Found In Translation

Tags

endure, God is love, happiness, hope, hospitality, love one another, New American Bible, persevere, Romans, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I was always envious of people who could quote Scripture with chapter and verse. I had my favorite passages – most of them short, like “God is Love” – but was usually only vaguely aware of where to find them in the Bible. The exception was Romans 12:12 (most likely because of the double 12) that reminded me to “base your happiness on your hope in Christ.”

I read the first lectionary text for today (ROM 12:9-16) at least three times looking for my favorite line, disappointed at not seeing it there. I concluded finally that perhaps the translation had been updated from my 1970 edition of the New American Bible. It finally occurred to me during my third attentive walk through each line that the whole text is an amazing pattern for life! Here’s a smattering of it. See if you don’t agree.

Brothers and sisters: let love be sincere…hold onto what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor…Rejoice in hope (new vs. 12!), endure in affliction, persevere in prayer…exercise hospitality…

Which line calls to you today?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Of Work and Workers

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acceptance, attitude, character, dignity, fulfillment, Good Shepherd, happiness, John, love, pay, rich inner life, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, work, workers

There’s a passage in the “Good Shepherd” gospel from today’s lectionary (JN 10: 12-13) that has me thinking about the power of intention. It says the following: “A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.”

I have always been blessed with fulfilling work that I have, therefore, done motivated by love – of the people I encounter and the work itself. In that way, I understand the shepherd who “knows” his sheep, able to tell one from another and willing to do whatever it takes to keep them safe. But I am thinking this morning about people who work in jobs that are onerous, yet necessary to allow even a subsistence lifestyle. I presume it would take a very strong will to be able to be happy in such a situation. It would necessitate digging deep to find a purpose for getting up in the morning. It has been said that “Happiness is an inside job.” Thus, there must be something deeper than the work itself to motivate the worker.

As I write, I recognize that this truth is universal and is definitely an aspect of one’s character and attitude. Think about the clerks in a store that you frequent. Two people who are paid the same salary may be quite different in the way they greet you or work the checkout counter. It’s the same for heads of large corporations. So while I would like to see a more equitable pay scale and better conditions for workers, I come to the conclusion that if one has a rich inner life anything can be a blessing if it moves us toward acceptance and even love.

Let us pray today for an appreciation of the dignity of work and all workers as we examine our own attitudes toward what is our own work in the world. Let our intention be the building up of community in whatever we do and what we achieve, not for our own glory but for the good of all and the praise of God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best We Can Do

Tags

answer, blessings, happiness, health, loving care, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, prayer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, treasures

Looking out and seeing one more snowfall in this third quadrant of the month that is supposed to bring us May flowers, I once more reached for the book called Perseverance for an encouraging word. (Meg Wheatley is good at providing solace in down-to-earth terms when everything looks bleak.) I shouldn’t complain; look at the destruction on the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai and other serious weather disasters around the world. And that’s just the beginning of what people are enduring in their lives.

As I pulled the book toward me, a bookmark fluttered out and landed on my lap. It was the answer to my need for help, of course. It was familiar – “a blast from the past” – and reminded me of all the singsong prayers in my childhood that made up a treasure chest full of meaningful messages that always seemed an answer on days like this. It also brought to mind the beautiful, giving friend from whom it came and whose example I try to follow. Perhaps you will find it meaningful today as well.

I said a prayer for you today and know God must have heard. I felt the answer in my heart although God spoke no word. I didn’t ask for wealth or fame; I knew you wouldn’t mind. I asked God to send treasures of a far more lasting kind. I asked God to be near you at the start of each new day, to grant you health and blessings and friends to share your way. I asked for happiness for you in all things great and small, but it was for God’s loving care I prayed the most of all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What’s In Your Bowl?

Tags

A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, consciousness, enlightenment, fear, guilt, happiness, health, light, spiritual tradition, success, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unworthiness, wisdom

It seems that the theme of light is meant to continue here for at least one more day. In Alan Cohen’s book, A Deep Breath of Life, just the title for this morning’s daily reflection got me curious. “Rocks or Light?” it asked. He was talking about the Hawaiian spiritual tradition that every child born into this world is like a “bowl of light” containing the radiance of heaven. The theory is that if rocks – like fear, guilt and unworthiness – are placed into the bowl, the original brilliance is obscured. The more rocks in the bowl, the less light we shine. Cohen’s comments are very similar to yesterday’s Scripture readings. (I love it when serendipity like this happens to support my conclusions!) Here’s a little of what Cohen offers.

