Sunday-Ps. 112-This comes close to health and wealth theology at points. I would like to emphasize two points. Fear in v. 1 is probably better put as revere. VV.6-9 speak of the stability of being in right relationship with God and neighbors. Where is your faith most secure?
Monday-Where there is great love there are always miracles. --Willa Cather
Tuesday-“God is already praying in us. Through lectio, we make ourselves available to join this unceasing prayer already happening in our hearts. God is the one who initiates the dialogue. Our practice is to make space to hear this prayer already at work within us.”
.--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD
Wednesday-Gerard Manley Hopkins. By 'inscape' he means the unified complex of qualities which give each thing its own uniqueness. God expresses God's self through fire, earth, wind, and water, and through many other ways as well. In deepening our relationship to the elements we encounter the face of God. We discover unique aspects to how God works in the world."
Thursday-Merton critiques the "irreversibility of evil," the idea that sin only moves from evil to evil, that it is unforgivable, and that those who commit evil acts are beyond hope and sympathy. Such ideas are simply unChristian. The moral world is flat. There is no moral high ground. Even in the midst of doing good, we fail. And often believing we have failed to act righteously, we unconsciously have accomplished good. Only God is in a position to judge. And while God allows us to participate in God's work of justice and peacemaking, God never relinquishes the Judge's bench, and we never achieve the role of chief prosecutor. Inevitably, we stand in the dock beside the accused. At any moment, the accused and we may exchange places; we are all guilty, all in need of grace. Fortunately, God is more eager to forgive than to punish. Michael Jinkins
Friday-W Paul Jones-courage, the only adequate resolution of our primal predicament, is the road less taken. Courage requires a steadfast, honest gaze at the human condition, but we are paralyzed by the thought of doing it alone. Isolated we come into the world; and isolated we will leave. We experience this specter of primal loneliness either as the fear of rejection (the isolation of not belonging) or as the fear of ridicule (the isolation of not measuring up). Either way, this forces us to try to impress or please others.
Saturday- as Rinkitink heard it, "Never question the truth of what you fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders." Above all, never question the truth beyond all understanding and surpassing all other wonders that in the long run nothing, not even the world, not even ourselves, can separate us forever from that last and deepest love that glimmers in our dusk like a pearl, like a face.- Originally published in The Sacred Journey
No comments:
Post a Comment