Wrapping Ourselves in Nature this Fall

Two offerings from The Wisdom Years – a fall Quiet Day and an Advent book study – will draw us into the bounties and blessings of nature this fall.  Our fall Quiet Day, actually a morning, will offer opportunity to wander the beautiful grounds of Cathedral Park in San Antonio on Nov. 30. Click here for the details.

Our Advent study will embrace daily meditations from the animals using Gayle Boss’s All Creation Waits. We gather on Thursdays Dec. 7, 14, and 21 on Zoom for conversation. Click here for details.

We Belong to Each Other

A child is shot on the streets of Sarajevo.  A man leans down to comfort her and to get her to a hospital. She dies anyway. Is she your child? a reporter asks. “No,” says the man. “But aren’t they all our children?”

Read the story.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

In Praise of Silence

We all need silence in our lives, but it is not that simple. We also need public life. Spiritual writers in the past have often given the  “too-simple impression that God and spiritual depth were only found in silence,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser “as if the joys of human work, conversation, celebration, family, and community were somehow opposed to spiritual growth.”

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser.

The Practice Before The Practice

 “A life of spirit, regardless of the path we choose, begins with a person’s acceptance that they are part of something larger than themselves,” says Mark Nepo in this essay. “We want to know who we really are and to know the truth of our existence and our connection to a living Universe.” 

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

The Yellow Umbrella

A little girl goes with her mother to take used toys to an orphanage. But it is her yellow umbrella that recalls memories for one little boy.

Watch this short animated video.

From Karmatube.

Wrapping Ourselves in Nature this Fall

Two offerings from The Wisdom Years – a fall Quiet Day and an Advent book study – will draw us into the bounties and blessings of nature this fall.  Our fall Quiet Day, actually a morning, will offer opportunity to wander the beautiful grounds of Cathedral Park in San Antonio on Nov. 30. Click here for the details.

Our Advent study will embrace daily meditations from the animals using Gayle Boss’s All Creation Waits. We gather on Thursdays Dec. 7, 14, and 21 on Zoom for conversation. Click here for details.

Kintsugi: The Golden Joinery of Love

This from a woman who learned how to overcome pain and scars through the ancient Japanese process of repairing broken pottery. It is long but a must-read.

Read the story.

Found in Daily Good.

When Winnie The Pooh Was Scared

Who does not love the oh-so-lovable Winnie the Pooh? But that gentle, mellow bear also gets scared sometimes.  Read the response from his little friend Piglet.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

Encouragement: Heart Therapy

If we live in the northern climates, we can watch – and learn from – the geese as they fly south. But even if we do not see them, we can imagine what Brother Curtis Almquist describes. We see the lesson of encouragement in the sky.

Read or listen to the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

God’s Risk, Our Freedom

Why is God so elusive? Why doesn’t God just rise up and demonstrate for once and for all that God is good and just and powerful? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does evil get away with it? Read Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s response.

Read the reflection.

More about Ron Rolheiser.

Waiting with All Creation

For Advent, the Wisdom Years community will read All Creation Waits by Gayle Boss.  it is a gentle read in which we learn from the animals what it means to wait in darkness for the new creation that is coming to us in the incarnation of God’s self.

For the details, click here.

In the Face of War

It’s a hard time to stay faithful, says Tiffany Clark. it is hard to look with one eye at Christ’s perfect reign in the kingdom of heaven and with the other eye at the mess that comes when humans reject and oppose that kingdom. She offers some suggestions for how to stay faithful and maintain hope.

Read the article.

Found at Renovare.

Our Most Common Sin

We operate, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser, too often out of anger, an anger that parades itself as Godly-virtue, as righteousness, as prophecy, as a healthy, divinely-inspired militancy for truth, for cause, for virtue, for God. The prophets operated always out of love, not out of anger.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser’s blog.

The Soul of Sound and Silence

It takes both the notes and the silence between the notes to make a beautiful piece of music. We remember that Elijah did not find God in the cataclysms of nature but in the silence that followed them. In the silence we realize that God is always with us but we do not always hear it.

Read or listen to the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

En-Lightening

A poem by Tash Shadman

And as I want for
Words to come,
Ideas to flow,
Pain to go,
I suffer my judgment of what is so.

Read the rest of the poem.

From Awakin.

In a Divided World, We Need to Choose Empathy

Jamil Zaki writes about losing a friendship over differing values but realizes that using empathy can restore relationships. Empathy unites individuals, relationships, and teams, says Zaki, but it also can be very fragile. Fortunately there are ways to reignite it.

Read the essay.

From Greater Good Magazine.

Blood and Water Poured Out

“Sometimes the very thing that breaks your heart is also the thing that opens it to warmth and gratitude,” says Ron Rolheiser in this essay about dying. This happens in death, says Fr. Ron. “Our task, in the end, is to do what this man did, die in such a way that our going away is our final gift to those whom we love.”

Read the reflection.

More about Ron Rolheiser.