The game of enlightenment is not about going out and getting something we do not have or becoming something we are not. We are already enlightened; we have simply covered over our wisdom. We started out fine; then we got de-fined; now we must be re-fined.

Health, happiness and success are our birthright and we carry all we need within us to manifest all the good we seek. But first we must remove everything from our consciousness that works against the full expression of what we are.

What rocks are in your bowl?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wise Words from Eleanor

Tags

A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, Eleanor Roosevelt, give, happiness, routine, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I feel as if today is the day to take a deep breath and “get back to business.” Routine is a thing of the past these days but there are things that can be routinized like prayer, sleep patterns, and food intake. Since those activities are often disrupted at holiday time, it takes a bit of effort to get back to normal. A quote from Eleanor Roosevelt in Alan Cohen’s daily reflection (A Deep Breath of Life) will help, I think. Maybe it will offer you an opportunity as well.

Do whatever comes your way to do as well as you can. Think as little as possible about yourself and as much as possible about other people…put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Business

Tags

Advent, Christmas, consciously, happiness, Holiday, love, love of Christ, One God, slowing down, Thanksgiving, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, travel

Today I sit staring at a blank page, feeling a bit empty, as happens sometimes on the Monday after an important holiday. While I was not counted in the millions of people who took to the road or the sky over the weekend to be with faraway relatives or friends (the return trip perhaps not concluded yet), the Thanksgiving holiday just concluded seemed to me to hold more energy than usual in the wishes of “Happy Thanksgiving!” shared sincerely among friends and strangers alike. Maybe we needed some distraction from all the distress of our country and the world that made us try harder to find the joy of sharing. Maybe it was just the slowing down and relaxing together that pervaded our household. Whatever the source, I feel the need to regroup today so that I will live consciously throughout the wonderful season of Advent leading to Christmas. As the world turns from another beginning to a conclusion marked by the calendar of feasting and celebrations, I am heartened and challenged by Thomas Merton’s words to wake up and get about this new day.

Let us live in this love and this happiness, you and I and all of us, in the love of Christ and in contemplation, for this is where we find ourselves and one another as we truly are. It is only in this love that we at last become real, for it is here that we most truly share the life of the One God…

 

 

 

 

 

Circles of Hope

Tags

Black Elk, circles, Exodus, family, happiness, holy, hoop of the world, hope, In A Sacred Manner I Live, Jesus, love, Oglala Sioux, sacred, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wedding

I come late today to this task because I sat with my coffee this morning recounting the story of the wedding reception I attended last evening. I have great hopes for this couple in their mid-twenties who have known each other since their first school dance in 7th grade and have grown in love until, at 1:00 yesterday afternoon, they joined in the sanctuary of the church with tears of joy (both of them!) that this moment had finally come. At the dinner reception I was reminded of the importance of family and friends in the lives of such a couple. Touching toasts to the groom and the bride, spoken by two brothers and two sisters, were concluded by two friends and followed by a beautiful  blessing by the father of the groom. As I heard the hopes for long life and “the blessing of children,” I was aware of the circle of life in this gathered community widening and being strengthened by this new family unit. There is no lack of wisdom in the elders who surround this couple and lots of companionship for the days to come.

I found fitting advice in the readings of today where I heard God warning us not to “oppress the alien, for you were once foreigners in a strange land.” (EX 22:20) and Jesus commanding us to “love our neighbors as ourselves.”

Unable to stop here in this reflection, I am pulled back into something I read during the past week from a book called In A Sacred Manner I Live. It is the line from Exodus, I think, that urges me to share a vision of Black Elk, holy man of the Oglala Sioux (when he was nine years old), that I would wish for our world and see as possible if we hold in our hearts the love generated at moments like those I experienced yesterday. Please indulge me and pray with me for such widening circles.

And a Voice said: “All over the universe they have finished a day of happiness. And looking down I saw that the whole wide circle of the day was beautiful and green, with all fruits growing and all things kind and happy. Then a Voice said: “Behold this day, for it is yours to make. Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see…”

Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw, for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

May it be so. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Water on Stone

Tags

anger, beatitudes, blessedness, dignity, drops of water, eye for an eye, happiness, Holly Near, human life, Matthew, mosaic law, Pope John Paul II, reform, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, violence

Chapter 5 of Matthew’s gospel is very challenging. Most of us know – or at least know of – the Beatitudes in which Jesus tells of the happiness (blessedness) of those who practice and/or endure justice and meekness and long-suffering, etc.(MT 5:38-42). The chapter doesn’t stop there, however. As Jesus lays out a new way of living – the fulfillment and next step in the evolution of the Mosaic Law, perhaps, he speaks of letting our light shine for the good of the world and then there is that most uncomfortable teaching that goes beyond anything his listeners could have expected. (MT 5:38-42) “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.”

