Forum Replies Created
- Centering Prayer and Mindfulness Meditation
-
Sunday February 12: Greet Yourself Arriving
While utilizing examining consciousness with journaling, I can sit quietly and allow names of emotions/motives to come that I need to explore deeper and unlock my motivations behind them. I agree that insights about myself are humiliating, yet it is in the embracing of those humiliations that I acknowledge my shadow and bring it to light; a turning away from hiding and toward my true nature. This process is ongoing and lifelong and so worth it. <3 linda
Sunday February 5: The Greatest Service
Where can I make compassionate attention my intention this week? I belong to a group of Zoom friends who have been meeting regularly the past three years. Health and wellness goals brought us together and are still important. We struggle to provide enough structure to our time together to challenge our growth areas, while remaining fluid enough when a crisis comes we can support each other. I’m not certain how my compassionate attention will best serve this group, yet I know that it must. <3 linda
Sunday January 29: Broken, Blessed, Given
“We too are blessed during difficult times because even then we are connected to and dwelling in the kingdom of heaven.” I call to mind the eighteen (and counting) times I have moved cross country, mostly without knowing ahead of time what our new domicile looked like. Painful times, especially the move away from our adult children. Blessings that have come out of those experiences have been different and exactly what we needed to bloom where we were planted, every time.
My beatitude: Blessed are those who move, for they shall become movers of Christ’s love.
<3 linda
Sunday January 22: Daring to Leave Ourselves
What stirs in me from this reflection is Joyce Rupp’s image of being “patient [enough] to see what is tangled and slowly and gently undo the knots, one by one. All to make the web whole again.” It fits with a vision I had a long time ago of sitting with the disciples on the beach, tying knots in nets to repair. Think of the knots as relationships: gently undoing relationships that need to be left behind, building new connections out of love for Christ and the command to love others. As Father Richard would say, it is “yes/and” – both the undoing and the redoing together that brings the love of Christ to the world. <3 linda
Sunday January 15: The Mystery Beyond All Things
What a lovely shift of consciousness Cynthia Bourgeault expresses: “Then this ‘inner wellspring’ is no longer a place you go to; it’s a place you come from. It’s a whole new structure of consciousness.” It becomes home. How do I serve as the wellspring for other seekers? It is a good question to ponder this week. <3 linda
Sunday January 8: Going Home By Another Way
“To dream another way…for gifts of human treasure not used for the tyranny of tribe, class, nation or ego.” Why is the word “tyranny” drawing my attention? Herod served as the “archetype of the level of consciousness willing to use brutality to maintain power.” What of the tyranny of my own mind, too easily willing to reject those who do not measure up to my standards? Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. Free me from the tyranny of myself. May it be so. <3 linda
Sunday December 27: The Waiting Is Over
Creation blessed eastern TN with Divine Life with a beautiful white Christmas, and temperatures mild enough to walk river paths last weekend. FaceTime calls with our children shone their Divine Light to us. What precious gifts our sons and their wives are to us. I organize a new home office location and set 2021 goals in the days ahead, trusting Divine Love via my contemplative vocation will direct my efforts. What a wonder-filled way to close the year. Thank You, Abba. Amen. <3 linda
Sunday, December 20: May It Be Done To Me…I Consent
What will be the next mutation for my life? I am working on goal setting and a life plan with the purpose of making 2021 the best year of my life. I am exploring myself and mining deep to see how I can be more a handmaid of the Lord than I have ever been. I pray, thanks to Kathleen Norris, “I may be virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a ‘yes’ that will change me forever.” Amen. <3 linda
Sunday December 13: The Morning Stars Will Sing
Joy! In the midst of a global pandemic, we see joy expressed in very practical and extraordinary ways. People stepping up to help neighbors who cannot get out. People showing compassion to those suffering from other’s inconsideration due to the stresses of their situations. Grace upon grace being extended to wrap the world in a soft netting of God’s love. Come, Lord Jesus! <3 linda
Sunday December 6: The Mild Light of Radiant Fulfillment
When I was a young woman, I had my life mapped out – I used to be a planning machine. God intervened and overlaid God’s plan for me, and sometimes I obeyed better than others.
Now, I am fully submitted to God’s presence and action within me, and to God’s plan for my life. I will once again plan goals for 2021, all according to God’s will, and I will “bow to this strange choosing.” <3 linda
Sunday November 29: In A Garment of Silence
My mantra for this year is quite apt for Advent. It is four words I say on two breaths, as follows:
Inhale: Cease. Stop worry, frets, concerns before they can gain a toehold.
Exhale: Release. Breath those concerns out to God’s hands.
Inhale: Heal. Breathe in the calm of the Spirit’s healing.
Exhale: Peace. Send waves of the peace that passes understanding back into the world.
For Advent, I will focus on one word each week, taking it deeper into prayer. <3 linda
Sunday, November 22: Whatever You Did, You Did to Me
Yes, my contemplative practice has changed the way I live my life. I’d like to believe I am more open to allowing others into my life – God may have a different point of view. So, I continue to pray. My quarantine time has allowed me to affirm my prayer practice and I don’t set foot out of my house without prayer to undergird me. <3 linda
Sunday, November 15: Come Share Your Talents
Yes. It takes a great deal of prayer to rick the silence of my mind instead of listening to the nagging voice insisting I have more important things to do. Centering prayer demands I risk loving the unknown other (hard) and risk loving myself (harder). Without risk there can be no growth, so I thank God for them and pray the Holy Spirit’s strength to take them. <3 linda
Sunday, November 8: Oil in the Lamp
Our region of the country is attending to the coming winter, watching leaves change, feeling temperatures cool, attending the animals readying for the months ahead. Our country is in special watchfulness still from the national election. I attend to my heart, keeping my lamp as trim and full as I can, so when I discern through my watchfulness someone needing light, I can provide without cost. <3 linda
Sunday November 1: Such is the Kingdom
Can I open my heart and let “those others” in, too? In a word, yes. Each centering prayer time I open my heart to all others, past, present and to come, as Father Keating taught so well. Fidelity to the practice, show up every day, pray and do the next practical thing. <3 linda
