Once More With Feeling

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Brother Curtis Almquist, humility, identification, judgment, love, love is the answer, perception, reject, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I feel as if I’m getting boring in this daily task, as everything seems to move toward the same message, no matter where I am or what the day portends. It’s as if everything is conspiring to have me see that in everything every day love is truly the answer. No matter how it is expressed, underneath every message is that truth. I found it this morning in a message from a website that shows up in my mail every day. On this day, when I will be in a day-long meeting with about a hundred Sisters of St. Joseph, I am happy to have it with me, just in case…

Humility: The discovery of the grace of humility is a movement toward a spirit of identification. It’s to presume, in some deep way, “I am this other person.” And rather than to use our judgment to reject or condemn, to use that perception of this other as an insightful invitation for mercy. Someone who has a way of getting under our skin in some significant way probably belongs there. (Brother Curtis Almquist)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Law of the Lord

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blessed, communal heart, happy, heartbeat of God, Jesus, John, love, love is the answer, love one another, psalm 119, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning’s psalm (119) is punctuated with the refrain: Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! One of the common translations of “blessed” is “happy” which author Greg Laurie says is “self-contained, that is, not dependent on circumstances of our life…regardless of what is happening externally, we can be truly happily internally.”  The first reading for this morning from the Second Letter of John tells us quite succinctly the definition of that law that will make us happy. He says that it’s nothing new “but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another.” That’s it; that’s the whole thing. It’s what Jesus says and Paul says and what John is a specialist of saying in his letters. To the best of our ability, independent of the circumstances of our lives, it is the core of what will make us truly happy in the deepest chamber of our personal and communal heart. It is where we will hear the heartbeat of God assuring us that love really is the answer.