Back To Work

Tags

choosing, creation, creative freedom, destiny, God, identity, life, participate, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth, vocation, work

I took a vacation from the news over the long weekend just concluded. I think we have a responsibility to stay informed but sometimes we just need a break. Consequently, I just spent almost a half-hour reading all sorts of headlines from internet news services to see what I had missed. There weren’t many surprises and I surmise that’s because many groups and individuals were sitting things out, just as I did. It’s interesting surfing like that, however – a good way to have a birds-eye view of what we see as important as a culture. There are still threats from North Korea and the White House (which I do not mean to dismiss!) as well as legislative issues and stories – serious ones – about the weather. I found nothing about the deeper concerns of our spiritual well-being, however, so my “two cents” this morning as we get back to the routine of life in this new year will be what I think is a very important point for reflection from Thomas Merton.

Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in God’s creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth. (New Seeds of Contemplation, 32-33, excerpted)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being Disturbed

Tags

beliefs, challenged, curious, disturbed, holidays, ideas, identity, Meg Wheatley, Turning To One Another

I probably should have said something gleaned from Meg Wheatley’s book, Turning to One Another before the holidays started since so many of us were on our way to gatherings during these days. If close to home, we are probably back in our own space by now, safe in our daily routines. For some, today may be a travel day, perhaps an unlikely time to be on the internet – unless stuck in an airport, of course. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling as if I had anything to say this morning that was worthy of note but, since I needed a companion for my second cup of coffee, I pulled Meg Wheatley off the shelf and opened to a section named willing to be disturbed. Although the entire section is worthy of note, the beginning caught my eye immediately. I will only submit to you the first paragraph and a short addendum but once again, I offer the book as one to review on a regular basis because her words are relevant, it seems, to whatever day we find them in – ordinary or not.

As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally – our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don’t know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time…

It is very difficult to give up our certainties – our positions, our beliefs, our explanations. These help define us; they lie at the heart of our personal identity. Yet I believe we will succeed in changing this world only if we can think and work together in new ways. Curiosity is what we need. We don’t have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about what someone else believes. We do need to acknowledge that their way of interpreting the world might be essential to our survival. (p. 34-35)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Ourselves

Tags

God, identity, inner room, Kathleen Deignan, masks, Matthew, New Seeds of Contemplation, point vierge, praayer, salvation, secret, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

It happened again this morning! I read the gospel passage that instructs us on how to go about praying so as not to be swayed by the desire for approval. (MT 6:1-6, 16-18) It tells us to go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. That reminded me of Thomas Merton’s reference to what he calls the point vierge, that space in us that no one (even we ourselves) can access – only God can. I knew the quote originally found in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander appeared also in Kathleen Deignan’s book Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, so I pulled the book as I did yesterday with Macrina Wiederkehr. Again I found what I didn’t know I was to read. This time the book jacket flap gave it to me. It wasn’t what I was looking for but it certainly was what answered my need for coherence of thought. Merton was talking about vocation, our identity in God, and among other things, he says this:

…we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. We can evade this responsibility by playing with masks, and this pleases us because it can appear at times to be a free and creative way of living. It is quite easy, it seems, to please everyone. But in the long run the cost and the sorrow come very high. To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls “working out our salvation,” is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation.

We do not know clearly beforehand what the result of this work will be. The secret of my full identity is hidden in God. God alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But unless I desire this identity and work to find it with God and in God, the work will never be done. The way of doing it is a secret I can learn from no one else but God. There is no way of attaining to the secret without faith. But contemplation is the greater and more precious gift, for it enables me to see and understand the work that God wants done. (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 32-33, excerpted)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Fourth

Tags

community, creativity, Fourth of July, generosity, identity, immigrants, opportunity, Peace, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, United States, world

Yesterday I was frustrated because there was an internet glitch that kept me from posting this daily blog. This morning when I checked to see if anyone had visited our site yesterday, I found that people did view 15 previous posts and that in addition to the United States the visitors came from Panama, Australia, Nigeria and Germany. It is a miracle to me that in the span of my lifetime our world has progressed from “party-line” telephones, where we had to share phone connection with neighbors, to the worldwide web of instant global reach. This progression (as well as many others) is not the achievement of one nation but rather a sometimes competitive and sometimes cooperative venture among countries.

Today the United States celebrates our national holiday of independence. I am grateful to live in this land of great opportunity, creativity and generosity. Knowing that we are at the same time fiercely independent and sometimes mired in the greed that can be a by-product of success, I remember that we have been, throughout our history, built on the efforts of our immigrant ancestors and that our responsibility is as large as our achievement. I have been changed in writing this blog almost every day. I can no longer just be conscious of my personal life or my identity as an American descended from Irish Roman Catholic immigrants. In pondering my message for the day, I need to be aware of others as far away as the Philippines or South Africa or Finland or…

As we give thanks for the blessings of peace and prosperity in this land today, my prayer will be for a future of world community where all are able to celebrate having what they need and to share life with neighbors across the globe.