The Eve of the Eve

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bless, compassionate, Hearts on Fire, Jesuit John Morris, New Year's, praise, psalm 96, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I come late to this task this morning. Perhaps it was the cold that kept me sleeping until the shocking hour of just before eight o’clock! The temperature continues to hover around zero degrees and warnings of frostbite because of wind still make the national news. I feel rather stuck here in my chair with the only thought being that of the impending turn of the calendar. Today is not the last day of the year; that reality dawns with tomorrow but seems all around me now in shadow. Psalm 96 calls me to praise but I feel like a person on a diving board who isn’t sure of how to swim in the water that awaits me.

There seems to be nothing to do but to throw the responsibility for it all back to God and pray in the words of Jesuit John Morris hoping that will suffice as remote preparation for the coming new year.

Mighty God, Father of all, Compassionate God, Mother of all, bless every person I have met, every face I have seen, every voice I have heard, especially those most dear; bless every city, town and street that I have known, bless every sight I have seen, every sound I have heard, every object I have touched. In some mysterious way these have all fashioned my life; all that I am, I have received. Great God, bless the world. (Hearts on Fire, p.152)

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking Is NOT Over-rated!

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changing, chatter, clarity, commitment, courage, Holiday, ideas, Meg Wheatley, mindless, New Year's, resolutions, sorrowful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, think, Turning To One Another, wasted moments, world

It seems strange that today is a holiday. Who ever thinks of January 2nd as special (except those whose birthdays or anniversaries are today)? Perhaps it’s always like that when New Year’s Day falls on Sunday, and maybe I had the same thought seven years ago but I don’t remember. Anyway, today feels like being given an extra ticket to an event and I don’t want to waste it. I haven’t settled on any resolutions for this year yet. All I know is that whatever I say I will do or be, I need to be seriously committed to carry it out. Conditions seem more serious in the world than ever before so I feel a need to be equally serious in my deliberations.

I’ve had a rare stretch of “down time” over the past few weeks – first because of that nasty cold that so many of us have contracted and then with quiet holidays and cold weather. Those conditions have been quite conducive to thinking and reading. Meg Wheatley has what seems an interesting thought for the day regarding this topic and a possible focus for me today. She says:

If we feel we’re changing in ways we don’t like, or seeing things in the world that make us sorrowful, then we need to time to think about this. We need time to think about what we might do and where we might start to change things. We need time to develop clarity and courage. If we want our world to be different, our first act needs to be reclaiming time to think. Nothing will change for the better until we do that. (Turning To One Another, p.99)

What might this mean for me? I think perhaps I will need to let go more deliberately of the mindless chatter inside my head and the wasted moments clicking on celebrity stories that show up on my computer when I’m in the process of reading the headlines. If these two things become disciplines, I might have more time and energy for deeper thinking and the reading that will lead – eventually – to more useful ideas about change in myself and in the world around me. Here’s hoping!

Looking Back and Forward

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2016, assessment, deepening, global community, God's wonders, Helen Daly, New Year's, new year's resolutions, proclaim, psalm 96, sing out, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding, Wisdom School

Today’s title for this blog post should surprise nobody. Today is, after all, the last day of the year, a day on which we regularly review the year just ending, perhaps with an eye toward things we want to remember and what we would like to forget. Making an honest assessment is not always the easiest activity of the year but is a good way to spend at least a little time before moving on to what we hope to accomplish or become in 2016.

The first lines of Psalm 96 became my impetus for reflection: Come, sing to God, O earth, sing out this song anew, and bless God’s holy name in praise, for day to day we are renewed, restored, refreshed again by glory’s light. Proclaim good news among the nations of the earth, tell all the peoples everywhere God’s work, God’s ways, the wonders that God does. (vs. 1-3) I can’t help but be amazed every day, not only by the number of people who have visited and read these blog posts (I have access to a statistics page) but also the places from which the visitors come. This year alone we’ve had 7,699 views (or more while I’ve been writing now!) by people from 77 countries all around the world! This is such a miracle to me and I am grateful for the privilege of this connection. I also feel responsible for this and all the activities that we offer at The Sophia Center for Spirituality in Binghamton and Endicott, New York, hoping that those who visit us (either in person or virtually through technology) are nourished in their spiritual life by their contact with us. I have met amazing people through this work as well as in our Wisdom Schools (see http://www.wisdomswork.com for explanation and information) and have grown immensely myself in these encounters.

My gratitude for the work I do now is in large part due to the generous grant from the estate of my dear friend, Helen Daly, who grasped the potential of the study of the Wisdom tradition of Christianity in which we had been engaged for seven years at the time of her death. My sense of responsibility to that gift now calls me to extend the opportunity to join the work we are doing to all who have benefited from it thus far. You may have noted the addition of a “Donate” button on this blog page. There is also now a donations page on our website, http://www.thesophiacenterforspirituality.org where you will find a more detailed explanation of our reasoning and our hopes for the coming year. If you have never visited our website, today might be a good day to see a more global (or in one way a more local) sense of who we are. All that we do and hope that people support harks back to those words of the psalm, for it is truly God’s work, God’s ways, the wonders that God does that is my purpose in writing.

May 2016 see a deepening of understanding for each of us so that God’s ways become more and more the ways of the world and may our appreciation of the wonders that God does guide us in all that we do and become in this new year.

New Year’s Blessing

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Book of Numbers, dawn, gracious, Lord, New Year's, Peace, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes less is more. This morning as light begins to dawn here in New York, I realize that in many places in the world the day is in full swing and people have already set intentions for this new year. The Book of Numbers offers me the opportunity to add my wishes for a blessed and happy new year in three brief statements that are, in my estimation, “as good as it gets.”

The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let His face shine upon you and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace! (NM 6)

May it be so for all of us!

The Beginning in the End

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adventure, evaluate, give thanks, mystery, New Year's, Prologue of St. John, reflect, review, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, the Word became flesh, time

This morning I’m trying to go back in thought to last year at this time when we were on the verge of a new year. In some ways it’s difficult to comprehend the swiftness of the year’s passing. A common lament these days is ‘Where did the time go?” I need to reflect, however, on all that has happened, all that’s been accomplished, what has been born anew – and (maybe most importantly) what I have learned since the last turning of the year.

If we come to see life as a great adventure and mystery rather than something to be feared or accomplished, there is a surrender to possibility that can cause us to live each day in wonder and trust. The gospel reading for today is the Prologue of St. John in which we read about the Word of God coming into this world. The Word became flesh, John says, and made his dwelling among us. Christians believe that God’s intention for the world, the way would know how to live, came to fruition in the incarnation of Christ. God still dwells among us. Now it is up to us, with the guidance of God’s Spirit working among us, to fulfill God’s dream for our time. Today is a day to look back through the year just past, to evaluate and give thanks, and prepare for the year ahead – for whatever it will bring to us of grace and challenge.

Ready? Whatever it holds, we go together.