Kind and Merciful

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, fierce bonding love, kindness, Lynn Bauman, merciful, Psalm 103, swim in mercy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

What a great God is ours! Today Psalm 103 assures us of this fact with the refrain: The Lord is kind and merciful. We are told that God crowns us with mercy and compassion and that (in one translation) we swim in mercy as in an endless sea.* That understanding includes the concept of mercy as a fierce bonding love** and assures us that we are constantly blessed with that kind of love from the One who created the universe and all that is in it.

Who could ask for anything more?

*Ancient Songs Sung Anew: The Psalms as Poetry by Lynn Bauman

**Old Age: Journey into Simplicity by Helen Luke

Let All The Earth Cry Glory!

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Christ, divine influence, existence, God, Lord, power, radical transformation, Teilhard de Chardin, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unity, universe

After a weekend of observing radical transformations of vast fields into vibrant green carpets and watching the waning sun splash patterns of color like the best abstract artists – not to mention the truest blue of the sky, I turn to Teilhard de Chardin for a fitting prayer of gratitude this morning. He does not disappoint.

Glorious Lord Christ:
the divine influence secretly diffused and active in the depths of matter,
and the dazzling centre
where all the innumerable fibres of the manifold meet;
power as implacable as the world and as warm as life;
you whose forehead is of the whiteness of snow,
whose eyes are of fire,
and whose feet are brighter than molten gold;
you whose hands imprison the stars;
you who are the first and the last,
the living and the dead and the risen again;
you who gather into your exuberant unity
every mode of existence;
it is you to whom my being cries out
with a desire as vast as the universe:
“In truth you are my Lord and my God!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating the Moon

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blue moon, eclipse, grateful, miraculous, moon, mystical, scientific, super moon, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

I would guess that people in Los Angeles who made the trip to Griffith Observatory this morning to see (exactly one hour ago – 3:48AM Pacific time) the moment of total eclipse of the moon are beginning to make their way home by now. Why would someone make that trek in the middle of the night just to see the moon? Well, maybe because it wasn’t just the full moon but rather a “Super Blue Blood Moon!” What does that mean? A blue moon is a rather frequent experience: the second full moon in the same month of the year. What makes it “super” is the fact that it reaches its closest position to earth, thus making it appear larger and brighter in the sky than normal. The “blood” designation comes from the fact that there is a red tinted shadow across the face of the moon due to the rays of sunlight passing through earth’s atmosphere as the moon falls into earth’s shadow. To add to all those necessary conditions for this phenomenon is the weather. Chances were good for a clear night in Alaska, Hawaii and California. I’m sure the resulting pictures will be glorious – and bountiful, especially since this is the first time this phenomenon was visible in North America since 1866!

It makes me happy to think that it is not only astronomers who get excited about these events. The way that the universe works is truly miraculous and we ought to be grateful for those scientists who are able in our time to define for us not only the “what” but the “why.” The Griffith Observatory director got into the spirit of the event in a wonderfully whimsical way, dressing up like a wizard and banging pots and pans outside the observatory while the crowd watched the eclipse. He was re-enacting a ritual from ancient Babylon in response to a populace that believed they had to scare away a mysterious creature that was swallowing the moon.

Director Ed Krupp seems to understand both the scientific and mystical elements of such an experience as noted in his statement to the press. “It’s one thing,” he remarked, “to learn about this event in a book and another to see it for yourself.” I wish him all the best and hope he keeps on banging his pots all day long!

 

 

 

 

 

Everyday Miracles

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, awareness, consciousness, creative mind, human, intelligent force, life, loving heart, miracles, perfection, planets, prayer, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

Here is an interesting thought for pondering that brings my awareness to the importance of how I look at life. I invite you to suspend judgment and just read the words, then see if you can agree with the concept. If not, spend some time assessing your objections and ask yourself what it would take to adjust your attitude.

The universe was designed to work and in spite of appearances, it does. All of life, from the tiniest amoeba to the trillions of stars, planets and galaxies, operates with clockwork precision. Surely there is an intelligent force with an unfathomably creative mind and loving heart behind such magnificent perfection! (Alan Cohen – A Deep Breath of Life)

What are the most amazing miracles that you observe in life? For me it’s the incredible cooperation of systems in the human body and the way the planets keep moving without colliding. Or it could be the way that the change of seasons is so vibrant in my neighborhood or the prayer plant in front of my window whose leaves move from a horizontal position in the day to verticality at night so I can sleep knowing that there is, in fact, a creature lifting up prayer in my stead throughout the night. I could go on (big surprise, right?) but each of us must choose what it is that stuns us into consciousness of the amazing universe given to us even in our darkest days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Slow Work of God

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anxiety, believe, forming, grace, hurry, impatient, incomplete, instability, mature, slow work of God, suspense, Teilhard de Chardin, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, universe

This morning, pondering a meeting I attended yesterday of the Long-Range Planning Board of my religious community and a subsequent conversation with one of our “younger members” I was reminded of a valuable quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a theologian and paleontologist who had much to say about the universe and its workings, including those of humans who seem always in a hurry to get things done. It is always good for me to return to his wise advice. I share it today in hopes that we might draw from it some consolation in our troubled times.

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.

And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can You Hear It?

