Going Forward…Again

Tags

attention, awareness, Benedictine, connectedness, discipline, Joan Chittister, list, prayer, reading, spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This early rising time – 5:20 again this morning – seems a throwback to when I was first in the convent! At issue now, however, is the fact that I wake up at this time after only five or six hours of sleep (when my “normal” is eight) and am not able to go back for more rest, which has serious consequences later in the day. With my coffee just now I decided to make a list of important things not to forget for today and tomorrow. No wonder I’ve already entered a mental marathon! Within about three minutes I had 25 things on my list! They aren’t all very time-consuming, but still…

I read a few lines from Joan Chittister when I finally gave in to the dawning of day. I was reminded immediately of the importance of prayer and reading to Benedictine spirituality and the rule that she says “does not call for either great works or great denial. It simply calls for connectedness…with God, with others and with our inmost selves. It (the Rule) is for ordinary people who live ordinary lives.” But it calls us to attention and awareness.

That’s why I need my list. Lately I feel as if I have let the weather determine my activities and see the hours slipping away in lassitude. A little discipline is good for the soul. So here I am – determined enough to regroup and take my list in hand, willing to admit my shortcomings to the world in order that I might get back to a deeper connectedness and well-ordered living.

May it be so this very day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisements

Say What You Mean…If Possible

Tags

Gerard Manley Hopkins, grandeur of God, hearts, holy, miraculous, Peace, ritual, sides, spiritual growth, spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unity of being

This afternoon I am scheduled to be guest speaker to a Women’s Group of about 15 to 20 people. In discussing a topic, the contact person said the members are always interested in information about resources in the community and that perhaps I ought to talk about our spirituality center. In writing up a “blurb” about the proposed topic, I titled it The Spiritual Side of Life. I’ve been thinking about it off and on for the past month and have had some difficulty settling on how to frame the topic. I realized yesterday that my thesis sentence would have to be something about the fact that there are no sides! Spiritual is who and what we are, spiritual beings in physical form, “made in the image and likeness of God.”

Certainly there are rituals that we call holy – and people as well. (We name them saints.) But as Gerard Manley Hopkins so famously said in the second half of the 19th century: The world is charged with the grandeur of God! We can find that reality looking at a flower or a sunset – as I did yesterday while driving to an evening service of prayer. I felt as “spiritual” in my car observing the glorious pink and golden sky with the soft blue background as I did chanting softly the words of a plea for God to come and fill our hearts with your peace…

If each of us would stop occasionally throughout the day, listening and/or looking for the grandeur of God in our surroundings or in the words being shared by the person in front of us, we would know that there is no separation between the physical world and the spiritual. And, actually, the place to start is with ourselves. How often do you marvel about the miraculous workings of all systems of the human body! How does one separate breathing from the beating of the heart? Body and spirit are truly one and nothing is profane except as the mind denigrates it.

Although I am not able to sufficiently explain my thesis about “no sides” – rather a unity of being – I am convinced now that the women I meet today will be able to share lots of experiences that prove the truth of it. In that certainty, I can go forward into this day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keeping Faith

Tags

Alan Cohen, caught, centering prayer, Cynthia Bourgeault, faithkeeper, leadership, lesson, light, Onondaga Nation, Oren Lyon, Peace, prayer, sacred reading, spirituality, taught, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom groups

I had the privilege once of meeting Oren Lyon, the Native American “Faithkeeper” of the Onondaga Nation who lives just south of the city of Syracuse, New York about 80 miles from my home. I was pleasantly surprised that Alan Cohen wrote today about the role of “Faithkeeper” as it is embodied by Oren Lyon and others like him. This person in the tribe consistently holds the higher vision, having been designated to be the voice of hope, an inspiration to remember the bigger picture when others forget it. Cohen remarks that “each of us needs to be a Faithkeeper. When others around us go into fear or confusion, we serve best by remembering the light and holding peace.” When in the presence of Oren Lyon, it was easy to sense what this means and why he holds such a designation for his people.

