A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey. From The Wisdom Years.
Formation
A person’s spiritual life is formed by all manner of processes working in intricate, entangled ways. Some aspects of formation are a process of addition, things like absorbing scripture and prayer. And some are a process of subtraction, letting go of those things which are not life-giving, relinquishing attempts to control what we cannot. Some erosion is important to wear away what cannot, what should not endure.
-Br. Todd Blackham
Society of Saint John the Evangelist
Prayer as Seeking Depth
When Jesus’ disciples asked him to “teach us to pray,” they weren’t looking for the ability to heal or do miraculous works. Rather, they saw Jesus’ depth connection to God and wanted that for themselves.
From the blog of Fr. Ron Rolheiser.
Cognitive Bypassing
Can we change our emotions by thinking hard enough? Can we move our guts into our heads? No, says Dr. Russell Wilson. “The uncomfortable truth is that there is a component of painful emotions that simply must be felt, as hard as that may be to hear.”
From Awakin’.
On Meeting Loss, Finding Life
The continuing pandemic has brought loss and grief into every corner of our lives and our world. Perhaps we are past the point, early on, when we were anxious for life to return to “normal.” It is not going to, says Roshi Joan Halifax, and “with the widespread losses and uncertainty we now face, it is essential that we allow ourselves to grieve and to work with our fear in a wise and brave way –collectively, as well as on our own.
Read this address given by Roshi Joan Halifax on October 25, 2021, as she received the Sandy MacKinnon Award from Covenant Health, Edmonton, Canada.
From Daily Good.
Courage
Courage, says poet David Whyte, is not about bravely facing outrageously frightening situations. It is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.
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