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Tag Archives: trust

Once More With Feeling!

04 Friday Jan 2019

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Happy New Year, joy, reboot, slow work of God, Teilhard de Chardin, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton, trust, vigor

As I opened to my last post to add a new one today, I had to check my calendar to verify that we are already on the fourth day of this new year. I guess I should wish everyone a belated “Happy New Year!” My sister has been home from the hospital since Sunday, the nurse and physical therapists are amazed at her progress and I traveled home yesterday on what appeared to be the least traveled day of the holiday season because of very little traffic and none of the usual slowdowns along the way. The year seems to be flying by already!

So now what? It feels as if a “reboot” is in order. While I looked around a room that I had hoped would be totally de-cluttered and re-arranged by year’s end, I thought of Teilhard de Chardin’s adage: Trust in the slow work of God. Then I sat up a little straighter because of having randomly opened Thomas Merton’s book, The Wisdom of the Desert, in preparation for a February retreat. Here’s what I read:

Abbot Pastor said: If you have a chest full of clothing, and leave it for a long time, the clothing will rot inside it. It is the same with the thoughts in our heart. If we do not carry them out by physical action, after a long while they will spoil and turn bad. (p. 42)

So it looks like today will need to be a time to dive in to the new with vigor and joy at having a new start – even if I have to create it as I go. May it be so with all of us!

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Everyday Blessings

28 Friday Sep 2018

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fortress, God's presence, psalm 144, shield, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

anowlrockOn my bedroom windowsill I have a rock that I found on the shore of Skaneateles Lake    during a retreat many years ago. It really looks like a miniature mountain and on an outcropping sits a tiny statue of an owl looking out. The composition is a sign to me of God’s strong, wise and ever-watchful presence, a metaphor like that of today’s psalm that sings: Blessed is the Lord, my rock, my fortress, my stronghold, my deliverer, my shield in whom I trust. (PS 144:1-2).

It’s good to have symbols and metaphors that keep us steady in our faith and help us to trust in the everyday, don’t you think? Where do you find such support?

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Life of the World

01 Saturday Sep 2018

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compassion, forgiveness, God, John Philip Newell, love, Peace, prayer, Praying With the Earth, strength, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, vision, world

asunflowerfieldIn his small book, Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace, John Philip Newell writes each morning and evening of the week a prayer for the life of the world. Brief as they are, they are compelling in their depth and intensity, calling out to God with vision and yearning, always capturing quickly and quietly a trust of the God that will never disappoint. Here is what he offers on this – and every – Saturday morning.

To the home of peace, to the field of love, to the land where forgiveness and right relationship meet we look, O God, with longing for earth’s children, with compassion for the creatures, with hearts breaking for the nations and people we love. Open us to visions we have never known, strengthen us for self-givings we have never made, delight us with a oneness we could never have imagined that we may truly be born of You makers of peace. (p. 52)

 

 

 

 

 

That’s Life!

29 Wednesday Aug 2018

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aging, capable, grace, life, Meg Wheatley, opportunities, partner, perseverance, relax, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, wisdom

asenior.jpgI’ve been engaged in a number of conversations lately where the topic has been the need to let go of what we can’t control – like the weather and the march of time (specifically our aging process). This morning I opened Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, to a page called “Life Is Life” and found there some words worth my time and reflection. Perhaps we can all benefit from her wisdom.

Instead of working so hard to actively construct our lives, we could relax with the opportunities that life provides, both the good and the bad ones. People who have this type of relationship with life truly are more relaxed. The seeming loss of control doesn’t create anxiety or feelings of distress. It does the reverse, it creates feelings of ease and clarity – and the capacity to stay.

Surrendering to life offers some wonderful realizations. We learn we’re capable of being in this dance, of working with whatever happens. We learn to trust ourselves and then others and, gradually, we learn that life itself can be trusted.

The grace of surrender offers us the awareness that life is on our side, that life is our partner. Whatever may be happening in our private worlds, inside the noise and disturbance, a lovely realization dawns. 

