Sacred Scripture, Cherished Words

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be content, generous heart, Hebrews, hospitality, Luke, psalm 27, refuge, Scriptures, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes when I read the Bible verses for the day it’s difficult to choose what to comment on because what was written in the Scriptures centuries ago is so apt and/or uplifting for the very day that we are living. Today there is much to ponder. I have chosen the most precious to me. See if you don’t agree.

1. Do not neglect hospitality, for through it some have unknowingly entertained angels. (HEB 13)
2. Be content with what you have for He has said, I will never forsake you, or abandon you. Thus we may say with confidence: The Lord is my helper, and I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me? (HEB 13)
3. The Lord is my life’s refuge; of whom shall I be afraid? (PS 27)
4. Blessed are those who have kept the Word with a generous heart, and yield a harvest through perseverance. Alleluia! (LK 8)

Sunday Song

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compassion, hospitality, Lynn Bauman, mercy, psalm 98, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I love the psalms that speak of the natural world doing what we think is reserved to humans. It’s easy to see the trees swaying and to interpret the movement as a dance; why not imagine more participation of the earth that was made long before humankind? Here’s the last part of today’s lectionary psalm (PS 98) as expressed by Lynn Bauman. I highlighted the most meaningful part for me. See what you can see.

Praise God till earth itself becomes a song, till seas and waters flow and waves begin to dance with land and all the peoples sing. Let every river lift its hands to clap in time, while hills and valleys join in song to offer hospitality to the Holy One, who comes to right our every wrong. This God will weigh the worth of everything that was, and is, and ever shall be, so mercy can be known in full, and justice here be balanced with compassion. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p. 247)

The Perfect Home

Tags

calling, Catholic Worker, Dorothy Day, holiness, hospitality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

More often than not, I check the Franciscan Media website as part of my morning routine to educate myself about little known (to me, at least) saints of the Church. I am pretty well aware of the celebrations of the most famous ones but some new names pop up every once in awhile and I’m glad to know that some newly canonized people are less recognizable for things like physical martyrdom or the founding of religious communities. Their holiness is simpler – if not always easier – in a daily life sort of way.

Today I found that – like lots of other websites – http://www.franciscanmedia.org has been significantly updated and now includes an eye-catching blog that stalled me on my way to doing my own daily duty! The blog post that appeared was from March 26th and included two articles under the title, Radical Hospitality. They were both about the life and work of Dorothy Day but the first only tangentially.

The author, Shannon Evans, spoke of her own life and her long-held desire to follow in Day’s footsteps by living in and serving with her large family at a Catholic Worker house. Her opportunity to do so quickly revealed to her that this was not the way God was calling her – or her husband and children – so after a few months, her dreams dashed but knowing in her heart that this was the correct decision, they moved back home. While Evans admits to still wishing to be more like her idol and doubting that will ever change, she writes the following:

Children of all ages, races and wealth are jumping on the trampoline in the backyard. I can hear their squeals of delight as I type. I’ll talk with mothers later on in the heat of the day – we’ll talk about the garden, we’ll talk about racial injustice, we’ll eat cantaloupe, and we’ll live this fruitful, painful, mundane life together side by side. I don’t think this kind of house of hospitality will ever look or feel important. But I do think it will matter. And I think Dorothy Day would say it does too.

What a great lesson of searching for what is truly one’s calling and accepting it when it turns out to be different from expected but perfect in God’s eyes.

On the Road Again

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hospitality, Jesus, journey, kindness, Luke, strangers, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, welfare, Word of God

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go back in time and live in a simpler world with fewer people, a world where Jesus could say to his chosen Twelve: “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic.” (One would probably want the power and authority Jesus gave to them over demons and to cure diseases, however, to keep them safe along the way as they preached the word of God.) (LK 9:1-6) When I left home yesterday to come to a meeting 135 miles away, I made sure I had my driver’s license, money, credit card in case of emergency, cell phone, and the food that one of the sisters had bought me at the grocery store for my lunch. Oh, yes, and the car that would get me here in about two and a half hours! Times have certainly changed! The world turns faster, the culture much more complicated – virtually nothing is the same!

