Author: Marjorie George

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

To be a Christian in our culture is no easy thing, because it demands of us to live in faith, instead of fear; to live in hope, instead of despair; to live in love, instead of enmity. The narrow gate is difficult to pass through because it is so much easier to live in fear than faith. But that is not the invitation we have received, for the One who invites us to follow through the narrow gate is the same one who promises abundance of life to those who do follow.

-Br. James Koester
Society of Saint John the Evangelist

August 10, 2021

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

There is no telling where God may turn up next–around what sudden bend of the path if you happen to have your eyes and ears open. 

-Frederick Buechner, Eyes of the Heart

From Well for the journey

This Week:

• Bodies may give out, but souls don’t wrinkle
• Elders can bring a divided world together
• From the Olympics, keep running
• 70 as a welcome time
• The brain helps us age

Souls Don’t Wrinkle

Older women have the luxury of shedding excess baggage: pride of looks, what others think, looking foolish. But the biblical Sarah and Elizabeth show us that souls don’t wrinkle. Read more.

From Joanna Seibert in Daily Something.

Elders Are Bridges

The archetype of the elder – who stands with one foot on the ground of survival and the other in the realm of great imagination – is needed more than ever as the world becomes increasingly divided. Read the essay.

By Michael Meade in Mosaic Voices.

Get Up and Go On Together

The take-away from the Olympics for Diana Butler Bass was when Sifan Hassan fell, got up, kept running, and finished first in the qualifying heat of the women’s 1,500 meter race. Our communities need that kind of resilience, says Bass, if we are going to meet the crises of these days.  Read the essay.

From The Cottage. 

The Joy of Being a Woman in Her Seventies

When we say, “I’m not old,” we generally mean, “I don’t feel old, I don’t fit the stereotype of what it means to be an old woman.”  We hesitate to admit we are old in the ageism culture of our society.   Read the essay. 

By Mary Pipher found in Daily Good.

Keys to Aging Well

Aging does not have to be a period of decline and loss and irrelevance, says Daniel Levitin in a PBS interview. It can be “a period of potentially renewed engagement, energy and meaningful activities.” Levitin,  a neuroscientist, examines what happens in the brain as we age and finds good news. Watch the video or read the transcript.

Found in Daily Good.

Gathered Wisdom is an offering of The Wisdom Years, a ministry devoted to the spiritual journey of the last third of our lives. Sign up to subscribe to Gathered Wisdom and learn more about us at The Wisdom Years. Or send an email to Marjorie George at marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com.

Inspiration and resources for the journey, gathered from websites, books, and pass-alongs that have been shared with us. From The Wisdom Years – Spirituality for the Last Third of Our Lives.

Gathered Wisdom is taking a break for the next two weeks. We will be back on July 13 with more poetry, reflections, videos, and recommended online courses for you.

And if it’s true we are alone,
we are alone together
the way blades of grass
are alone, but exist as a field…
Alone as we are, our small voices
weave into the one big conversation.
Our actions are essential
to the one infinite story of what it is
to be alive.

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, ahundredfallingveils.com

Found in Well for the Journey, Daily Faith Reflection, June 29, 2021

Trusting Our Inner Authority

By Richard Rohr
From Center for Action and Contemplation

“Everyone has access to an inner experience of God, but we don’t always recognize those experiences for what they are,” says Richard Rohr. Scripture and tradition are usually our outer authority, but our experience leads to our inner authority. We need both, says Rohr, for true spiritual wisdom. 

Read the reflection.

More from Center for Action and Contemplation.

Speaking the Language of God 

By Br. James Koester
From Society of St John the Evangelist

Brother James confesses his inability to learn another language. In school, he recalls, every time he tried to learn French, or Greek, or Latin, he struggled all year to learn a few basics, scrape by with a pass at the end of the school year, and then forget everything over the summer. “I would start again from square one, once again, each Fall,” he says. So considering the Pentecost event, Brother James has realized the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost then, was not so much the gift of speaking foreign languages, but the gift of comprehension that resulted in unity and understanding.”

Read or listen to the sermon.

More from Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Loving-Kindness Meditation

From Joanna Seibert

Deacon Joanna Seibert offers a meditation that invites loving-kindness to ourselves and to others in our lives. The words are: “May I be peaceful. May I be happy. May I be safe.”  Notice reactions to this meditation, says Joanna. “Accept what you are noticing. Be aware of thoughts, emotions, or responses to this meditation or to people you directed your meditation.  This is the practice of mindfulness.”

Practice the meditation.

More from Joanna Seibert.

Revelations of 12 Living Artists

With Roger Housde
An e-course from Spirituality and Practice
Monday, July 12 – Friday, August 06

This one-month e-course from Spirituality and Practice  will look at the work of 12 artists of various ages from around the world who are blurring the boundaries between art and social cultural action, art and everyday materials, and traditional and experimental art forms. The course will focus on how an artist’s paintings speak to our perceptions of self, beauty, vision, and meaning.