This message is an auspicious start to my day as I prepare to travel to New Hampshire to begin a five-day experience with 15 people who have expressed an interest in leading “wisdom groups.” These are individuals who are choosing to deepen their own spirituality and help others do the same as they lead practice circles of centering prayer, sacred reading and chant, conscious work and attention, embodiment, and the attitude of presence that leads to unitive consciousness. My colleagues and I will speak of the underlying task of all this as “holding the post,” a term used often by Cynthia Bourgeault when she speaks of leadership. We are called, she says, to hold this post of leadership at certain times in our lives and/or work and then to relinquish it when another is called to step up. It is more than skill at giving direction or familiarity with the information to be imparted. It is rather a quality of presence – of remembering and embodying the light of peace and confidence for the good of the group.

With Oren Lyon as my guide, I will remember that this lesson is more caught than taught and will try, as will my colleagues Deborah and Bill, to model what we hope to impart to those gathered. Knowing many of the participants gives me confidence that the sharing will be rich and the entire event an experience of hope and light, the ripples of which will be far reaching for each one and for all of us together. May it be so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Mercy

Tags

abbot, Benedict, gracious, Joan Chittister, judgment, kindness, Lent, merciful, mercy, monastic life, perfection, Pope Francis, Psalm 95, spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, Year of Mercy

I’ve thought and talked a lot about mercy, especially since I came to understand that it has more to do with love than with pity. At the conclusion of the “Year of Mercy” declared by Pope Francis, it was suggested that we continue to keep that virtue front and center in our lives. Not a bad idea, it seems, in our broken, frustrating world as we attempt to maintain equilibrium and good faith each day.

Lent is a perfect time for practicing mercy and contemplating the breadth of what it can mean – not just as an aspect of God but in our human interactions as well. Psalm 95 acknowledges God’s mercy to us this morning with the refrain: The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.

From the human side, Joan Chittister has a great paragraph about mercy in monastic life in her book Wisdom Distilled From the Daily. In speaking about the qualities of the abbot she writes the following which I find to be comforting as well as challenging.

The abbot must be more intent on mercy than on judgment. But if that is the case, then clearly Benedict knew the world was made up of the very imperfect, the very human where a great deal of mercy would be necessary as we each wound our stumbling, human way to God. We, on the other hand, find it so hard not to expect perfection of ourselves and, because of that, to expect it of others as well. We drive ourselves and drive everyone around us beyond any achievable standard and then wonder why we fail and fail and fail. Benedictine spirituality says that life is a set of weaknesses in search of wholeness and we must be patient with one another’s growth. (p. 115)

Be Not Indifferent, but Different

Tags

Christian, communion, compassion, Fr. Michael Crosby, Good Samaritan, justice, kindness, Luke, merciful, mercy, Peace, Pope Francis, Sisters of St. Joseph, spirituality, Year of Mercy

Yesterday I spent the day with the majority of the Sisters of St. Joseph in the Albany Province listening to and interacting with Fr. Michael Crosby, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, who has become over the past several decades a strong voice for justice and spirituality not only in our Church but for the world. As we move toward the conclusion of the “Year of Mercy” we could not have a better companion and beacon of light to help us understand the nuances in the Scriptures and in our lives for the practice of mercy. Steeped in the gospels, Father Mike used especially the example of the Good Samaritan and broke it open in ways that were new and challenging. In addition, he presented us with the text of last week’s general audience of Pope Francis (10/12/16) which focused hearers on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. For those of us who are sometimes overwhelmed by conditions in the world that seem beyond our power to change, the following words of Pope Francis gave a challenge but also the possibility of a way forward.

[Jesus] taught his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  (Luke 6:36) It is a commitment that challenges the conscience and action of every Christian. In fact, it is not enough to experience God’s mercy in one’s life; it is necessary that whoever receives it becomes also a sign and instrument of it for others. Moreover, mercy is not reserved only for particular moments, but it embraces the whole of our daily existence.

How then can we be witnesses of mercy? We do not think that it has to do with making great efforts or superhuman gestures. No, it is not like this. The Lord indicates to us a much simpler way, made up of little gestures, which, however, in His eyes, have great value… (emphasis mine)

The point is, is seems, to become ever more conscious of others and their needs, never allowing indifference to be our mode of operating but practicing kindness that will fund the well of compassion building in the world. In this hope, in this communion, is our peace.

