“Wisdom and love help us to discern between what is life-giving and what is destructive and call us to infuse our ethical and moral living with the vision of divine love and beauty, to know these actions in the world not as dry and rote ways of being good for the sake of avoiding punishment, but ways of cooperating with wisdom and love to bring life more fully to the earth and to our communities.”
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Creative Flourishing with St. Hildegard of Bingen: A Self-Study Online Retreat (Use code HILDEGARD20 to take off 20% through September 30th)
How might your actions in the world change if you began to see right living as life-giving, as expressions of Divine Wisdom and Love?
“We worked daily confronting warlords, meeting with dictators and refusing to be silenced in the face of AK 47 and RPGs. We walked when we had no transportation, we fasted when water was unaffordable, we held hands in the face of danger, we spoke truth to power when everyone else was being diplomatic, we stood under the rain and the sun with our children to tell the world the stories of the other side of the conflict. Our educational backgrounds, travel experiences, faiths, and social classes did not matter. We had a common agenda: Peace for Liberia Now.”
We are living in a culture that measures the value of the human person by degrees of success and productivity. What is your title? How much money do you make? How many friends do you have? What are your accomplishments? How busy are you? What do your children do? But it is important for us to remember that as we grow older our ability to succeed in this way gradually diminishes. We lose our titles, our friends, our accomplishments, and our ability to do many things, because we begin to feel weaker, more vulnerable, and more dependent. If we continue to look at ourselves from the point of view of success, our condition is not a good one! Because of our strong cultural vision, it is a huge challenge to look at vulnerability not as a negative thing but as a positive thing. Do we dare to look at weakness as an opportunity to become fruitful? Fruitfulness in the spiritual life is about love, and this fruitfulness is very different from success or productivity.
Verse of the day
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
– Romans 1:25
Voice of the day
How we worship reveals what we prioritize.
– Soong-Chan Rah, “The American Church’s Absence of Lament”
Prayer of the day
Help us to worship you alone, the true Creator, so that our priorities reflect your truth and not the lies of the world.
“Everything is possible when we are in a community with each other. Community is where burdens find shoulders, and dreams rise on the wings of many. It is the soil where justice grows, the fire that kindles courage, the light that guides us forward.”—Black Lives Matter
Verse of the day
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.
– 2 Corinthians 1:3–4
Voice of the day
As the church, we must do better to become community that offers more hope than judgment to those who experience oppressive inner turmoil.
– Jean Neely, “Suffering Is Not a Sin”
Prayer of the day
Merciful God, console us in our struggles so that we may, in turn, become a community of hope and compassion.
“Shimmering is a way to describe when something in the world is calling to you, beckoning you, sometimes even urging you to pay closer attention. Sometimes what shimmers is challenging, but we know that wrestling with it will yield something bigger in our lives.”
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year
Think back to what has shimmered for you — what was your felt response?
To register for a free, online gathering on Monday, September 22nd to celebrate the release of Christine’s book Give Me a Word, click here.
“The phrase ‘passive resistance’ often gives the false impression that this is a sort of ‘do-nothing method’ in which the resister quietly and passively accepts evil. But nothing is further from the truth. For while the nonviolent resister is passive in the sense that he* is not physically aggressive toward his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong.”—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The invitation today is about knowing that our prayers are held by an ancient presence — resting and knowing that love holds us, that love is the foundation.”
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Writing as a Spiritual Practice: A 28 Day Creative Journey — A Self-Study, Online Retreat
When you picture being held by an ancient presence and resting in that love, what images, sensations, colors, or phrases arise?
I am a human being who was loved by God before I was born and whom God will love after I die. This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love. When I die love continues to be active, and from full communion with God I am present by love to those I leave behind.
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 