Saturday, February 28, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
IN BEAUTY MAY I WALK
I just wanted to take a moment to think you for being the beauty that walks before me, behind me, above me, and below me. I want to thank you for being the trail of beauty I have wandered on now for the past 58 years. This prayer is so powerful for me, in part because walking is not an act I take for granted; it is something I have to be intentional about doing and practicing. It is a process where I am ever mindful of every step I take. I am always thinking about the trail I am on and what is on it with me. For example, the other day I had to have blood drawn and there was no clear space near the curb cuts for Zoe to push me. So I held on to the back of the wheelchair like a walker and one step at a time I walked carefully and prayerfully across the parking lot and through the snow. With each step, I could see the beauty of you who was moving my legs and guiding my feet, especially the right one where there is no feeling. It is in those moments that I am especially mindful that your beauty surrounded me and always has.
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Song of the Week
This week's song of the week reminds us to be open to seeing the beauty in others, especially those who are so different from us. http://inspiritual.biz/inspiritual-song-of-the-week1/
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
PIED BEAUTY
Recently, I was challenged to see the beauty in a series of things mentioned in a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, called Pied Beauty. For those who are not familiar with it, and for those who are, here is the poem.
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
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Monday, February 23, 2015
Art Lessons
Get involved in this weeks discussion :) http://inspiritual.biz/spiritual-discussion/2015/2/23/art-lessons
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Song of the Week
Sometimes others see the beauty in us before we can see it in ourselves. May we remind others that they are beautiful to us. That is the theme of this week's song of the week. http://inspiritual.biz/inspiritual-song-of-the-week1/
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
BEAUTY IN TEARS
All this month I have been thinking about and reflecting on the practice of beauty. I have practiced seeing the beauty in everyone I meet, every situation I am in, and every place I go. The other day I was having a conversation with a dear friend who is going through a challenging time. I had to stop and ask myself where is the beauty in an illness, which makes someone suffer and feel as if the Divine has abandoned them. When I prayed with her, I was somehow about to express all that was in her heart and that she had not been able to find the words for in her own prayers. While I have never been in my friend’s place, I could empathize by thinking about the times I had felt broken, forsaken, and abandoned. It was during this time that I discovered a simple truth.
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Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
AFTER THE ANIMALS LEAVE
This month, I have challenged each of us to awaken to the beauty in life and its experiences. Perhaps that is why I was drawn to this quote by Emily Dickinson who wrote: “Beauty is not caused. It is.” As we focus on our connection to the Divine and the presence of the Divine in us, we are better able to appreciate beauty in everything we see, touch, and experience. As John Keats's observed in Ode on a Grecian Urn: 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' As we live in the truth of who we are as spiritual beings brought here by the Ultimate, we can begin to recognize not only the beauty within ourselves but all of life. Each time we see beauty, we see a symbol of the Divine. Every time we encounter truth, we encounter a symbol of the Creative Spirit. Every day of our lives, we are invited to experience the beauty in each day.
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Monday, February 9, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Song of the Week
This weeks song of the week reminds us that we are beautiful in every single way. Do not let other's words bring you down. http://inspiritual.biz/inspiritual-song-of-the-week1/
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
SIMPLIFY AND DECLUTTER
When I was in seminary, I was introduced to the writing of Dorothee Soelle. The first of her books I was exposed to was Thinking About God. Since then I have had the chance to watch her writing evolve and as it has, it has helped me to evolve in my own life and journey. Her more recent book, The Silent Cry has influenced my own approach to the spiritual practice of leading a more simplistic and clutter free life.
So often, when people reflect on asceticism, they tend to think about this sense of denial and strict discipline of all indulgences. As Soelle reflected on this, it was not asceticism to the point of denial of all things, but the development of boundaries in our life, which prevent our soul from being devoured by clutter in our life. It is about finding balance in our lives as we work on simplifying and decluttering our lives. The impoverishment of our lives of all that feeds us is not healthy. At the same time, an overabundance can also impoverish the soul. It is hard for us to develop any kind of meaningful relationship with anything in our lives when we lack boundaries and balance.
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Monday, February 2, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
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