 

 

Living Large

Tags

cismic life, convergence, energies, heart, larger horizons, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, preoccupations, receptive, scientist, spirituality, storms, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, theologioan, wake, Writing in a Time of War

I  found it difficult to go to sleep last night because of the noise, light and torrents of rain in the storm playing outside my window. Perhaps I should have put my attention there instead of on the fact that today would be a long and involved day for which I would need a long and restorative sleep. I should have remembered that lately I usually function quite fine with whatever amount of sleep I have and wake up when God (rather than my alarm) calls…a function of getting older, perhaps. It’s still raining outside but in a gentler, quieter way now. Hopefully the farmers will have received a little of what they have needed for a better harvest and some of the energies in the natural world will have been balanced out a bit for this new day.

These thoughts put me in mind of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – a theologian and scientist whose life and work in the first half of the 20th century have lately found a resurgence in light of the convergence that is happening in science and spirituality. I must admit that his face smiling out from a book cover leaning against a bookcase to my left was also a goad for my reflection. So here’s a thought excerpted from Teilhard’s book, Writing in a Time of War, that might call us to the more today.

To live the cosmic life is to live dominated by the consciousness that one is an atom in the body of the mystical and cosmic Christ. The person who so lives dismisses as irrelevant a host of preoccupations that absorb the interest of other people. Such a person’s life is open to larger horizons and such a person’s heart is always more receptive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait For It…

Tags

children of God, church, Gospel of Thomas, Luke, Pope Francis, Romans, something is happening, spirituality, St. Augustine, St. Paul, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

In conversations lately about spirituality or Church, I have often heard – and occasionally said myself, “It feels like something is happening…” That’s a rather bland statement that is generally followed, however, by examples of an energy that cannot be easily explained but is felt as a growing thing – where people are gathering to discuss the newly recognized convergences of science and spirituality or a discovery of something Thomas Merton said 50 years ago that now makes sense or an exploration of the Gospel of Thomas…It is the same hopeful sense that St. Augustine had almost 2,000 years ago, that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Wanting to participate in that nearness of God is likely what drew millions of people to the streets to see Pope Francis pass by in Washington, DC and New York City and Philadelphia. It touched people in the Congress, the United Nations Assembly and the families chosen to represent us in Philadelphia. It brought tears to the eyes of people watching those events on television as surely as if the Pope were in their living rooms. Clearly we want more of God in our lives and in our world.

This is the same arising that I think Paul knew when he said to the Romans and to us this morning,  “I consider the sufferings of the present time are as nothing compared to the glory to be revealed for us. For creation waits with eager expectation for the revelation of the children of God.” (ROM 8:18-25) I am disappointed in that text which used to say that “all of creation stands on tiptoe to see the children of God coming into their own.” Jesus knew it could happen – this bursting forth of the Kingdom of God in the world – when he compared it to a mustard seed or yeast, small and imperceptible at first but in the end the largest of all the trees or the impetus for the dough to rise to full capacity. (LK 13:18-21) Where are we now? How close to the revelation of God in our time? What are we doing to “bring it on?” Have we forgotten how to be so eager as to stand on tiptoe to see it revealed?

“Wake Up Spirituality”

Tags

Anthony DeMello, Christmas, Gospel of Matthew, Hebrew Bible, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

A wonderful Jesuit spiritual writer, Anthony DeMello, coined a phrase in the 1980’s that has endured to the present time. He called it “wake up spirituality.” Today’s readings could be used as a “proof text” for what DeMello was saying. Paul says to the Romans, “You know the time; it is now the hour for you to wake from sleep, [to] cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is short and not so sweet in his wording. He simply says: “STAY AWAKE!” We know that neither of these readings is suggesting that we “pull an all-nighter” but it was the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures that gave me the deepest insight into the power of today’s message. Although Paul intimates that being awake is more than just “being there” and recognizing the choice of good rather than evil, Isaiah’s vision includes a time when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” That’s pretty specific and full of transformative images. No going back from this time and place. No raising sword or spear against another because there are none left. They’ve been turned to more peaceful uses. And no training for war ever again. In this peaceable kingdom we will only find creatures of light, living as we were always meant to live, treating one another with unconditional love. What better way to spend this month in anticipation of Christmas? Waking up, staying awake, getting reading for the birth of love incarnate.

Welcome to our blog

Tags

spirituality

This is the official blog for The Sophia Center for Spirituality. Here you will find meditations upon daily Scripture and reflections upon spirituality in our world.

All are welcome!