering includes the following Prayer of Awareness. (I write it as a stream with few stops to accentuate the urgency of its message to the Holy One.)

It is in the depths of life that we find you at the heart of this moment at the centre of our soul deep in the earth and its eternal stirrings. You are the Ground of all being the Well-Spring of time Womb of the earth the Seed-force of stars. And so at the opening of this day we wait not for blessings from afar but for You the very Soul of our soul the early Freshness of morning the first Breath of day. (p. 18)

Duty Calls!

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crisis, free, integrity, shame, Statue of Liberty, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, world refugee day, zero tolerance

How ironic, when distress has moved to outrage in our country over Donald Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” policy leaving families ripped apart at our borders, that today we observe “World Refugee Day,” as proclaimed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The questions I see before us today are:

How can we sit wringing our hands waiting for our Congress to do something? Where and how will we – each of us – stand up in the face of this crisis of integrity and shame?

Enough said. Today is the day to step up and decide our place in this moment of history. May we not fail our God, ourselves and those who have sought the welcome offered by the invitation on the Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free!