Reverence for all things and all people

Artist: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It is all to easy to devalue ordinary things. I think it's possible that such an approach can lead to devaluing ordinary people. Here's something that speaks to this issue:

Let everything you touch be treated as if it were as precious as the altar vessels. Whenever you handle any equipment or any person, be reverent. Be full of care with everything entrusted to you. Everything you touch or see, everyone for whom you have responsibility, is to be viewed as something cherished by God, and thus to be cherished by you.

— Norvene Vest in Friend of the Soul

I don't think this means we have to be obsessive-compulsive about our possessions or about various objects. I do think it means we need to wake up to the reality of how we habitually look at anything or anyone.

Something that made me think

Artist: Friedrich Perlberg

Image from Wikimedia Commons

You know, I think this is often true:

In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners.

- Jonathon Miller

Low Sunday

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Well, today is also called "Thomas Sunday" and I came across an essay that makes the case that Thomas has long received a "bad rap" - something I've believed for some time now:

Where was Thomas when Jesus first appeared? John doesn't tell us. My own guess was that he was out and about getting on with his life. Why do I think that? Because Thomas was a realist. Let's not forget: in chapter 11, it's Thomas who recognizes that for Jesus to return to Judea is to face the threat of death, and it's Thomas who urges the other disciples to go with Jesus. So while we don't know where Thomas was when Jesus first appeared, we do know where he wasn't – locked in the upper room for fear of the religious authorities.

And that, of course, was where the other disciples were.