Interestingly, what caught my eye this morning when I first opened the USCCB (Catholic bishops) website was the topic of capital punishment. It is one of the tenets of Catholicism that I applaud wholeheartedly. This was the explanatory paragraph that I read:

The dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. (Pope Saint John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 1995)

As we watch the frequent news reports of horrific violence in our country and around the world, these are hard sayings to accept. Reacting to violence with violence, however, is never a solution. I feel led today to examine my own heart, seeking to root out any vestiges of violence – bursts of anger and even thoughts of “tit-for-tat” – that might add to the negative energy in the world. Offering what I find as an antidote to my own failures in conscious loving might become my strength when the next challenge to my ego comes along. I’m reminded of Holly Near’s song lyrics from long ago that asked, “Can we be like drops of water falling on the stone, splashing, breaking, dispersing in air, weaker than the stone by far but be aware that, as time goes by, the rock will wear away.”

May it be so in us!

 

 

 

 

 

Love Incarnate

Tags

all in, Angelic Mistakes: the Art of Thomas Merton, celebration, Christ, commentary, drawing, emptying Himself, God, happiness, Incarnation, life, marriage, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

One of the books on the “Merton shelf” of the bookcase that is directly to the left of my bedroom rocker is entitled Angelic Mistakes: the Art of Thomas Merton. The book really needs a deeper shelf to house it as it sticks out beyond its neighbors, begging to be noticed. It has a double value because it offers not only a large selection of what Merton himself called a collection of shapes, powers, flying beasts, cave animals, bloodstains, angelic mistakes, etc., that can perhaps have some visual effect on the local bisons…but also significant commentary and quotes to accompany each of the drawings. I have flagged some of those pages of quotes that are significant to me and was drawn again this morning to one of them that included the following:

In emptying Himself to come into the world, God has not simply kept in reserve, in a safe place, His reality and manifested a kind of shadow or symbol of Himself. He has emptied  Himself and is all in Christ…Christ is not simply the tip of the little finger of the Godhead, moving in the world, easily withdrawn, never threatened, never really risking anything. God has acted and given Himself totally, without division, in the Incarnation. He has become not only one of us but even our very selves.

Last night I had the privilege of gathering with 11 women, all of whom had worked together for all or part of the past 15 years. (I left my position but not my connection six years ago.) We have worked, prayed and played together and watched our lives and the lives of our families unfold together as women are in the habit of doing, more or less, in such a situation. Last night we were celebrating one of us, soon to be married, in a joyous, playful extravaganza of good food, good gifts and deep, deep happiness. I was reminded of the above quote as I reflected this morning on our party. There have been tragedies and illnesses and great sorrow in the lives of all of us over the years – some very recent and raw – but nothing was able to dampen the spirit of love for our sister, Theresa, and one another that was palpable throughout the evening. We were “all in” – God incarnate – as one single manifestation of divine love. Even in writing that last sentence I feel the shocking nature of it. How bold it is! How dangerous to talk like that…and yet I have come to understand, through such experiences as this, the possibility of total letting go of personal interest in the draw of love’s selflessness. There was nothing of ego in the room last night; we were all engaged in the purpose for which we were gathered and moved as a unit to make it happen. It was a glorious dance and will stand for me as a  touchstone of God’s love incarnate for a long time to come. And, as an old “folk Mass” song says, “And all we have to offer You is thanks. All we have to offer You is thanks.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moon and Sun

Tags

Hafiz, happiness, heart, light, moon, Sufi, sun, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Here’s a little Sufi wisdom from the mystical poet, Hafiz, that opened to me first thing this morning. See what you think…

FAITHFUL LOVER

The moon came to me last night with a sweet question. She said, “The sun has been my faithful lover for millions of years. Whenever I offer my body to him brilliant light pours from his heart. Thousands then notice my happiness and delight in pointing toward my beauty. Hafiz, is it true that our destiny is to turn into Light Itself?” And I replied, Dear Moon, now that your love is maturing, we need to sit together close like this more often so I might instruct you how to become Who you Are!  (THE GIFT, 159)