Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 5, 2023

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

Learning how to be still,
to really be still and let life happen –
that stillness becomes a radiance.

-Morgan Freeman, actor and producer
From Well for the Journey

Give us grace to cast away
the things designed to lead astray,
the things that of necessity
distract our hearts most easily,

Read the rest of the poem.

From Joanna Seibert’s blog.

Compassion, says Jay Litvin, is not the same as sympathy or empathy. It is not limited as a response to suffering, but rather is a response to life itself. It is a quality that one would live with “in every situation, with every person, rather than only with one who is in distress.”

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

In the second half of life, even though there is suffering, there is now “a changed capacity to hold it creatively and with less anxiety,” says Richard Rohr, adding, “In the second half of life, it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor.” 

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

How hard it was for the little boy to accept that he would not get the Lionel train set for Christmas this year. He had so wanted it, but father was in the hospital and money was tight. Then he discovered that the whole word is a Lionel train set.

Read the reflection.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

God is not, first of all, a formula, a dogma, a creedal statement, or a metaphysics that demands our assent,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “God is a flow of living relationships, a trinity, a family of life that we can enter, taste, breathe within, and let flow through us.”

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser’s blog.

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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