The piece is entitled "It's Not About Thomas" by Lutheran pastor David J. Lose. You might like to click through and read it because it's not very long.

~~~

UPDATE: Here's something I just learned on the page linked to through the words "Thomas Sunday" above:

It is the custom in some Orthodox parishes to travel to the cemetery on this day to pray, light candles, and to sing "Christ is Risen!" to deceased family members. If your parish does this, make sure to take your children even if you don't have any family members buried there. They need to learn that we Orthodox pray for the dead. If your parish does not so this, you and your family can go on your own, say a prayer for the dead listed in most prayer books, and sing "Christ is Risen!" Be sure to take and light candles at each grave you visit.

What a wonderful tradition! It's too late in the evening for me to do this now but I hope I remember next year. I think it would be very meaningful even though I don't have any family members buried here in Oklahoma. In Christ, we are all family!

The futility of declaring sin illegal

Artist: Francisque Millet

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today's religious right could sometimes be seen to be promoting a new puritanism. But, you know, it really doesn't work to impose one's belief system or moral code on other people:

Two thousand years of failure have not taught some reformers that you can't stop sin by declaring it illegal. Two thousand years have not taught them that you can't save a man's soul by force -- you can only lose your own in the attempt. Drunkenness and gambling and secularism and lechery -- various hopeful churchmen have earnestly tried to outlaw them all; and what is the result? A drunken nation, a gambling nation, a secularist nation, an adulterous nation. And, often, a ruined Church.

-- Joy Davidman

In case you don't recognize the name Joy Davidman, she wrote a number of books including Smoke on the Mountain (from which the above passage is taken) and was also married to C.S. Lewis.

New every morning

Artist: Joaquin Sorolla

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The Baal Shem Tov said many marvelous things. Here's one that is particularly lovely:

The world is new to us each morning — that is the Lord's gift, and we should believe we are reborn each day.

— Baal Shem Tov

When I was in the convent, we were taught to consider that each night when we went to sleep was a death and then waking up in the morning was resurrection - rebirth!

It's a wonderful way to live. Truly.

Believing in the Resurrection

Artist: Wolfram Plotzke

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It's been a while since I've visited the Spirituality and Practice site (which I highly recommend, by the way). One of the regular features is called Spiritual Practice of the Day and each one contains both a quotation and a suggestion for putting the idea into practice. Here's one from a while back that I found:

To believe in the resurrection means that we cannot stop at our wounds.
— Patricia McCarthy quoted in Behold Your Life by Macrina Wiederkehr

To Practice This Thought: Honor your pain but don't entomb yourself in it.

I often find myself listening to someone who is caught by, stuck in, a wound that is actually decades old. I don't fault people for this, of course, because usually they truly don't know how to get out of that tomb. If we find ourselves trapped in this way, however, we really do need to find someone who can help us break free.

Be joyful!

That which is not

Artist: Fra Angelico

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have long appreciated the medieval theologians who asserted that we must not attempt to say what God is - only what God is not. The following excerpt from an Easter sermon reflects that same principle:

An empty tomb. Our great Christian symbol of life and hope is found in something missing, something not there, a displacement...

For this empty tomb is full of meaning. From this empty tomb, hewn in rock, we as Christians draw forth all of our faith and hope for this world and for the kingdom to come. At this empty tomb we find the Christ of eternity alive in the here and now. From this chasm, a symbol of death and defeat, comes forth victory and life itself. Christ’s tomb is the earthen fissure through which God’s love pours out upon our parched world of sin and death.

We do not know how this is so. But then there are a lot of things we do not know. How life began in some ocean lagoon billions of years ago, for instance. Or even how our parents fell in love. Just as our lives today are in some real sense mysteries we shall never fathom, so is the Resurrection for us a sharing in the mystery of God’s own life. Or perhaps more to the point, it is a sharing by God in our lives.

-- The Rev. Dr. Frank Hegedus

Maybe as we continue to ponder the mystery of the Resurrection, we could well reflect on what is not. What are the things that now are not true about us, are not part of our lives, that speak to us most strongly of our own personal resurrection? I can think of quite a few, actually. I imagine we all can.

A heart's-clarion!

Mary Magdalen announcing the resurrection

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart’s-clarion! Away grief’s gasping, joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam. Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; world’s wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,
I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood,
immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Holy Saturday

"Christ in the Sepulchre, Guarded by Angels"

Artist: William Blake

I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him; *

in his word is my hope.

My soul waits for the LORD,

more than watchmen for the morning, *

more than watchmen for the morning.

- from Psalm 130

Good Friday

Artist: El Greco

Image from Wikimedia Commons

"God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself."

Learning to accept the care and service of others

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Maundy Thursday is so very rich. I realize that I could focus on a number of important events for this blog post today including the institution of the Eucharist, the agony in the garden and the betrayal of Judas. But I've decided to go with foot washing.

A webpage partially entitled "Finding new meaning in ancient symbols" includes the following by a woman named Elinor:

I never connected this with my own life until this year, when I was forced to be absolutely dependent on others to take care of me after I had surgery. It was a helpless feeling, and I was so thankful for the wonderful nurses and aides who tended to my needs, including washing my feet. Their gift of service was so enormous in comparison with anything I could do for others at that time.

Being a 75-year-old grandma who was used to doing everything myself, and sometimes helping others, made it difficult to accept. But my helpers reflected the love God has for us in every situation — wow, what a lesson!

It's easy to interpret this ritual as meaning we need to wash others' feet (both literally and metaphorically) - and this is true. It also means, I would assert, that we need to be receptive enough to let our own feet be washed. Peter had to learn this. So did Elinor. And so does each one of us.