For more information and to register.

Letting Go – 2021

Letting Go – 2021
An e-course from Spirituality and Practice
July 12 – August 1
with Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

While our culture teaches us to acquire things, wisdom teachers emphasize letting go. By giving, releasing, and clearing out things, we open up new pathways for the Divine energies to enter and transform us. This e-course will include 21 daily emails with nuggets of spiritual wisdom and related exercises to help you practice letting go.

For more information and to register.

More from Spirituality and Practice.

Summer Online Retreats

From Trinity Church Wall Street

Retreats are free and open to all. There is no registration required.
Each retreat takes place over five half-hour sessions throughout the weekend on the Trinity Retreat Center Facebook page at these times EDT:
Friday: 8pm | Saturday: 10am, 2pm, 8pm | Sunday: 4pm

A Table in the Wilderness: Discovering God in Unexpected Places
with the Rev. Marcus George Halley, Episcopal Church of Connecticut
Friday, July 9–Sunday, July 11 

This retreat includes contemplative practices such as lectio divina, a modified Ignatian Examen, and journaling.

For more information.

REAL Retreat: Cultivating Respectful Relationships, Excellence, Authenticity, and Love
with Dr. Sandra Montes, Union Theological Seminary
Friday, July 23–Sunday, July 25 

Explore why respectful relationships, excellence, authenticity, and love are important for our spiritual growth and how they can help us live in community.

For more information.

Refuge and Resilience: An LGBTQ+ Retreat
with the Rev. Matt Welsch, Trinity Church Wall Street
Friday, August 6–Sunday, August 8 

In this retreat, we’ll reflect on the idea of refuge and how we might draw on places of sanctuary to find strength and resilience in our unique, God-given identities. 

For more information.

Returning To The World

The Being with the Divine Series 
An online conversation with Paula D’Arcy
From Eremos
Thursday, Aug. 12
7:00pm – 8:30pm CDT

Our world will never go back to the way it was in early 2020. Many are exhausted and grieving losses, wondering where God or the Divine is as we continue to grapple with tremendous change. Paula invites us forward with our heart as our guide – taking the gifts of wisdom we’ve gained these past 18 months and leaving behind what no longer serves us.

For more information and registration link.

More about Eremos.

If you have something to add to Gathered Wisdom, send it to Marjorie George at
marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com

Gathered Wisdom is from The Wisdom Years, a ministry that invites older adults to deepening spirituality in the last third of their lives.

If someone forwarded this to you, learn more about The Wisdom Years and subscribe to the site at wisdomyears.org.

Like us on Facebook – The Wisdom Years.

Inspiration and resources for the journey, gathered from websites, books, and pass-alongs that have been shared with us. From The Wisdom Years – Spirituality for the Last Third of Our Lives.

Collaborate

How do you want to end up? At the end of today? At the end of your life? This requires intention. We have in God both partnership and provision for the cultivation of our soul. God’s invitation is to collaborate – to co-labor – with God in the cultivation of our soul: in our growing whole, free, and real.

Read more.

-Br. Curtis Almquist
Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Either, Or, and Metaphors

“Our English language divides the world into nouns and verbs or ‘things’ and ‘actions.’ This structure makes us naturally start to compare, compete, and try to control our perceptions.” – Carol Folbre.

Read the rest of this reflection on our Facebook page. Find us at “The Wisdom Years.” Search for the page, not the group.

Practicing What We Preach and Fear

By Joanna Seibert

Are we living the gospel or just talking about it? As Christians, we say we respect the dignity of every human being, but our homes and our pews all look like us. Is fear of losing what we have fostering  a scarcity mentality? “Living out of gratitude rather than fear can help us practice what we preach,” says Joanna.

Read the reflection.

More from Joanna Seibert.

Fine art of Christian living

By Joan Chittister
From Vision and Viewpoint newsletter

It is what we do, how we live, where we invest our time in the ordinary days that are the foundation of our Christian lives.  The church is currently in the liturgical season of “Ordinary Time,” named for the ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.) used to name and count the Sundays – such as the Third Sunday after Pentecost. “But the truth is that there is nothing ordinary—if by ordinary we mean inferior or less important—about a period such as this at all,” says Sister Joan Chittister.  “This time is the extraordinary period of coming to see the world through the eyes of Jesus. It is the period when we determine how we ourselves will act from now on.”

Read the entire reflection.

More from Joan Chittister.

Listening to the Wisdom of Nature

By Jan Blencowe
From Kolbe Times newsletter

“Silent time in nature is a necessity for me,” says artist and writer Jan Blencowe. She adds that scripture reports stones speaking and listening, trees clapping their hands, and other acts of nature alive.  “Nature has been commissioned by her Creator to illuminate and instruct. I sit at her feet and eagerly listen.”

