Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Teach us

Teach us to welcome others as you welcomed us, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to be deterred by neither rule nor law in showing your love, compassion, and grace to every single person we meet. Teach us to love, Lord. Amen.

~from Soujourner's Verse and Voice email ~

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

All this hurrying soon will be over.
Only when we tarry do we touch the holy.

~Rainer Maria Rilke~

Monday, June 14, 2010

Reconciliation

Reconciliation begins not first with others but with ourselves: by allowing Jesus to clean us -- to forgive us, to love us.
~Mother Teresa~

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Those who love you.....

Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.
~African saying~

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Listening

Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within another person.
~Rachel Naomi Remen~

Friday, May 21, 2010

Misery

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable...but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
~Agatha Christie~

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Mistakes

Every mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
Pearl S. Buck

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Love of God


The love of God, unutterable and perfect,
          flows into a pure soul the way that light
          rushes into a transparent object.
The more love that it finds, the more it gives
          itself; so that, as we grow clear and open,
          the more complete the joy of heaven is.
And the more souls who resonate together,
          the greater the intensity of their love,
          and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.
By Dante Alighieri (1265? - 1321) English version by Stephen Mitchell

Monday, May 3, 2010

Spirituality


Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being.
Brother David Steindl-Rast

Sunday, May 2, 2010

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.
Crowfoot, a leader of the Blackfoot nation

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.” -Ben Franklin

Friday, April 30, 2010

Darkness

Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
Joan Chittister Uncommon Gratitude

Monday, April 26, 2010

Giving life through forgiveness

 
"To give life to people is to reveal to them
that they are loved just as they are by God,
with the mixture of good and evil,
light and darkness that is in them:
that the stone in front of their tomb
in which all the dirt of their lives has been hidden,
can be rolled away.
They are forgiven;
they can live in freedom."
Jean Vanier

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Religion

Religion isn’t about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness.

~Karen Armstrong~

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Serve


If you really want to be powerful, if you really want to be influential, then just serve.
- Rev. Willie Barrow

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Reconciliation

"Reconciliation is to understand both sides;
to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side,
and then go to the other side
and describe the suffering being endured by the first side."
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Monday, April 19, 2010

What prayer is not....

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want,
but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine.
~Kathleen Norris (1947- )

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Prayer for Restoration from Fatigue

Prayer for Restoration from Fatigue“Gracious God, at times my life seems to be too much. Too full. Too demanding. Too consuming. Everything feels necessary, even important, but weariness creeps across my body and soul like storm clouds gathering in an open sky. As my body is depleted of energy, my mind loses interest in what normally enthuses me. My tired soul sags as if it were a balloon losing its air. Sometimes I feel so spent that even restorative sleep seems to elude me. Help me sort the truly important from what only seems important. Give me courage to say no to what drains rather than feeds me. Help me find brief moments to sit in perfect stillness while you massage my soul. And, when I go to my nightly sleeping place, wrap your darkness around me like the softest cloak, so that I may sleep peacefully in your embrace. I ask this for the sake of your love. Amen.”

from Explore Faith - Nightime Prayer

When despair for the world - Wendell Berry

"When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water..." -Wendell Berry