Spy Wednesday

Artist: Giotto di Bondone

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This is something I didn't know:

In Western Christianity, the Wednesday before Easter is sometimes known as "Spy Wednesday", indicating that it is the day that Judas Iscariot first conspired with the Sanhedrin to betray Jesus for thirty silver coins.

I found it on The Deacon's Bench blog over at Beliefnet.

A terrible clarity

"Ecce Homo" by Jan Provoost

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The following passage is so very appropriate for Holy Week:

Romantic love is blind to everything except what is lovable and lovely, but Christ's love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ's love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering that Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.

- Frederick Buechner

Palm Sunday

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The "ways of the world" can be so very, very disheartening at times. I'm powerfully struck here by the point being made that, as we enter this week, only in the mind of God is Jesus a success:

Palm Sunday ... reminds us that at the moment of what seems to be the height of Jesus' public acceptance also begins the process of His public betrayal, His public failure, His public abandonment. Only in the mind of God is Jesus any longer a success, it seems ... Here in the Passion narrative we trace the struggle, one scene at a time, between the Word of God and the ways of the world.

- Joan Chittister

I remember, quite some years ago, complaining to a nun friend of mine that I was feeling like a failure. She replied, "Jesus was a failure. So what's your problem?"

How our beliefs affect what we see

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I really like the entire passage posted below. The point that a belief is a considerably more than an idea is so true and it is also very powerful. I'm also struck by the observation that our experiences of judgment and shame have a lot to do with our beliefs:

What we believe about ourselves can hold us hostage. Over the years I have come to respect the power of people's beliefs. The thing that has amazed me is that a belief is more than just an idea--it seems to shift the way in which we actually experience ourselves and our lives. According to Talmudic teaching, "We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." A belief is like a pair of sunglasses. When we wear a belief and look at life through it, it is difficult to convince ourselves that what we see is not real. . . . Sometimes because of our beliefs we may have never seen ourselves or life whole before. No matter. We can recognize life anyway. Our life force may not require us to strengthen it. We often just need to free it where it has gotten trapped in beliefs, attitudes, judgment, and shame.

-- Rachel Naomi Remen

Lady Day

End of 10th century image

From Wikimedia Commons

The Archangel was not foretelling the future by saying “The Lord is with thee,” but was declaring what he saw happening invisibly at that time. Perceiving that divine and human gifts of grace were to be found in Mary, and that she was adorned with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he truly proclaimed her full of grace. He saw that she had already received to dwell within her the One in whom are all these treasures of grace….Even if other women may be extolled, no other can be magnified with the surpassing glory of the Virgin Mother of God.

-- Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)

Let's just be happy. Really happy. Happy that Mary's "yes" made the Incarnation possible.

Turning everything upside down

Artist: Fra Angelico

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oscar Romero was one of my heroes and his courage and fidelity to vocation had a huge influence on me during the time I was working to discern my own vocation to the religious life. The following quotation was sent out in an email from the Sojourners organization today:

Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and communists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down.

- Archbishop Oscar Romero, an advocate for the poor and marginalized, was assassinated thirty years ago today while offering Mass in El Salvador.

Worship

Artist: Walentin Alexandrowitsch Serow

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Just imagine what it would be like to have this window of the soul be always open:

Those to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, have not yet visited the house of their souls whose windows are open from dawn to dawn.

--Khalil Gibran

That vexing saying about the poor

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It was only quite recently, really, that I came across a "right-wing" interpretation of the statement by Jesus that "the poor we have always with us" as meaning that we don't have to help the poor!

Needless to say, I was appalled.

Here's part of a reflection on this morning's gospel reading that is more in line with the true character of Our Lord:

Lent is a time when we think about giving things up, not living extravagantly. If we pay attention to Jesus’ teaching, we know that money is a gift to be shared.

But then there is this story in John 12:1-9. Mary, the sister of Lazarus (the man Jesus raised from the dead), brings an exorbitantly priced perfume and pours it out on Jesus’ feet. Judas complains. This should have been spent on the poor, he said. We sort of agree with him. Jesus’ response? “You always have the poor with you, but you won’t always have me.” What? That doesn’t really sound like Jesus.

He’s quoting from Deuteronomy 15. “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you: Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.” Not exactly a condemnation of helping the poor, is it?

It's by Melissa Bane Sevier and I found it on her blog post entitled "The Spiritual Practice of Extravagance". I'm going to explore her blog more fully, I think. I really like her style!

The major question of discernment

Artist: Carl Larsson

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have spent a lot of time over the years with people who torment themselves with a craving to make just exactly the right decision on what to do. I think that is most unfortunate because it matters not so much what we do but, rather, how we do it. And so I was pleased to find the following:

The differences in human life depend, for the most part, not on what people do, but upon the meaning and purpose of their acts. All are born, all die, all lose their loved ones, nearly all marry and nearly all work, but the significance of these acts may vary enormously. The same physical act may be in one situation vulgar and in another holy. The same work may be elevating or degrading. The major question is not "What act do I perform?" but "In what frame do I put it?" Wisdom about life consists in taking the inevitable ventures which are the very stuff of common existence, and glorifying them.

-- Elton Trueblood

By the way, today is the feast day of St. Joseph of the House of David who is patron of workers. The Trueblood passage, therefore, seems rather appropriate.

