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- Each Hour a Miracle
Sunday March 19: Live in Light, Walk in Truth
How can I live the path of light, life and love single-pointedly? Silence, so I can perceive the teachers saying “this is the way; walk in it.” With loving action, usually performed outside of any limelight or notice. While it is true that “We have to walk totally alone and follow only the inner guide…”, it is also true that in prayer I unite and open x-ray eyes and see others who are on this path in faith. I attempt to perceive God in all creation. And I trust. <3 linda
Sunday March 12: Come to Living Water
There are times along the contemplative path where life is of survival and sustenance, enabling us to trust Living Water washing over us to sustain. There are times when life calms and allows us to use prophetic vision to see just how nurtured and sustained. Then we can fill our new buckets (wineskins, perhaps?) with this never-ending blessing and pour this refreshment into all we encounter. Who can we refresh today? <3 linda
Sunday March 5: Look Twice
Where am I being called to “look twice” to find the love that dances at the heart of all things? When hurt or afraid I retreat to my heart. Bold and adventurous live in the mind. Can my centering prayer practice make dance partners of fear and boldness, following God’s lead as the Primary Partner? Can an adventuresome love help me dance with my hurts and see God in all things? I will take this image of ternion dancing with me this week in my sits. <3 linda
Sunday February 26: What is Being Tested?
The fasting of the heart that calls to me is “Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course?” The only thing I can control now is my response to life. Everything in my life needs to be sifted through the silence to allow the most vital matters to rise to the top of my awareness, letting the rest fall as chaff. Help me, Lord. <3 linda
Sunday February 19: Place Me at Your Table
God has chosen family, friends, Zoom and online communities, such as this one, to be identified as “my loves”; those for whom I pray and who all remind me I am a child of God. This online community wordlessly holds me accountable to post a weekly reflection. I thank God daily for bringing all my loves to my life so we may remind each other of our belovedness in God’s eyes. <3 linda
Sunday February 12: Greet Yourself Arriving
While utilizing examining consciousness with journaling, I can sit quietly and allow names of emotions/motives to come that I need to explore deeper and unlock my motivations behind them. I agree that insights about myself are humiliating, yet it is in the embracing of those humiliations that I acknowledge my shadow and bring it to light; a turning away from hiding and toward my true nature. This process is ongoing and lifelong and so worth it. <3 linda
Sunday February 5: The Greatest Service
Where can I make compassionate attention my intention this week? I belong to a group of Zoom friends who have been meeting regularly the past three years. Health and wellness goals brought us together and are still important. We struggle to provide enough structure to our time together to challenge our growth areas, while remaining fluid enough when a crisis comes we can support each other. I’m not certain how my compassionate attention will best serve this group, yet I know that it must. <3 lindaSunday January 29: Broken, Blessed, Given
“We too are blessed during difficult times because even then we are connected to and dwelling in the kingdom of heaven.” I call to mind the eighteen (and counting) times I have moved cross country, mostly without knowing ahead of time what our new domicile looked like. Painful times, especially the move away from our adult children. Blessings that have come out of those experiences have been different and exactly what we needed to bloom where we were planted, every time.
My beatitude: Blessed are those who move, for they shall become movers of Christ’s love.
<3 linda
Sunday January 22: Daring to Leave Ourselves
What stirs in me from this reflection is Joyce Rupp’s image of being “patient [enough] to see what is tangled and slowly and gently undo the knots, one by one. All to make the web whole again.” It fits with a vision I had a long time ago of sitting with the disciples on the beach, tying knots in nets to repair. Think of the knots as relationships: gently undoing relationships that need to be left behind, building new connections out of love for Christ and the command to love others. As Father Richard would say, it is “yes/and” – both the undoing and the redoing together that brings the love of Christ to the world. <3 linda
Sunday January 15: The Mystery Beyond All Things
What a lovely shift of consciousness Cynthia Bourgeault expresses: “Then this ‘inner wellspring’ is no longer a place you go to; it’s a place you come from. It’s a whole new structure of consciousness.” It becomes home. How do I serve as the wellspring for other seekers? It is a good question to ponder this week. <3 linda
Sunday January 8: Going Home By Another Way
“To dream another way…for gifts of human treasure not used for the tyranny of tribe, class, nation or ego.” Why is the word “tyranny” drawing my attention? Herod served as the “archetype of the level of consciousness willing to use brutality to maintain power.” What of the tyranny of my own mind, too easily willing to reject those who do not measure up to my standards? Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. Free me from the tyranny of myself. May it be so. <3 linda
Sunday January 1: Pondering at Thresholds
As I begin a new year, I find myself drawing away from the concept of “goals to be attained” and deeper into the question “What threshold do I cross?” Goals assume I have total control in their completion – which I do not. The invitation to step over a new threshold holds the same energy, yet I alone can choose to stand, equilibrate or step as Spirit leads. The discernment praxis booklet comes highly recommended. John O’Donohue’s blessing will grace my creative space. <3 linda
Sunday December 25: The Word Made Flesh
As the shepherds were doing their “day job” when they encountered the angel, we never know when an angel encounter will happen in our lives. Was she in the form of co-worker, along during Christmas and invited to share a meal? Perhaps he was the UPS driver, arriving after dark, and when met halfway said I was the first customer to do so. Christ is born when we ger still, acknowledging our private disappointments and public joys. Mary, too, must have been privately disappointed at the delivery room, then publicly joyful when the shepherds came. May I be in tune to angels around me this season. <3 linda
Sunday December 18: Becoming an Icon of Christ
What do I hear for my journey now? “…live the life of the whole.” I have to be willing to “open myself deeply, completely, and without resistance, consent…” I allow God deeper and deeper access to my wounds, my hidden agendas. Wherever God decides to point and say, “Please give Me that,” I need to be ready to say yes. Pray, then do the next practical thing: “live the life of the whole.” <3 linda
Sunday December 11: Are You The One?
As we draw nearer to holidays religious and secular, I encounter many opportunities to bless. A customer service manager at my grocery store thanked me for being that customer who is always pleasant every week, as her eyes reflect her tiredness with assisting those in need of blessing. So I bless them. A difficult set of work situations pounced upon my spouse this week. I found myself saying “I am trying to bless your boss and co-workers in their work integrity and ingenuity.” I’m asking God to explain to my spouse how these situations are to birth new life in the workplace. We trust God has us. We move forward with blessing – they do clear the air of despondency. <3 linda
