The First Day

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20/20 vision, beginning, future, gift, goals, hope, New Year, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is a new day. How is that different from any other day? Well, it’s a new year as well. Someone once said: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” and that became a standard for greeting cards and slogans everywhere. When something is that self-evident we need to stop and think why it becomes so popular to say or think. It is, of course, the surface and beginning point of a long and sometimes arduous reflective adventure.

What does your desired future look like? Do you have any idea? Any goals? Would you be dissatisfied if today becomes like yesterday or this year like the last? Are there things you want to or need to change? How will you make it happen? Of what are you certain now and what will make the rest of your life more meaningful? Is there even a need for all these questions ?

This exercise is for myself, of course, and perhaps something on which to spend at least a moment each day, even though today may warrant a deeper dive. May this new beginning be a gift of hope for you as you step into this new year. May clear seeing (20/20 vision) guide you along with sincerity and clarity and may you welcome the joys and challenges of this year with acceptance and gratitude that you still have this new day to open yourself to life!

Assessment

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carrying crosses, empowerment, enough, goals, grace, holy season, Isaiah, Jesus, Joyce Rupp, Philippians, Prayer Seeds, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent. We don’t have much more time to achieve what we projected at the beginning of these 40 days, this “holy season.” How am I doing? Sometimes it seems that I am very aware of my desire to change, to jettison the parts of me that I see as less than acceptable, as holy, or as enough for God. I read Isaiah’s message from God: See, I am doing something new!…Do you not perceive it?” and I wonder if I really understand how present God’s Spirit is, how alive and active in every breath I take. I remember how Jesus treated the woman caught in adultery and hear St. Paul speak his faith to the Philippians: Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal…and again I move to self doubt.

As usual, however, when I turn to Joyce Rupp, I find what I need to go forward. Her Lenten reflection called Carrying Crosses* contains a petition and then a recognition of what is true and necessary for us as we strive to accept ourselves as God sees and loves us every day. I am always grateful for her ability to speak just the right words at the right time. Listen:

Expand my perception of the good things my life already holds. Decrease apprehension about not having enough, being enough, doing enough or growing enough.

Confident in your grace and daily empowerment, I give myself to you as fully as I am able at this time. As I carry the crosses that are mine, remind me often that you are always with me and never against me. I place my desire for union with you into your loving care. Amen.

Amen, indeed.

*Prayer Seeds, p.90.

Purpose and Meaning

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affected, care, forgotten, global results, goals, hurt, Joan Chittister, meaning, productive, profit, purpose, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, touched, why, Wisdom Distilled Daily, wise woman

Joan Chittister  gave me a paragraph to ponder this morning from her book, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily. I thought it was worth sharing, not necessarily for others to agree but simply to measure the reflections of this wise woman against my own to see if there is resonance there. I offer it today in that spirit.

Purpose has something to do with being productive and setting goals and knowing what needs to be done and doing it. It is easy to have purpose. To write seven letters today, to wax that floor, to finish this legal brief, to make out those reports, to complete this degree, that’s purpose. Meaning, on the other hand, depends on my asking myself who will care and who will profit and who will be touched and who will be forgotten or hurt or affected by my doing those things. Purpose determines what I will do with this part of my life. Meaning demands to know why I’m doing it and with what global results. (p. 102)