“Transforming our engagement with creation emerges from a deeply rooted contemplative practice where we come to know what Teilhard de Chardin called the “breathing together of all things.'”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD,The Self-Study Online Retreat ~ Water, Wind, Earth and Fire: Praying with the Elements
In what ways might your contemplative practice connect with Teilard de Chardin’s “breathing together of all things”? Can you carry this breathing out into your daily life?
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
It has been a long but good day of ministry
Tonight we let our local healthcare workers know they are appreciated and prayed for
Standing with signs and waving at shift change with a dedicated group of parishioners
Having my sweetheart home is wonderful and Pixie is happy too
Now as my eyelids grow heavy I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
“Can we change or improve the world from the perspective of silence? Can mystics build or improve civilization? Words change the world, but only silence changes us. Any reform that is not born of silence will be short lived.”—Pablo D’Ors
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
These past few days have been interesting, Lord
In the midst of challenges your loving Spirit is present
As so many walk the journey of life
As so many feel the stress and tension of life’s challenges
I am thankful that your Spirit is with us
She nurtures
She sustains
She comforts
She guides
Spirit, continue to walk with us through this journey called life
Now as my eyelids grow heavy I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
When we all reach that perfection of love which is the contemplation of God in His glory, our inalienable personalities, while remaining eternally distinct, will nevertheless combine into One so that each one of us will find himself in all the others, and God will be the life and reality of all. “Omnia in omnibus Deus” (So that God may be all in all—1 Corinthians 15:28 in Latin). (Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 72)
In the vernacular of my parent’s time… what the world needs now is love sweet love — Dionne Warwick — What the World Needs Now (1966)
And in the vernacular of my generation — John Lennon – Imagine
May we all seek to be the love which we are called to be… especially to love our enemies…
“Our world desperately needs to see spirituality in action: where lines dividing the individual from the collective, the personal from the public, and the spiritual from the political continue to fall away. I am inspired by those who continue to push the boundaries of how spirituality can move action for social transformation.”—Chaya Go
So “Captain Kirk” is flying into space… a flight only possible for the wealthy or those who have connections. I often wonder what our Creator must think of our silliness (yes, in the most silly of Monty Python ways). However, I digress… as I watch Sister Moon make her way across the night sky, my heart is happy. I have watched her make this journey all around the world. Tonight, my sweetheart and I watch her from Georgia and Alabama. We are symbolically connected through her much as Fievel Mousekewitz and his sister Tanya (in the animated movie “An American Tale”) were connected even though they were physically separated from each other. Somewhere Out There
In his book, Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, Thomas Merton had the following to say about sailing to the Moon—What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous.
I would add to that the following: not only the abyss that separates us from ourselves, but the abyss that separates us from our neighbors in the sense that Jesus calls us to love all of our neighbors.
“The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate we ask ourselves, ‘Are these words true?’
If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate we ask, ‘Are they necessary?’
At the last gate we ask, ‘Are they kind?’”—Eknath Easwaran
Verse of the day
You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.
– Psalm 65:9
Voice of the day
If we are to survive the future, we must adopt a more sustainable and Indigenous worldview.
– Randy Woodley
Prayer of the day Teach us what it means to seek goodness when the world is dark.
– Kaitlin Curtice, “A Prayer for a Heavy World”
