Thinking about prayer. For me, prayer is simple thankfulness, gratitude for the gift of life. Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “Prayer is a practice – not a topic for discussion.”
Here is a prayer from Marv and Nancy Hiles that is used often on their Iona Retreats at Santa Sabina in California. It is inclusive, ecumenical, free and open. You may want to read the prayer slowly and aloud.
O God before me, O God behind me,
O God above me, O God beneath me.
Unnamable God in whom I live, move,
and have my being.
Guide me in the currents of the river
and in the twisting of the road.
Be thou the joy of my days,
the light of my nights.
Be the end of my beginning,
the beginning in my end.
Deep Peace of God be with you always.
We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Compassionate Be
Boldly Be
These are hard times for many. The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor has been voted one of the 10 best preachers in our country. She is clear, well grounded, and brief.
Moving into a new year – this is exciting. Be open to awe and wonder.
I want to share a list of words with you and invite you to look them over carefully. See if there are three words that perhaps call out to you. Three words that resonate within you. Consider how these three words might assist you in really bringing forth something new within you in the coming year. Little prompts.
Put the three words in proper sequence for you and write them on a piece of paper. Place them somewhere so that you will see them every day. The choice is always yours. My wife and I have picked our three words and would be happy to talk with you about your yours. Please feel free to reach out. Trust the process.
Look
Remember
Show Up
Respond
Expand
Focus
Ask
Relate
Imagine
Thrive
Abide
Encourage
Wake Up
Breathe
Experience
Become
Beautify
Delight
Love
Receive
Notice
Watch
Act
Risk
Heal
Thank
Initiate
Consecrate
Pray
With love and respect for you going boldly forward into the new year.
We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Compassionate Be
Boldly Be
“We believe in one God who is over all and through all and in all.” [Ephesians 4:6]
Somehow in our early education we were taught that God was up there in heaven, or somewhere else, observing, often judging and condemning us while we were down here on earth, and some would add don’t forget there was a hell below us. In the last three score and ten years, new theology has broken through. The Thomas Keating Naropa interview (which is below) is well worth listening to. We know that everything is changing. Our theology is changing. Barbara Brown Taylor writes about a radical shift in her theology, her view of God, that has been brought about by her exposure to quantum physics.
“Where is God in this picture? All over the place. Up there. Down here. Inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light – not captured in them, as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them, but revealed in that singular, vast net of relationship that animates everything that is. It is not enough for me to proclaim that God is responsible for all this unity. Instead, I want to proclaim that God is unity – the very energy, the very intelligence, the very elegance and passion that make it all go. This is the God who is not somewhere (up there, down here) but everywhere, the God who may be prayed to in all directions at once. This does not sound like the self-identification of a deity who stands over reality and sometimes stirs it with a stick. For a moment, we see through a glass darkly. We live in the illusion that we are all separate ‘I am’s’. When the fog finally clears, we shall know there is only One.”
-From The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion by Barbara Brown Taylor
“May they all be one.” -Jesus in John 17:21
Friends, we are in the midst of a reformation that many think will be bigger than the protestant reformation.
I welcome your thoughtful responses in the comment section below.
So who are we? “We are God’s words,” wrote Thomas Merton. “We echo him, we signify and contain him.”
Catherine of Genoa commented, “My deepest me is God.”
In the words of the scripture, “We live and move and have our being in God.” [Acts 17:28]
We are awakening to who we are in God and to who God is in us.
Below, the video is deeply ecumenical, new, positive and inclusive – worth listening to.
“Our true reality is in our identity and unity with all life.”
-Joseph Campbell
Soul force and presence
Coming Home: A Fall Contemplative Retreat
In the tradition of the Iona Retreats founded by Marv and Nancy Hiles.
“The path of real life moves from one shelter to another. We are not drifters or homeless, but seekers, pilgrims, itinerants of a hidden impulse”
–All the Days of My Life by Marv and Nancy Hiles
Robert and Nina Close announce a very special contemplative retreat at the Santa Sabine Retreat Center where they have attended for many years. Inspired by the retreats led by Marv and Nancy Hiles, quoted often in the Soul Nuggets. This retreat will blend quiet time in a perfect location, deep community, chapel gatherings, art process with Debbie Ryon, and more – all centered around the theme of “Coming Home.” Throughout our lives, that longing to be at home – with ourselves, with others – manifests in many different ways, and has much to teach us. And amidst change and transition, a sense of “homeground” is vital and can show up in many ways.
We hope that you might feel led to join us at Santa Sabina Retreat Center. Here is the information for taking the next step:
Dates: Thursday, November 13th to Sunday, November 16, 2014
Location: Santa Sabina Retreat Center, San Rafael, CA
Cost: $485 for a single room / $425 per person for a double room.
Meals: All meals are included in the total cost.
Space for the retreat is limited and is limited to a first come, first serve basis.
Contact: Are you ready to register? Do you want to have more information? Please contact Nina Frost at: nhfrost at aol dot com or call: 347-546-4029.
On Wednesdays, I usually attend a meditation group at the St. James UCC in Lovettsville, VA. There is a short reading, followed by 45 minutes of silence, followed by 45 minutes of prayerful sharing of our lives and our responses. These people are deep rivers.
We are working our way through Healing Into Life and Death by Stephen Levine. Here is a short sample for your consideration. It is brief – please read it slowly and aloud to yourself.
“Although we speak in terms of ‘taking the path of healing,’ that is certainly not the only way to put it. The great Sioux shaman Black Elk speaks of ‘walking in a sacred manner.’ To walk in a sacred manner is to make an art of life, to attend to each moment as though it were the last, to take each step as though it were the first. To breathe love and awareness into this body, entering the greater body we all share. Seeing that each step must be taken lightly, not with force, not creating more self, becoming more of a ‘doer,’ more of a separate identity, which draws suffering upon itself. To walk in a sacred manner is to let go of our suffering and allow the scintillating ‘thusness’ of each moment to nurture and direct the next step.
When we walk in a sacred manner, nothing throws us off balance for nothing is identified with as self, as the walker, but instead all is experienced as the sacred, as process unfolding, as the divine moment provided for our healing.
In open body, in open mind, in open heart, the possibilities are endless. Healing is to be found everywhere. Each step so precious. Each step a new healing.” (p48)
Friends, it comes to me that if we all walked in this sacred manner it just might reduce the injustice and violence that is perpetrated upon so many of our brothers and sisters in the human family. And others might follow in our way.
I would point out something about silence – that a moment of silence is always more than we understand.
A – It is opening to the divine in our midst.
B – It is a moment for the small self to recede.
C – It is a moment for your soul to surface.
D – It is a moment for you to awaken to the Presence.
May you gift yourself with moments of silence this day.
At a conference at Kanuga with John Philip Newell and Barbara Brown Taylor, this music was a major part of the event as Fran McKendree was the minister of music. Listen to his voice and his contemplative message. It may change the way you walk through life.
May you walk the earth in gladness answering to that of God in everyone.
On walking – I think you will appreciate this great music.
We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Boldly Be
My Spiritual Journey and in Loving Memory of my son, Alex. The lessons God asks us to learn as a result of tragedy such as how to accept a new vision of life.
An Occasional Blog of Devotionals Inspired by A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, The Way of Mastery, Choose Only Love, The Way of the Marys, and The Age of the Heart. . .with Celia Hales - https://www.amazon.com/author/celiahales
Soul Nugget 