This larger world around me is so big that I cannot take it all in, cannot begin to fathom the Creator and the extent of the creation. And yet I know it to be true, feel it to be truth at the center of my being. I need this landscape like I need the air that I breathe, like I need sacred scripture and the community of others and the bread and wine offered on the table of thanksgiving. …
Category: Today’s Word
Sometimes our most deeply ingrained prejudices are simply those things we’re not willing to look at more closely, seeking a new perspective and clarity of vision that allows us to see others for what they are: children of God. …
The voice of God is the voice that tells us to love beyond all else. It is the voice that calls us to union with itself and communion with all those around us. The voice of God tells us we have meaning and purpose. …
“Be not afraid” asks us to look beyond what we can see and believe beyond what we cannot see. …
Quiet holds awareness of God, of the One who was and is and always will be, the One who sees and knows us just as we are and welcomes and loves us anyway. It holds a message of meaning and purpose and call. It holds everything that matters, but only if we can quiet ourselves enough to listen. …
If we’re not careful, if we don’t learn to find our “enough” in something that lasts, there will always be something knocking on the door of our hearts saying, “more, more, better, better.” But we do, in fact, have access to enough. Henri Nouwen wrote that he often prayed a prayer of St. Teresa of Avila: “Solo Dios bastia.” (“God alone is enough.”) …
It’s okay to not be productive for a while (and that’s a tough one for me). It’s okay to simply sit “fallow” with God in prayer, without agenda or even words, knowing that God is plowing and harrowing me, leaving me unsown in order to restore my fruitfulness at the time only God controls. God’s work, God’s time. …
We decide what goes in our favorite places and how much time we will give them. But it’s our responsibility to choose well, to select things that bring long-term joy, that do no harm, that create life and shared experiences with others. …
St. Ignatius suggests that we always begin prayer by becoming “aware of God aware of me.” Caught in this mutual gaze of adoration (for surely God adores us even more than we adore God), we begin to find our true selves. …
We are shaped through no effort of our own for, despite what pop psychology might want to teach us, we cannot change our true, inner selves. We can play with our exterior, surface selves that the world judges to be “us,” but only the gentle, unrelenting will and grace of God can shape and change our true, inner selves. …