Choosing the Lowest Place

Jesus shows us the beauty of the downward path, “a path that leads to life and peace and to true greatness,” says Br. David Vryhof of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. Jesus lives a life of humility and teaches us how to do so. Humility is about acknowledging that all we have and all we possess proceeds solely from God’s generous love.

Read the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Gratitude And Acceptance

We can spend all of our time and energy obsessing over past mistakes or fearing what the future will bring. But neither of these option is good for us or for our world. Better to live consciously, moment by moment, giving thanks for each day’s gifts.

Read the short meditation.

From Joanna Seibert.

Appreciation is Generative

When you tend what you value, what you value thrives. Appreciation allows you to become more intimate with what is. And it also changes what is.

Listen to the 3-minute meditation.

From Grateful Living.

Joy to the World

Tomorrow, Oct. 4, is the day we especially remember and give thanks for St. Francis of Assisi. In his sermon on joy for the day, Br. Geoffrey Tristram recalls visiting the town of Assisi in Italy and offers three suggestions for connecting with joy in our lives.

Read or listen to the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Finding God’s Kingdom as We Age

Growing older, says Alice Fryling, is a moving target. Some days we appreciate the ability to spend more time in quiet and less time rushing. Other things, like loss of energy, we don’t welcome. Fryling finds comfort and direction in the words and actions of Jesus.

Read the essay.

From the DePree Center of Fuller Seminary.

At Home in Our Own Skin

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable,” said Madeleine L’Engle. And often, adds Terry Hershey, we are not comfortable in our own skin.

Read the reflection.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

More Than Enough

We think we should be doing more. Our offering to God of our time and energy is too paltry to have significance, we think. Fred Smith reminds us that God has set us in a certain place for a certain task, and no matter how big or small it is, it is enough.

Read the essay.

From The Gathering

Life After Death

Nothing is wasted in nature or in love, says poet Laura Gilpin in this short excerpt from her longer poem.

Read the poem.

Found in Daily Good.

A Cloud Never Dies

Thich Nhat Hanh introduced the concept of mindfulness in his home country of Vietnam and the entire world. His inspiration was his experience of war in his own young life in Vietnam. “A Cloud Never Dies” tells the story of this humble young Vietnamese monk and poet whose wisdom and compassion were forged in the suffering of war.

Watch the biographical video. (It is about 30 minutes long.)

From Karmatube.

There Are Many Voices Beside Ours

For Native Americans, interrupting someone who is talking is seen as bad manners or even stupidity. “People should regard their words as seeds says Ella Cara Deloria, a Yankton Dakota educator. “They should sow them, and then allow them to grow in silence.”

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

The Eight Kinds of Humility to Help You Stay Grounded

Most cultures value humility as a virtue to be emulated. Humility teaches us to see that there is always more to learn and different perspectives to be considered. This articles offers eight different varieties of humility to think about and learn from.

Read the article.

Found in Daily Good.

Gratitude Lists Didn’t Work For Me

Writer Andrea Gibson confesses that “what we are truly craving can only be found with gratitude, and what taught me to be grateful was not what’s sweet about this life, but what’s sour.”

Read the essay.

From Grateful Living.

God is not a Cosmic Egotist

What response is there to God’s staggering generosity in the act of creation? What do we give back to the one who gave us everything? “We give thanks. We bow in honor. We dare to draw near — boldly, because permission has been granted, and trembling because God is infinite personal energy and only fools approach that lightly,” says Brian Morykon of Renovare.

Read the essay.

From Renovare.

Drawing a Picture of God

We each have a picture of God, whether or not we are aware of that. We may believe that God is an unloving tyrant, or a divine candy machine, or a scrupulous bookkeeper of our sins. Dallas Willard has pointed out that since we live at the mercy of our ideas, we would be wise to reflect carefully on those that we have about God.

Read the essay.

From Renovare.

The Practice Before The Practice

A life of spirit, regardless of the path we choose, begins with a person’s acceptance that they are part of something larger than themselves, says Mark Nepo. “We are meaning-seeking creatures,” says Nepo, “looking for what matters though we carry what matters deep within us.”

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

The Framed Infinite

Windows are to be looked through, but often they are just overlooked. A window is “a portal, and a horn of plenty, an altar, an avenue whose significance is vital and imperative to life,” says writer Pavithra Mehta. “if you do not have a meaningful relationship with windows, then it is possible, that you have some difficulty perceiving grace,” she says.

Read the reflection.

From Daily Good.

An Alternate Expression of Love and Trust.

When someone you love is angry with you, it may be that you are the recipient of that person’s anger but not the cause of it. You may be the one safe place where this person can lash out without fear of retaliation and have his or her bitterness absorbed. “But this can be very hard to accept, even when we understand why it’s happening,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. 

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser blog.

Staring Mercy in the Eye

When Brother Jim Woodrum looked at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), he found that the rich man had probably committed no crime in his acquisition of wealth. Rather his was the sin of omission: He never saw Lazarus lying at his gate.

Read or listen to the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.