I wonder, though, about the kindness of strangers. When Jesus was giving instructions to the apostles that day he obviously wasn’t worried about their welfare. “Whatever house you enter,” he said, “stay there and leave from there.” There was a caveat about what to do if they were not welcomed in a place, but basically they could trust traveling like that.

We certainly can’t wish ourselves back to that simpler time (which also included violence on the road and robbers, etc…) but it’s a good opportunity to think about how we treat strangers. Do we trust them only if they look like us? Do we judge them by appearance before we even hear them speak? And what if they don’t speak our language? Hospitality and welcome seem sometimes to have been replaced by mistrust and ignorance. Just a smile would go a long way to making someone comfortable.

I’ll remember that today on my trip home…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selfless Service

Tags

camaraderie, Celebration of Discipline, Fully Awake and Truly Alive, hidden service, hospitality, Jan Phillips, No Ordinary Time, Rev. Jane E. Vennard, Richard Foster, service, spiritual deepening, spiritual growth, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Every two weeks on Wednesday I meet with two sections (afternoon and evening) of a book study group. We have come to be known among ourselves as NOW (No Ordinary Women) after the title of our first great read, No Ordinary Time, by Jan Phillips. These gatherings have become an oasis of camaraderie and spiritual deepening for all of us, I believe, and yesterday was no exception. Almost at the end of Fully Awake and Truly Alive: Spiritual Practices to Nurture Your Soul by Rev. Jane E. Vennard, we considered the practices of Hospitality and Service. The beauty of this book is found in its practicality. One does not need to go looking to do something extraordinary but rather to look into everyday choices and activities familiar to us for our on-going spiritual growth. Some of the suggestions are simply a matter of attitudinal shifts.

Such was the last suggestion in the section called “hidden services,” a concept that Rev. Vennard takes from Richard Foster, author of the wonderful book, Celebration of Discipline. Foster speaks of the goodness that comes when we serve others without being noticed. “These are not acts done in secret,” he says, “but rather are ways of relating to other people that slip by their awareness. However, the results of these acts of service impact both the individual and the community in which they take place.”

Rev. Vennard’s illustrations of such practices were all quite apt but none more than the last entry. “A final hidden service is quite paradoxical,” she writes. “It is the practice of willing to be served. Service cannot happen if there is no recipient, yet we are often reluctant to accept the help being offered…Your grocery bag splits in the parking lot and someone comes to help. “Thank you,” you say. “I can take care of it myself.”

Agreeing that this kind of refusal is ingrained in most of us, we agreed to consider occasionally setting aside our fiercely independent nature and offering to others this most uncomfortable (for us) opportunity to serve. What about you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Benedict

Tags

Hebrews, hospitality, Joan Chittister, monasteries without walls, monasticism, prayer, St. Benedict, the Benedictine Way, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, work

There is much to say about St. Benedict, whose feast is today, known the world over as the man who brought monasticism to the western world. Although Benedict lived 1,500 years ago his influence is still felt and one might say is being proliferated more broadly than ever before because of a movement called “monasteries without walls.” Lay people who are interested in deepening their spiritual life often turn to The Rule of St. Benedict for guidance and a way to live his principles in secular society.

Most prominent in “the Benedictine Way” is ora et labora. That phrase, meaning “prayer and work” speaks of the balanced way in which the day is designed in his Rule. It includes work alone and work with others as well as prayer alone and prayer with others, experienced in a rhythm that gives not only form but meaning to each day and thus to all of life. (See Joan Chittister, OSB: Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, chapter 6 for a brilliant explanation of this concept.) In this world of excess for some and lack for others as well as in the use of time, we could do well to reflect on how we spend our days.

In tandem with this concept of balance is the call to hospitality. Based on Hebrews 13:2 that says “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” St. Benedict preached the necessity of welcoming everyone that we meet. How our world would change today if we took that advice to heart!

As we think of the influence of well-known people in our own day like Joan Chittister, Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating who have followed the rule of Benedict and shared it with the world, let us pray in thanksgiving also for the countless Benedictine monks and nuns through the centuries who have lived the life and carried the legacy of Benedict faithfully into the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Divine Guest

Tags

divine, Divine Guest, dwelling place, God's temple, hospitality, invitation, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning in a commentary on Psalm 98 I read an evocative sentence followed by a question worthy of pondering. It suggested that human beings need to offer an invitation to God and interior space for God to be, and then asked: Have you ever sensed that you could offer a place inside of your being as a dwelling place for the divine, or that your whole being could be God’s “temple” as it is often put in the tradition?

