Gathered Wisdom, July 5

A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey.  From The Wisdom Years.

Hope is not a denial of reality . . . Hope is a series of small actions that transform darkness into light.
It is putting one foot in front of the other when we can find no reason to do so at all.

Joan Chittister, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

God’s Invitations to Be Transformed as We Age

As we age, we ask different questions. “Who am I now that I am old?” “What do I do with the vulnerability and diminishment I feel?” Author Alice Fryling ponders these questions and finds that God’s invitation now is to transformation. 

Read the essay.

From Renovare.

Sweeping My Heart

Sweeping the floor and cleaning toilets was what she had worked so hard to avoid doing, she thought. Then the ancestors came to her.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

We make a difference

How do we spill light in our broken world? By realizing that everything our shadow falls on has the capacity to be whole. “The bountiful gifts of life—love, compassion, wisdom, joy, courage, creativity and presence—happen when they spill from real and authentic (and yes, wounded and broken) lives,” says Terry Hershey.

Read the reflection.

From Terry Hershey.

Reality as Communion

“Until and unless Christ is experienced as a living relationship between people, the gospel remains largely an abstraction” says Fr. Richard Rohr. In the Trinity we see God in relationship; just so we are called to relationship.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation. 

Welcoming the Stranger

Why is it that the Hebrew prophets placed so much emphasis on social justice? Because God has commanded God’s people to not forget the “orphans, widows, and strangers “ in the land. In this reflection originally written in 2017 and re-released last month, Fr. Ron Rolheiser points out what remains true today: there is no Christian basis for not welcoming the stranger. 

Read the reflection.

From Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives.

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