Choosing, committing, loving

Artist: Emile Claus

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now. “I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself. She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. Even in that most important area of her life, love, she had failed to commit herself. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pain, loss, and separation. These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all. In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.

-- Paulo Coelho

Three in One, One in Three

Here is a lovely Celtic prayer:

GOD'S AID

God to enfold me,
God to surround me,
God in my speaking,
God in my thinking.

God in my sleeping,
God in my waking,
God in my watching,
God in my hoping.

God in my life,
God in my lips,
God in my hands,
God in my heart.

God in my sufficing,
God in my slumber
God in mine ever living soul,
God in mine eternity.

Voice of the day

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The following was sent out in an email this morning by Sojourners:

If you are in class, recognize one another; if you are in the store, recognize one another; if you are in the housing estate, recognize one another; if you are in the parish, recognize one another: you are members of one another if you are members of Christ. This is the most revolutionary sentence that can be expressed: "you are members of one another." ... And this recognizing one another ... is witness to Christ. This is the first expression of our yearning for Christ.

- Luigi Giussani, Italian Catholic priest and founder of the Communion and Liberation movement of the Catholic Church

Lent 4C

Artist: Pompeo Batoni

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's something I found on Sermon Nuggets by Lindy Black:

The parable of a prodigal Father, the wandering and repentance of a younger son, and a resentful firstborn brother. (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32)

-We seldom hear the word prodigal used outside the context of this parable, and people often mistakenly assume that it means "bad." Instead, prodigal means generous, abundant, or wasteful, so prodigality is not necessarily bad. God created species and resources prodigally (abundantly), and it was good (Genesis 1:31). A philanthropist can give money prodigally (generously) to a good cause. In this parable, prodigal takes on a negative tone because the younger son "squandered his property in dissolute living" (v. 13), spending his money prodigally (wastefully).

I do think we need to remember that the Father was also a prodigal in this story!

More about ordinary things

Artist: Émile Schuffenecker

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Many people believe that they ought to put a lot of thought and effort into the so-called big decisions of life: which university to attend, what kind of job to take, where to live, whether or not to marry or enter religious life. And, sadly, they often don't give much attention to the apparently "little" decisions: the tone of voice they use in greeting someone, making eye contact, whether or not to take frustration out on their children or companion animals, how much time and money to donate to church or charity.

I would assert that the "little things" are not little and the "big things" are not big:

Do not forget that the nature and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things as to do ordinary things with a perception of their enormous value.

~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

No matter what...

Artist: Carl Larsson

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I came across the following quotation today and it gave me a much needed lift. May it do so for you as well:

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness -- or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.

-- Author Unknown

Something about how we learn

"Praying in a Greek church"

Artist: Theodoros Rallis

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. Begin as a mere aprentice and the very power of love will lead you on to become a master of the art.

-- St. Francis De Sales

Thirsting for God

Moses striking the rock in the desert

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today and last Sunday gave me two of my favorite psalms in a row, to my very great joy. This morning's was Psalm 63 which I was taught to recite upon awakening every morning while I was in the convent.

Oh God, you are my God; egerly I seek you;
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you
As in a barren and dry land
Where there is no water.

What a wonderful prayer for beginning the day. Truly.

Here's another part I particularly like:

For your loving-indness is better than life itself;

And this one:

My soul clings to you;
Your right hand holds me fast.

I was taught many years ago in Sunday School that every prayer I would ever need could be found in the Psalter. It's so true.

Let's not "divide the world"

Artist: Margret Hofheinz-Döring

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's the problem, really, with unforgiveness. When we refuse to forgive, when we cling to resentment, we are really "dividing the world" - or, at least, our world:

Don't waste any time dividing the world into good guys and the bad guys. Hold them both together in your own soul — where they are anyway — and you will have held together the whole world.

— Richard Rohr in Hope Against Darkness

Jesus really did say that we are to love our enemies and to pray for and do good to those who persecute us. Yes, it's hard. Yes, we fail over and over. And, still, as Christians, we are called to love them no matter how many times we try and fail. Perhaps even that repeated failure will bring us to the humility needed to hold both "the good guys and the bad guys" together in our souls.

The mystery of grace

Artist: Angelika Kauffmann

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have very probably posted this quotation before because I like it very much. But it just came to my attention again today and is definitely worth a repeat:

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

- Anne Lamott, from Traveling Mercies

An illuminating Lenten exercise could well be that of reflecting on various occasions of grace throughout our lives and how we were not, indeed, left as we had been when that grace found us.

God, grief and tears

Artist: Margret Hofheinz-Döring

Image from Wikimedia Commons

God is a shower to the heart burned up with grief; God is a sun to the face deluged with tears.

-- Joseph Roux, Meditations of a Parish Priest

Seeking the face of God

Artist: Viktor Vasnetsov

Image from Wikimedia Commons

My favorite psalm is Psalm 27 which, as it happens, is appointed for today's Eucharistic celebration. I had the following verse printed on the invitations to my Solemn Profession back in 1994:

One thing have I asked of the LORD;
one thing I seek; *
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days
of my life;

Here are two other verses that I particularly cherish:

You speak in my heart and say, "Seek my face." *
Your face, LORD, will I seek.
~~~
What if I had not believed
that I should see the goodness of the LORD *
in the land of the living!