Sometimes it seems as if we spend too much time and effort begging for good fortune or happy outcomes (which I do think God hears as honest and legitimate requests) but this short reflection puts a different spin on our conversations, evoking a note of hospitality in our way of speaking to God. The images that arose in me from those lines of the psalm were of a great hall – as in a castle where a musical festival was being held. The music pauses as God appears at the top of a grand staircase and all eyes turn toward the Divine Guest. Then the music begins again with the most beautiful strains of song ever heard and all bow low as God descends the stairs…At that moment I recognize that the entire scene is being played out inside myself and the invitation is to allow God’s presence to fill me – body and soul – in all the comings and goings of my life.

Fanciful, yes, but worth imagining to give us a taste of what it would be like to truly take the role of host to the Divine Guest. Are we equal to the challenge? Are we willing? Let the music begin!

 

 

 

 

Our Life Is Love

Tags

Christian, Cynthia Bourgeault, forgiving, helping, hospitality, Isaac Penington, life, love, Marcelle Martin, Our Life Is Love, Paulette Meier, Peace, Pendle Hill, prayer, Quakers, retreat, shining through you, spiritual path, tenderness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Late yesterday I arrived home from my 5-day retreat at Pendle Hill, near Philadelphia, a gloriously peaceful place saturated with the beauty of nature and the prayer of Quakers since 1930. The theme developed over the days for the 60 participants – many Quakers and those others of us from several different Christian traditions – was Our Life Is Love. I went to the retreat because it was being led by Cynthia Bourgeault who has for over a decade been a bright light on my spiritual path. Cynthia was being assisted (I thought) by two women: a composer of chant-songs, Paulette Meier, and a teacher of the Quaker tradition, Marcelle Martin. Contrary to my impression from the retreat flyer, these three women presented a seamless experience of the beauty and depth of Quakerism that can also be found at the heart of mainstream Christianity. It was a priceless gift of camaraderie, shared prayer and hospitality that I will treasure going forward.

I woke up singing Paulette’s musical rendition of the quote from Isaac Penington, one of the founders of Quakerism, that begins Marcelle’s book, Our Life Is Love, a chronicle of ten elements of the Quaker spiritual journey. Here is what he said and what we sang.

Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations against one another; but praying for one another, and helping one another up with a tender hand…So mind Truth…[and] be a good savor in places where ye live, the meek, innocent, tender, righteous life reigning in you, governing over you, and shining through you, in the eyes of all with whom you converse. (Isaac Penington, 1667)

True Prophets

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creator of circumstances, deeper imagining, fuller awareness, hoping, hospitality, imagining, Jan Phillips, lauds, mystics, No Ordinary Time, poets, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, true prophets, waiting

I awoke this morning thinking about what Jan Phillips might like for breakfast. One might call this dedication to duty, as I will be charged with hospitality between her concert tomorrow evening and workshop on Saturday. I put that question on my virtual list of tasks for today and set about seeing if there was anything pertinent to this weekend that she offered me in her daily reflection for Thursday at lauds (sunrise). While I don’t believe that this was her intent, what I found was an excellent description of the person that I believe she has become. I share it with enthusiasm for what we might experience this weekend as well as a mirror for all of us in which we might find deeper purpose if we are willing to look and to change.

The true prophets of this time are the ones who are not just imagining, not just hoping for and waiting for the new dispensation to arrive, but actively bringing it into existence. They are stepping out of the old roles, abandoning what does not serve the common good. Rising above popular opinion, social conditioning, conformist behavior, prophets of today are daring to speak the unspeakable, as Copernicus did, as Galileo did, as the mystics and poets and scientists throughout the ages did, guiding us into fuller awareness, deeper imagining. To bring anything into existence, to be a creator of circumstances, we have to imagine the new, then speak the new, then usher it into reality with the fierce force of our belief in it. (No Ordinary Time, p.97)