Life wants us here. (p. 117)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rain, Rain, Go Away

17 Friday Aug 2018

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discouraged, distress, doubt, love, mercy, prayer, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thoughts In Solitude, trust

aflashfloodIt’s raining again. This week we have had a taste of the destruction that has been rare for us, caused by soaking rains and flash-flooding. It’s as if the earth cannot take any more pain. Having cried too long, her tears now overflow in a mud bath on the streets and structural damage to homes and other buildings near our two rivers and the many outlying creeks. Today the rain feels soft and my desire is to go outside and stand, then walk in it, to listen and accept what is happening, to be washed clean of all distress and the insidious doubt that can invade the soul at times like this.

I feel a nudge from Thomas Merton as I watch these thoughts appear on the page before me. His prayer will be mine today as I unite myself with all those suffering the effects of flooding and fire that seem endless in this summer season when even the most optimistic of us (among whom I count myself) can become discouraged.

Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health, or strength, or ability or human resources. If I trust You, everything will become, for me, strength, health, and support. Everything will bring me to heaven. If I do not trust You, everything will be my destruction. (Thoughts in Solitude, p.39)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Again, A Reminder

30 Monday Jul 2018

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answers, beauty, Hearts on Fire, impatience, instability, listen, progress, questions, Rainer Maria Rilke, slow work of God, strength, Teilhard de Chardin, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time, trust

afourtreesThere are two adjacent ranch-style houses on our road whose owners each planted four trees in a row across their front yard. I have watched them grow over the years and sometimes wonder if it was the desire of the owners to have a lot of shade, to hide from the road or just to satisfy their love of trees. They have seemed to me as they’ve grown like a line of sentinels from one yard to the other. Because I am always driving when I pass them, I really don’t know if they are the same kind of trees; I just admire their beauty and their strength.

On my drive home early yesterday evening I was luxuriating in the lush green all around me (not much traffic on our road at 7:00 on a Sunday) when I was brought up short by those trees! Suddenly, after years of tiny incremental growth, they are mammoth and have totally obscured the houses! Today I wonder if I need to pay more attention to the obvious lesson that I have been getting on our own land and now elsewhere about what Teilhard de Chardin calls “the slow work of God” and Rilke describes as living the questions rather than being impatient to find answers. Sometimes it seems as if they have conspired with God on the same message!

I was not surprised this morning on opening the Jesuit prayerbook, Hearts on Fire, to find Teilhard’s words on the page before me. So once again I will try to slow down and listen carefully.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may take a very long time…(p.102)

 

 

 

 

 

Be Careful What You Ask For!

30 Wednesday May 2018

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bigger picture, humility, James, John, listening, love, Mark, Matthew, prayer, prestigeattention, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, wisdom, Zebedee

azebedeewifeToday we have an appearance of those two outspoken disciples, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. We first meet them in the gospel of Matthew as they are with their father preparing their nets for fishing. As with all the others who left what they were doing to follow Jesus, one wonders about the reaction in their family. We never meet the father again but their mother shows up in the gospel of Matthew asking for privilege for her sons (MT 20) and today we have Mark’s rendition of that event (MK 10:32-45) where the brothers speak for themselves. It’s a rather shocking passage but maybe understandable if you consider the haughty behavior of their mother recorded elsewhere. Asking Jesus that they be “seated one at your right and one at your left in your glory” is not at all in keeping with the humility expected of the closest followers of Jesus. Even worse is the fact that Mark pairs that conversation with Jesus telling the Twelve what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem – his suffering, death and resurrection.

Maybe James and John weren’t really listening closely or maybe they just skipped over the suffering and death part because it seemed too impossible to consider, but their response held nothing of care for Jesus. It was all about the prestige they were hoping for as his companions.

While we admit that Mark’s is the shortest gospel and that it was written at least 30 to 40 years after the events described, one must wonder at the reasoning behind the juxtaposition of the two scenarios in this one passage. Was it a call for humility, pointed out by bad behavior? A call to attention, perhaps, so that we don’t miss the messages we are being given even in the everyday? Did it really happen as Mark told it, or were the brothers embarrassed by the arrogance of their mother in Matthew’s rendering? Certainly this is all conjecture but it does give one pause.