The Rev. Dr. Agnes Norfleet considers this to be a "psalm of thin places" You can read her reflection about that right here.

Reciting Psalm 27 in church this morning brought me once more to an experience of great thanksgiving for the grace of my vocation. Deo gratias!

Mother of a thousand blessings

Artist: Marianne Stokes

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I love the way John Chrysostom uses one metaphor after another here. It's as if he's struggling for a way to articulate the loveliness and wonder of prayer and nothing will quite do and so he tries again and again:

Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings.

- Saint John Chrysostom

The word, "Chrysostom", by the way, means "golden-mouthed". You can see why he was called that!

Two on forgiveness

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.

-- Dag Hammarskjöld

Forgiveness means that you do not hold others responsible for your experiences.

-- Gary Zukav

When tears come...

Artist: Rembrandt Peale

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Lent is meant to be a time of reflection, of self-examination, of spiritual housecleaning. Sometimes that process enables us to see things that trigger considerable grief. Here's something to remember:

When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest. I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before. I am not alone, crazy, or having a nervous breakdown . . . My heart is at work. My soul is awake.

— Mary Margaret Funk in Thoughts Matter

Valuing the ordinary

Artist: Heinrich Uhl

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It saddens me when I hear people de-value small things, ordinary things. I so agree with the following:

We bless the life around us far more than we realize. Many simple, ordinary things that we do can affect those around us in profound ways: the unexpected phone call, the brief touch, the willingness to listen generously, the warm smile or wink of recognition. All it may take to restore someone's trust in life may be returning a lost earring or a dropped glove.

-- Rachel Naomi Remen

"Try sitting with the feeling..."

Artist: James Carroll Beckwith

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today is the first Sunday in Lent. My own take on the custom of Lenten disciplines is that we are thereby invited into a greater mindfulness. I was interested to learn that Barbara Brown Taylor seems to think so too:

That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick our pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole.

To enter the wilderness is to leave them behind, and nothing is too small to give up. Even a chocolate bar will do. For 40 days, simply pay attention to how often your mind travels in that direction. Ask yourself why it happens when it happens. What is going on when you start craving a Mars bar? Are you hungry? Well, what is wrong with being hungry? Are you lonely? What is so bad about being alone? Try sitting with the feeling instead of fixing it and see what you find out.

See what you find out. What a radical thought. Find out more about yourself, how your mind works, how your impulses get triggered, instead of just putting gratification first.

The above is from a Christian Century article that you can find right here.

