The voice is very sensitive. It can be very quiet. It is sometimes hard to hear. But the voice of love is already in you. You may have already heard it. Start trying to hear that voice. Get quiet and spend some time trying to hear it. Listen. It says, “I love you,” and calls you by name. It says, “Come, come. Follow me.” — Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety
“Sometimes our resistance to slowness is not primarily because of a physical response but a fear of what we’ll encounter within ourselves when we slow our busy distracted minds enough to listen to what is happening deep within.”
–Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
What shadows, regrets, and sorrow are you afraid of meeting if you slow down? What love can you offer all you encounter?
To register for the self-study companion retreat to the book with extra resources and guidance click here. Use code SACREDTIME20 to take 20% off through March 31st.
Verse of the day
I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger.
– Job 29:14-16
Voice of the day
They told me we cannot wait for governments. / There are no peacekeepers boarding planes. / There are no leaders who dare to say / every life is precious, so it will have to be us.
– Aurora Levins Morales, “Summons”
Prayer of the day
Anointed One, enwrap us with your protection as we join the cries for justice and say what remains unsaid about strangers who are suffering.
May the strength of God pilot us, may the wisdom of God instruct us, may the hand of God protect us, may the word of God direct us. Be always ours this day and for evermore. — Saint Patrick
To threaten others is to lower them to the status of objects and to deny their dignity. This is why we state once more that an escalation of intimidation, and the uncontrolled proliferation of arms, is contrary to morality and the search for true peace. Terror exerted over those who are most vulnerable contributes to the exile of entire populations who seek a place of peace. Political addresses that tend to blame every evil on migrants and to deprive the poor of hope are unacceptable. Rather, there is a need to reaffirm that peace is based on respect for each person, whatever his or her background, on respect for the law and the common good, and on respect for the environment entrusted to our care and for the richness of the moral tradition inherited from past generations. — Against War: Building A Culture Of Peace, p. 23-24
Those who wage war, those who provoke war, forget humanity. They do not start from the people, they do not look at the real life of people, but place partisan interests and power before all else. They trust in the diabolical and perverse logic of weapons, which is furthest from the will of God. And they distance themselves from ordinary people, who want peace, and who are the real victims in every conflict, who pay for the follies of war with their own skin. — Against War: Building A Culture Of Peace, p. 19
“Whether we dance literally or metaphorically, the dance is a symbol for forgetting our self-consciousness and letting ourselves be overcome with the joy and love that beat at the heart of everything.”
–Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Monk in the World: An Online, Self-Study Retreat
What do you experience when you dance?
Dear Lord,
Speak gently in my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my
surroundings and the loud inner noises of my
fears keep pulling me away from you, help me
to trust that you are still there even when I am
unable to hear you. Give me ears to listen to
your small, soft voice saying: “Come to me,
you who are overburdened, and I will give you rest ….. for I am gentle and humble of
heart.” Let that loving voice be my guide.
Amen.
From: With Open Hands
In 1962, Thomas Merton wrote an essay titled, “Target Equals City.” He made mimeographed copies and sent them off to some of his trusted supporters because he knew the essay would never get past the censors in his Order. His thoughts on war, especially in an age when leaders in the Catholic Church were fully supportive of the war in Vietnam and the larger Cold War, weren’t very popular. I can hear the order’s leadership telling him to keep quiet and don’t rock the boat.
In an age where massive destruction on a global scale was the logical outcome of total nuclear war, there would be no “winners.” When I was in the Air Force, we would have training exercises where skills would be learned and practiced in the event that we ever found ourselves in an environment filled with biological, chemical, or nuclear radiation contamination we would be able to survive. It was almost surreal as I “safely” removed my “contaminated” chemical warfare ensemble and went through the decontamination process. Was there a “win” scenario? I’m really not sure that there was. And there definitely wasn’t a “win” scenario for the civilians caught in the middle or for the rest of creation.
When I consider the history of “modern” warfare and the weapons used just in the 1900’s, I shudder. Walton and Okaloosa Counties in Florida where I once lived have contaminated ground water thanks to Agent Orange testing during the Vietnam era. When I was deployed to Uzbekistan in 2005 there were signs on either side of the running track. Caution, Keep Out—Radiation Hazard and Caution, Keep Out—Unexploded Ordinance and Chemical Hazard… not exactly a reassuring bit of information to have. So, winners? Anyone? The only “winners” are the people invested in the military-industrial complex (actually, they are not winning, they are only profiting). That is the only caveat I would add to the below statement from Merton.
There is only one winner, only one winner in war. The winner is war itself. Not truth, not justice, not liberty, not morality. These are the vanquished. War wins, reducing them to complete submission. [War] makes truth serve violence and falsehood. [War] causes justice to declare not what is just but what is expedient as well as cruel. [War] reduces the liberty of the victorious side to a servitude equal to that of the tyranny which they attacked, in defence of liberty. Though moralists may intend and endeavour to lay down rules for war, in the end war lays down rules for them. [War] does not find it hard to make them change their minds. — Passion for Peace: The Social Essays, p. 28
As the violence in the Middle East continues to spiral out of control, my prayer is that somehow something will change. That in some way the vision of the prophets Isaiah and Micah will come to pass. …they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3)
Fr. Louis Merton, will you pray with us? From our lips to God’s ear, dear reader, let us pray.
“In Hebrew, the word shabbat (from which we get Sabbath) means ‘to cease.’ The meaning of Sabbath is to celebrate the holiness of time, to release the tyranny of space and the objects that demand our attention. It is a day to taste the eternal quality of life.”
–Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Sacred Time: Embracing an Intentional Way of Life
When do you experience tyranny of space and demand on your attention? What helps you celebrate the holiness of time?
To register for the self-study companion retreat to the book with extra resources and guidance click here. Use code SACREDTIME20 to take 20% off through March 31st.
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 