Thursday, January 10, 2013

Move In Day


It's move in day.  David and I are starting to put our "stuff" into our 5th wheel which is parked in our daughter's sideyard.  We've been living in her spare bedroom since October so now we're feeling like we are taking up an extravagant amount of space.  And I've brought the wise guys over.  I took them out of their box and placed them in front of the kitchen window to ease them into their new digs.  So far they haven't said anything.  Can't tell if they are mad or in shock.  Plus I haven't quite figured out how to break the news that they missed the Feast of the Epiphany.  But they are the wise men.  They probably already know that.  Which explains the silence.

So I'll leave you with a quote from their Thomas Merton book - the only reading material they've had in their box for the last 3 months:


"When I am liberated by silence,
when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life,
but in the living of it,
I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively, no distraction.
My whole life becomes a prayer.
My whole silence is full of prayer.
The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer."

-Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, p.103



Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year


I receive this email everyday from Inward/Outward: Church of the Savior....
and yesterday's’s is perfect in an “examen” sort of way:
Meaning, what were the consolations of your year? 
What were the desolations of your year?
I encourage each of us to set aside some time in the next couple of days
to ponder some (or all ) of these questions.
Share your thoughts with a friend. I am going to encourage my spiritual directees to do this too!





Year-ending, Year-beginning
Elizabeth O'Connor
Use New Year's Eve or New Year's Day as a time of reflection on the year gone and the year to come:
What took place in your home relations? Your work relations? Your church relations?
What events in the larger community of city, country and world most captured your attention?
 
Who were the significant people in your life? What books and art instructed your mind and heart?
 
Did you create anything this year? Did you make any new discoveries about yourself? How were you gift last year to a person, a community or an institution?
 
What was your greatest joy in this year gone? What was your greatest sorrow? What caused you the most disappointment? What caused you the most sadness?
 
In what areas of your life did you grow? Were these areas related to your joy or your pain?
 
What are your regrets? How would you do things differently, if you could live the year again? What did you learn?
 
Did you have a recurring dream? What theme or themes ran through your year?
 
Did you grow in your capacity to be a person in community--to bear your own burdens, to let others bear theirs? Did you have sufficient time apart with yourself?
 
Did you root your life more firmly in Scripture? Did you grow in your understanding of yourself? What was your most important insight? Did God seem near or far off?
 
How do you want to create the new year? What kind of commitment do you want to make to yourself? Your community? To the oppressed people of the world?
How do the questions about commitment make you feel? Angry? Challenged? Hopeful?
 
Who are the people with whom you would like to deepen your relationships in the year to come? Do you have relationships that need to be healed?
What can you do to heal your own heart? What can others do to assist in your healing?
 
Is there a special piece of inward work that you would like to accomplish? Is there a special outward work? What are the goals that seem important to you?
What are your hopes? What are your fears? What are the immediate first steps that you can take toward the goals that seem important to you?
 
We might have a time of prayer in which to give thanks for all the events of the year gone, and to ask that the God through whose fingers they were filtered will continue to bless them to our use. They are now the bread of our life--part of all that we have to share with another when we share what is ours to give away.
Source: Letters to Scattered Pilgrims
Add your thoughts at inward/outward

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