In preparation for Sunday

The soul's home

Artist: Rembrandt
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

Ash Wednesday

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

-- T.S. Eliot (from Ash Wednesday)

Shrove Tuesday

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I hope you all have had a wonderful day and have enjoyed your pancakes or King cake this evening! May each of us greet the morning with sober joy as we begin our Lenten observance.
~~~

To lay down one's life

Artist: Vincent Van Gogh

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I got the following quotation from an email sent out by Sojourners today. It's about less drama but more real sacrifice in the truest sense of that word:

When we think about laying down a life for another we usually think in terms of a singular event. But it is possible for us to lay down our lives over the course of a lifetime, minute by minute and day by day. And it is the work of the Spirit to empower us as we seek to lose ourselves in acts of lovingkindness and sacrificial living.

- Elaine Puckett

In honor of Saint Valentine

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.

- William Shakespeare

Some words of Thomas Merton

Trailing clouds of glory

"Saint Panteleimon the Healer"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

-- William Wordsworth

Don't these words, "trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home", touch you in a very deep place? The image is sublime and fortunately, humanity was given Wordsworth who was able to verbalize it.

Troubles

Artist: Gustave Courbet

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of sticks, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to our load, before we are required to bear it.

-- John Newton

A very timely prayer

Artist: Alfred Sisley

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This was sent out in an email today by the folks at Sojourners:

God, we remember all those who have been adversely affected by inclement weather, including heavy rain in California, and heavy snow in the D.C. area in particular. We pray for all those who have lost electricity and whose homes have been damaged. But we pray especially for those who have no homes and no shelters in times such as these. We ask that your hand would protect them and keep them safe. May our paths cross with theirs so that we might have an opportunity to love and serve them. Amen.

Yes, may it be so.

Reinhold Niebuhr's influence on the president

Whatever your political persuasion may happen to be, I'm sure you'll agree that knowing about a strong theological influence on the president of the United States is a valuable thing. I want to call your attention to a CNN article entitled "How Obama's favorite theologian shaped his first year in office". Here's part of what it says:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

It is now known as the Serenity Prayer. It's been adopted by 12-step recovery programs and cited in numerous self-help books. Yet few people know who wrote it. His name is Reinhold Niebuhr, and he was a Protestant pastor in the mid-20th century whose words tended to unsettle people, not offer comfort.

Niebuhr is getting attention again because he has a fan in the Oval Office.
...
Niebuhr was a blunt critic of morally complacent Christians. He thought the church was full of idealists who believed that progress was inevitable and that love alone would ultimately conquer injustice, some Niebuhr scholars say.

"He said there was a difference between being a 'fool for Christ' and a plain damn fool," says Richard Crouter, author of the upcoming book Reinhold Niebuhr: On Politics, Religion and Christian Faith.
...
Niebuhr distilled his view of human nature in his monumental book, Moral Man and Immoral Society. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. cited the book in his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail." Former President Carter is also an admirer of Niebuhr's.

People are capable of doing good, but groups are driven by "predatory self-interest," Niebuhr wrote.

"As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other," Niebuhr wrote. "As racial, economic and national groups, they take for themselves, whatever their power can command."

I do recommend that you click through and read the article. To my mind, it explains a lot.

As an aside, I studied Reinhold Niebuhr when I was in graduate school but I was more influenced by his brother, H. Richard Niebuhr - also a theologian - who wrote the groundbreaking Christ and Culture.

About devoting time and intention to prayer

Artist: Sergei Vinogradov
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This actually makes so much sense:

If we are willing to spend hours on end to learn to play the piano, operate a computer, or fly an airplane, it is sheer nonsense for us to imagine that we can learn the high art of getting guidance through communion with the Lord without being willing to set aside time for it.

-- Paul Rees

Comic relief!

I don't usually offer comic relief posts on this blog but the following photo is just too good to pass up!

Shamelessly nicked from our good friend, the Mad Priest and he got it from Paul A.

Candlemas

Artist: Fra Angelico

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Today's feast is also known as "The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple".

Here's a little tidbit about it:

Candlemas primarily focuses on Jesus’ early life. Many Christians believe that Jesus’ mother Mary presented him to God at the Temple in Jerusalem after observing the traditional 40-day period of purification (of mothers) following his birth. According to a New Testament gospel, a Jewish man named Simeon held the baby in his arms and said that he would be a light for the Gentiles (Luke 2:32). It is for this reason that this event is called Candlemas.

It's from a little article about today's date found right here.

Something about evil

Statue of Pascal

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Personally, I think we need to remind ourselves of the following on a fairly regular basis:

People never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

- Blaise Pascal