Read the reflection.

This issue of Kolbe Times focuses on wisdom. Read More.

Finding Holiness in the Sanctuary of Difference

By Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Society of St. John the Evangelist

How many of us think that our lives would be better if one particular person just went away? As Bishop Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury said, “A great deal of our politics, our ecclesiastical life, often our personal life as well, is dominated by the assumption that everything would be all right, if only some people would go away.” And too often we use our power to make that happen.

Read or listen to the reflection.

More from Society of St. John The Evangelist.

Streams of Living Water

A Renovare podcast with Richard Foster and James Catford

Richard Foster, author of the groundbreaking book Celebration of Discipline, calls them “streams of living water,” by which he means six great charisms of different church traditions. They are, says Nathan Foster, “treasures tucked away” in various denominations: the contemplative tradition, the holiness tradition, the charismatic tradition, the social justice tradition, the evangelical tradition, and the incarnational tradition. In this podcast, Richard Foster and James Catford discuss how the traditions weave together.

Listen to the podcast.

More from Renovare.

Beginning Again: Benedictine Wisdom for Living with Illness

An online course From Oblate Seminary
With Mary Earle and Ron Rolheiser

Tuesdays, Sept 14 – Nov 2, 9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (Central Time) 

“Particularly as we grow older, many of us discover that we live with ailments of some sort. These may be minor or they may be demanding chronic conditions or even terminal diagnoses. The challenge becomes, as one person put it, “to give the mess some meaning.” Using Beginning Again: Benedictine Wisdom for Living with Illness by Mary C. Earle, as our text, we will explore ways of crafting a rule of life informed by living with the illness. Class sessions will include prayer and meditation, teaching, journaling, and small group time.”

For more info and to register.

More events from Oblate Seminary.

If you have something to add to Gathered Wisdom, send it to Marjorie George at
marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com

Gathered Wisdom is from The Wisdom Years, a ministry that invites older adults to deepening spirituality in the last third of their lives.

If someone forwarded this to you, learn more about The Wisdom Years and subscribe to the site at wisdomyears.org.

Like us on Facebook – The Wisdom Years.

 

A weekly collection of inspiration and resources for the journey, gathered from websites, books, and pass-alongs that have been shared with us. From The Wisdom Years – Spirituality for the Last Third of Our Lives.

God’s Seedy People

By the Rev. Mike Marsh
From Interrupting the Silence

One of the things we learn in our wisdom years is that if we are growing we are changing. In his sermon on the parable of the farmer who sows seeds, Mike Marsh asks his listeners: “What seeds have germinated and taken root in you? What new sprouts are coming up in you? Where is growth taking place and what does that look like?” 

Read the sermon. 

More from Interrupting the Silence.

Overcoming Anxiety

A Renovare podcast with professor J. P. Moreland

When professor J. P. Moreland suffered a severe panic attack,  he turned to therapy, medicine, friends, Bible reading, and prayer, and he recovered. But when he suffered another attack ten years later, he devoured dozens of books on anxiety and spiritual formation, and prayerfully put into practice what he learned, including that it takes a long time to learn how to “cast all our anxiety on God” (1 Pet 5).

Listen to the podcast.

More from Renovare.

Authentic Living

A Green Renaissance film
Found on A Network for Grateful Living

“What are you here for? What are you living for? We’re here to do something, and it starts from being able to listen to that little voice inside,” says Nirmala Nair.  We are all here to do something, says Nirmala.  

Authenticity is being able to take the risk, “to follow one’s heart, and make mistakes and learn from that.”

Watch the video.

Green Renaissance produces short films that uplift the personal stories of ordinary people. Learn more about Green Renaissance. 

Learn more about A Network for Grateful Living.

Disciples with Many Faces

By Fr. Ron Rolheiser

In the gospel stories, we see that different individuals had different ways of connecting to Jesus, says Rolheiser. Not all were apostles or disciples.  Some who did not even follow him contributed to his cause.  “Each of us has his or her own history of being graced and wounded, formed and deformed, and so we all come to adulthood with very different capacities to see, understand, love, accept love, and give ourselves over to someone or something beyond us.”

Read the reflection.

More from Ron Rolheiser’s blog. 

Image Gently

By Joanna Seibert

Joanna writes of a friend, a pediatric radiologist, who heads an organization that works with physicians, parents, and medical organizations to  encourage using the least amount of radiation when performing tests on children. This effort, says Joanna, “is showing us how we can change the world by communicating and dialoguing with all people who share a special interest.” This concept is equally important in our spiritual lives. “We find more answers to our spiritual questions in community; whereas often we cannot understand our concerns by ourselves.”

Read the short reflection.

More from Joanna Seibert.