testimony

The bit of God's love that I know is the bit of God's love that has been made real for me in the love of those who have loved me. – INCARNATION – I have longed for much of my total life and all of my adult life to have the same kind of impact on the world that my father had. I longed to give myself to the world and I longed to be recognized for the great things that I would accomplish. – I wanted all of the benefits but I did not want any of the requisite cost and sacrifice. I wanted a meaningful life but I wanted it on my terms. Life is not like that. We seldom get to live life on our own terms. But we do get to live life meaningfully if we choose to. → ←
HOLY SPIRIT – God's love overflowing – discernment – connection – the human connection

The Day (dated 09/27/2016)
Nothing big happened today. It was just one more day of ordinary. I was sitting in my chair thinking about the day just past and many more just like it and I realized that my memories were much greater than my dreams.

“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving, human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.”
-William James

The Holy Spirit comes as a quiet and gentle breeze, so soft that we might very well miss it.
Is that the way that it is? That is the way that it is.
     -from Brother Ben's notebook

Excerpt from Meditation XVII of John Donne

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Celtic Cross

Fullness of Life

For myself, the wonder of the Resurrection is not so much discovered in my shoulder-shrugging acknowledgment of the power of God to effect the impossible. It is discovered instead in our own capability, pried open by the sight of the empty tomb, to live into our most poignant longings, to dream our farthest dreams, and to hope with the full expansion of our hearts. We are met, at the far limits of our resources, with limitlessness. We are met at the gates of death with a freshness and fullness of life barely grasped by the wildest stretches of our imaginings. ... It is the custom of the Christian community in Tanzania at the close of the vigil to dance until the coming of Easter dawn. What better way to celebrate the feasts of feasts: to dance for sheer joy! 
-Wendy M. Wright 
The Rising

True Wealth

True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire. 
-Cesar Chavez

Creating Community

A community is only being created when its members accept that they are not going to achieve great things, that they are not going to be heroes, but simply live each day with new hope, like children, in wonderment as the sun rises and in thanksgiving as it sets. Community is only being created when they have recognized that the greatness of humanity lies in the acceptance of our insignificance, our human condition and our earth.
         Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p.109

Killing Time

How do I kill time?
Let me count the ways.
By worrying about things
over which I have no control.
Like the past.
Like the future.
By harboring resentment
and anger
over hurts
real or imagined.
By disdaining the ordinary
or, rather, what I
so mindlessly
call ordinary.
By concern over what’s in it for me,
rather than what’s in me
for it.
By failing to appreciate what is
because of might-have-beens,
should-have-beens,
could-have-beens.
These are some of the ways
I kill time.
Jesus didn’t kill time.
He gave life to it.
His own.
—Leo Rock, SJ, in Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits

Prayer For Comfort

Heavenly Father
I call on you. I ask you to touch [us] with your healing power.
Cast out all sickness and recreate [us].
Let the warmth of your healing love pass through [us].
Lord grant that [we] will be free from pain,
from anxiety, and from discomfort.
Please allow your love and the compassion of caregivers,
family and friends to bring peace and comfort to [us].
This we ask through Christ, our Lord.
Amen

- Walter Whitmore
The word [us] may be exchanged with the word [me] when praying for oneself or a person's [name] when praying for someone else.

Ancient Words Ever True Lyrics by Lynn Deshazo

Verse 1
Holy words long preserved
For our walk in this world
They resound with God’s own heart
O let the ancient words impart
Words of life words of hope
Give us strength help us cope
In this world where’er we roam
Ancient words will guide us home

Chorus
Ancient words ever true
Changing me changing you
We have come with open hearts
O let the ancient words impart

Verse 2
Holy words of our faith
Handed down to this age
Came to us through sacrifice
O heed the faithful words of Christ
Holy words long preserved
For our walk in this world
They resound with God’s own heart
O let the ancient words impart

Chorus
Ancient words ever true
Changing me changing you
We have come with open hearts
O let the ancient words impart

Verse 3
Martyr’s blood stains each page
They have died for this faith
Hear them cry through the years
Heed these words and hold them dear

Chorus
Ancient words ever true
Changing me changing you
We have come with open hearts
O let the ancient words impart

Misc 1
We have come with open hearts
O let the ancient words impart
O let the ancient words impart

from Howard Thurman

There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have.

         

'Tis a Fearful Thing

 ‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.
Yehuda HaLevi (1075 – 1141)