“Wisdom means we are given responsibility for making choices and often have to act without certainty of the outcome. This is an inherent aspect of life’s messiness.”
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD from Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
Can you open yourself to the wisdom hidden in the messy details of your daily life?
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While realizing that ten years ago I didn’t have the faintest idea that I would end up where I am now, I still like to keep up the illusion that I am in control of my own life. I like to decide what I most need, what I will do next, what I want to accomplish, and how others will think of me. While being so busy running my own life, I become oblivious to the gentle movements of the Spirit of God within me, pointing me in directions quite different from my own.
It requires a lot of inner solitude and silence to become aware of these divine movements. God does not shout, scream, or push. The Spirit of God is soft and gentle like a small voice or a light breeze. It is the Spirit of Love.
Verse of the day
So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
– Galatians 6:9
Voice of the day
When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn.
– Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Oldtown Folks” (1869)
Prayer of the day
We cannot do the work of justice without the support of one another. Remind us that our freedom is dependent on the freedom of others.
“Peace does not mean the absence of conflicts; differences will always be there. Peace means solving these differences through peaceful means; through dialogue, education, knowledge, and through humane ways.”—Dalai Lama XIV
Verse of the day
My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
– Isaiah 32:18
Voice of the day
Housing is stability. Housing is dignity. Housing is absolutely necessary, critical infrastructure.
– Raphael Warnock
Prayer of the day
Lord, we pray for all those who are without safe shelter. Embolden us to do all that we can to ensure everyone has the opportunity to experience secure dwellings, quiet resting places, and peaceful habitation.
“If we develop the force of will, we shall find that we do not need the force of arms. Acceptance of non-violence, therefore . . . is the most natural and the most necessary condition of our national existence. It will teach us to husband our corporate physical strength for a better purpose, instead of dissipating it, as now, in a useless fratricidal strife, in which each party is exhausted after the effort.”—Mohandas Gandhi, Young India, 1924-1926. (S. Ganesan. 1927. p. 31.)
“If we extend our idea of family beyond the individual to the wider world of creatures and ecosystems, we can begin to ask what we want for them. From them. We can begin to see ourselves in relation. Acknowledging and reckoning with death—with the limit on our existence, with the fact that we are temporary—can reframe what it means to live. What do we want to leave behind? What do we want to support, maintain, in the limited time we are here?”—Jenn Shapland, Thin Skin
Verse of the day
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
– 2 Corinthians 12:9
Voice of the day
Mistakes are a fact of life / It is the response to error that counts
– Nikki Giovanni, “Of Liberation” (1968)
Prayer of the day
Help us to have humility to admit when we’ve done wrong. May we learn from our mistakes, and forgive others for their own.
Verse of the day
I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination.
– Jeremiah 2:7
Voice of the day
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
– Chief Seattle
Prayer of the day
Creator, forgive us for the ways we have harmed the web of life. Today and every day, remind us that you created us to be careful stewards of your plentiful creation, of which we are bound together.
“Nonviolence is the highest form of humility; it is supreme courage.”—Daisaku Ikeda
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