For me today it’s all about our approach to God in prayer. Awareness of “the bigger picture” of our lives, humility, trust and love ought to guide our desires as we do not speak for ourselves alone but for the good of the whole. Ultimately, wrapping all of our prayer in a mantle of surrender to the wisdom of God will assure what is best for us, even if we can’t see it in the present. And that, it seems, is the only way to live.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Again

16 Monday Apr 2018

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feelings, impressions, living grace, love, memories, prayer, psalm 119, surrender, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, wisdom, words

aprayergroupIt is interesting to me that today’s psalm response from the lectionary is part of 119 – the longest psalm of all in the Bible. Fitting, I thought, after a week away that held so many diverse moments, including childhood memories as well as experiences of new places and events. Commentary says that “each segment of Psalm 119 could be read as a separate voice from individuals praying out of their various perspectives” or “one individual experiencing all the various perspectives that one knows along the path of life.” I’m not sure I have integrated all the impressions, information and feelings of the week as it was so full and far-reaching. One thing I do know is that it provided an opportunity (as most events do if we are awake) for self-reflection and gratitude. Thus, I pray this morning with the psalmist as I return to my blessed “normal” life.

This is the truth of things, instruct me one more time in love. And all that I forgot or do not understand, make clear, and I shall concentrate again upon your work and way. Let all your words become for me a living grace, and let me choose again the way of trust in you, of deep surrender to your wisdom. (26-27, 29-30)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things Not Seen

20 Tuesday Mar 2018

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faith, flowering, let go let God, loving God, spring, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, wisdom

acrocusDawn is breaking. It is 13 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the snow continues to cover the land. The psalmist cries this morning, O Lord, hear my prayer and let my cry come to you. Spring is scheduled to arrive today at 12:15PM EDT – the moment when the sun is directly in line with the equator. “It’s hard to believe,” I say to myself, considering the lack of signs of spring. But then I think of the faith of the psalmist whose trust is in the willingness of God to hear the voice of those in distress. There’s lots of distress in the world today and I am drawn to question the faith quotient of those of us who now send out prayers for better times – myself, I mean.

I am fairly certain that the flowers will be peeking their heads out relatively soon and the leaves will come, first as light green shadows on the trees and quickly thereafter as fully unfurled leaves. It would take a lot to dash my hope of those realities coming to fruition again this year. Is my trust in the loving God to whom I pray to hear and answer our needs as strong? Perhaps the answer lies in my willingness to let go of outcome.

I cannot effect a change in the flowering of spring, even as I watch for a repeat performance of last year’s beauty. In the same way I need to remember that God is the Wisdom, in charge of the flow of time, knowing better than I what is the course of history and the answers to our longing. Today then, I will remind myself again to “let go and let God” as I welcome the knowledge of Spring’s arrival and bundle up to face the day.

 

 

 

 

 

Why Not Ask for Help?

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

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fear, God, help, Jesus, John, psalm 46, refuge, strength, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

ahelpinghandfromjesusThere is such a strong message in the lectionary readings today of the necessity of trust – and reasons to do so even when our patience is wearing thin. It is the psalm that shakes me awake right at the beginning, declaring: God is our refuge and our strength, an ever present help in distress. Therefore, we fear not, though the earth be shaken and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea. (Ps. 46:2-3)

What follows in the gospel is the reminder to never give up. It’s the story of the man who was ill for a long time – waiting 38 years at the healing pool of Bethesda for help. (JN 5:1-16) I always have trouble with that gospel passage because it seems to me unconscionable that there is no one who notices this man who needs help. I try to see that there might be more to the story when Jesus arrives and asks him “Do you want to be well?” That makes me wonder if something more than his physical infirmity is keeping him from the pool. Maybe he just needs to admit his need for help or to trust the help that is available to him. It’s interesting that he doesn’t answer Jesus with a resounding “YES!” as do all the others in the gospels to whom Jesus puts that question. What he does say is that there is no one to help him. So Jesus does.

The message I see here is that God is always at the ready – no matter what – if we don’t give up and if we are willing to speak our needs. The example (38 years!) seems extreme but perhaps some of us need all that time to wake up and/or give in totally.

Then there’s the second half of the story that opens up several more questions, but that’s a conversation for another day…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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