Sunday June 18 -Ps.116 is a song of answered prayer. At the same, it sees the response to that as more prayer, including ones of thanksgiving.What is your best prayer of thanksgiving?
Monday-“ the poet Rilke writes: 'Fear not the pain. Let its weight fall back into the earth; for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.' The next time you are amongst the trees, see if you might imagine laying your heavy burden down and let the mountains or seas carry them. This is what gets us in our own way, the endless burdens we carry, the stories we tell ourselves that pull us away from the divine creatures we have been created to be.”--- Christine Valters Paintner
Tuesday-Stanley Hauerwas,:why there is suffering, “What I have learned over the years as a Christian theologian is that none of us should try to answer such questions. Our humanity demands that we ask them, but if we are wise we should then remain silent. . .When Christianity is assumed to be an ‘answer’ that makes the world intelligible, it reflects an accommodated church committed to assuring Christians that the way things are is the way things have to be. Such ‘answers’ cannot help but turn Christianity into an explanation. . . .Faith is but a name for learning how to go on without knowing the answers.”
Wednesday-Merton writes: “Forest and field, sun and wind and sky, earth and water, all speak the same silent language, reminding the monk that he is here to develop like the things that grow all around him.”... I am reminded here of the poet Rilke’s line “no forcing and no holding back.” Merton would find in creation the very source of his prayer, describing that as he seeks silence and solitude he discovers that everything he touches is turned into prayer: “where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all.” Practice awakens us to this reality slowly and allows love to seize us, rather than fear or worry.
Thursday-The Quest of the Historical Jesus: He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time.... And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts and the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an [awesome] mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.
Friday-You have traveled too fast over false ground;Now your soul has come, to take you back.Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through.Become inclined to watch the way of rain When it falls slow and free.Imitate the habit of twilight, Taking time to open the well of color That fostered the brightness of day. Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. John O'Donohue
Saturday-When we love, we are tapping into that mighty rushing stream of God's essential being, that same power that created all things and holds all things in being, that same love which seeks to draw us into loving relationship with one another.Whenever we respond to God in prayer - listening to God, opening our hearts to God - we stand in the face of a tsunami of God's love. Whenever we attend to one another, forgetting ourselves in the act of listening to someone else open their hearts, we are giving ourselves over to the outgoing tide of God's love. Jinkins
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