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, divine energy, Divine Presence, evolution, instruction, listening, natural word, nature, reality, silence, still, Teilhard de Chardin, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

In keeping with what I said yesterday about Chardin’s vision of evolution in the universe, today we have Psalm 19 in the lectionary readings. One commentator sees this psalm as containing “a grand cosmological vision of a vast universe, alive and full of the divine Presence.” In this psalm we hear the message that God’s word is heard through the natural world as well as in church sermons and our life experiences. I am always happy to read and hear others speak of the importance of the natural world as a conduit of God’s presence and teaching since I learn a lot from observing the depth and function of nature. Here is a suggestion for all of us, the busy people of the world, that might be something to try with the goal of opening us more fully to a deeper way of seeing.

Sometimes our difficulty is that we are not silent and still long enough to hear the subtleties of this quiet yet pervasive form of instruction. Allow yourself to become still and silent for a period of inner and outer listening. Listen with your whole being. Ask this divine energy and communication flowing through you to become a cleansing wind blowing the dust and debris away and opening you more fully to God’s inner Reality. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p.46)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul’s Poetry

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Acts of the Apostles, Creator, God, Paul, seasons, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

Paul was certainly waxing poetic to the people of Athens in today’s text, my favorite from the Acts of the Apostles (17:15, 22-18:1). He actually sounds like the psalmist, proclaiming that the God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth…gives to everyone life and breath and everything. This God, Paul says, fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for and find God, though indeed God is not far from any one of us. In God we live and move and have our being.

Paul’s ability to draw the Athenians’ attention was masterful, as he speaks of their religious nature that he noticed while walking around the city, especially in an inscription in an altar that read, To an Unknown God. Thus, after his inspired speech quoted above, Paul concludes by referencing their own poets who said, “For we too are his offspring.”

This God of whom Paul speaks, the Creator of all that we know, is not limited to any religion. Although we interpret Paul’s words through the lens of our own tradition, there is no defining feature that limits God in such a way. All spiritual people seek and find God in different circumstances, in inner and/or outer experiences, in our own time and place. At this moment we would do well to see the truth that God is not my personal possession – or anyone’s – and that we must allow others their image and relationship with God in the way that we hope others will reverence ours. Reflecting on the fact that we are all the “offspring” of God ought to bring us to the realization that we are all brothers and sisters in this broad and beautiful universe. And that is a good thing to know.

A More Perfect Union

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brain, engines of change, female, Finding the On-Ramp to Your Spiritual Path, imagination, Jan Phillips, joining, male, negative, positive, speaking, spiritual path, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, them, thought, thought pattern, union, universe, us, we

Quotes from Pendle Hill: Today’s quote comes from Jan Phillips in her book Finding the On-Ramp on Your Spiritual Path.

Just as a battery is charged by the union of positive and negative forces, just as a child is conceived by the union of a male sperm and a female ovum, just as a thought issues forth from the union of right and left brain, so does our authentic spirituality emerge from the practice of joining “us” and “them” into a “we.” Our imaginations are the most potent engines of change in the universe, and when we change our thought pattern and become conscious of our speaking, we will make a quantum leap forward on our spiritual path.

Sparks of Possibility

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abundance, capacity, context, fear, fire, igniting force, infinite, kindling, Passion, possibility, scarcity, spark, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

Quotes from Pendle Hill: Today’s quote comes from The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.

In the middle ages, when lighting a fire from scratch was an arduous process, people often carried about a metal box containing a smoldering cinder, kept alight throughout the day with little bits of kindling. This meant that a man could light a fire with ease wherever he went, because he always carried the spark. But our universe is alive with sparks. We have at our fingertips an infinite capacity to light a spark of possibility. Passion, rather than fear, is the igniting force. Abundance, rather than scarcity, is the context.

Learning to Flow

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, balance, big picture, change, control, fight, flow, God, hospitality, power, present, psalm 98, reaction, response, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

It’s clear to everyone in the United States of America – and beyond – that things will be changing for us very soon. It’s difficult to be sure of what form those changes will take but change there will undoubtedly be. I’ve spoken before about possible reactions and responses to change. This morning I was again thrust into that reflection by the final verses of Psalm 98, presented in a lyrical way by the following translation.

Let every river lift its hands to clap in time, while hills and valleys join in song to offer hospitality to the Holy One, who comes to right our every wrong. This God will weigh the worth of everything that was, and is, and shall ever be, so mercy can be known in full and justice here be balanced with compassion. (vs. 9-10)

This sense of all things conspiring to offer hospitality to God reminded me of the difference between reaction and response. Turning to Alan Cohen for more insight I read this:

When you come up against a situation that you cannot control, trust that the universe is working on your behalf. When we fight what is, we lose our power. The sage capitalizes on the energy at hand and makes it work on his behalf. Cohen then adds a plea to God, saying: Help me to remember that You are present in all situations, guiding me home even when I cannot see how. (A Deep Breath of Life)

It seems to me that these two messages – one from millennia ago and one from the present age – give the same message. No matter what our feelings about the year that has just begun, we would all do better to stay in the present rather than conjecturing what will or will not unfold. It is God who has the “big picture” and it is ours to take our rightful place in relationship to God, yielding to what is – contributing our best selves to every situation while giving God every opportunity to be our guide on the way forward.