Week of Feb. 21 Devotional points

Sunday-Ps. 27 is a favorite for many. Today read it carefully. Then consider one of two options. Rewrite it in language with which you are comfortable, but using it as a template.Pay attention to the images it uses. Alternately, consider taking its basic structure and write a new prayer, but take care to apply it to your life situation right now.

Monday-"The genius of the biblical revelation is that we will come to God through 'the actual,' the here and now, or quite simply what is. As Paula D’Arcy says, 'God comes to us disguised as our life.'" —Richard Rohr in his meditation "Negative Capability"

Tuesday-Hope is the opposite of cynicism, and hope is a theological act, far more enduring than mere optimism.Hope is the confidence that we indeed,the whole wide world, belong to God. "Into thy hands," is a prayer of pure hope, and it is the prayer a leader can pray throughout the day without ceasing. Not glorified gold-plated nonsense, by the way, but real hope... hope resides in the confidence that God will take the best we can do and do with it more than we could ever have imagined. This hope lives in the confidence that God is up to bigger and better things than we can ask or imagine.Michael Jinkins

Wednesday-"God tries to first create a joyous yes inside you, far more than any kind of no. Then you have become God's full work of art, and for you, love is now stronger than death..." - Richard Rohr

Thursday-Many of us feel divided, in internal conflict between what we most desire and how we live our lives. The ancient monks described the "cave of the heart" as that inner place where we encounter God and wrestle with our inner voices. Instead of resisting these voices, and dividing ourselves, the desert mothers and fathers invite us to be fully present to them, to create a welcoming space within.

Friday-Henri Nouwen-”In praying for others, I lose myself and become the other, only to be found by the divine love which hold the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace.”

Saturday-Evil isn’t just out there somewhere, far away, across the ocean, incarnate in foreign governments and alien religions and people with strange names. Evil is as close as my own thoughts, my own longings, my own insecurity and insularity and fears and dreads and desperation.(Ronald Byars)