Gathered Wisdom, Mar 12, 2024

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

Gather up whatever has tumbled in the waves…
It all comes down to this:
In our imperfect world, we are meant to repair and stitch together
what beauty there is…

-Stuart Kestenbaum, “Holding the Light,” Only Now
Found in Well for the Journey

The cigar store manager took a photo of the store every day. To the casual observer, they all looked the same. You had to slow down and look deeply to see the differences. That’s what spiritual literacy is like.

Read the reflection.

From Daily Good.

Quaker spirituality has a phrase for discernment – “as way opens.” It means paying attention to which path feels right and which one is filled with obstacles. When a decision has to be made, even with a deadline looming,  there must still be a pause, a way of checking in with our heart and our own deep knowing.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

On average, 90,000 Christians are martyred every decade. While few of us will be called to die physically for Christ, all of us will be given the opportunity to be Christ’s witnesses. To do that, says Brother Curtis Almquist, something will have to die.

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

You know that little indentation just below your nose and above your mouth? Some say that’s where God kissed you before you were born. Once we knew perfect oneness, perfect truth, perfect goodness, and perfect beauty. We long to know them again.

Read the essay.

From Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

When the east wind
breathes into your soul,
and the morning sun
warms your face.

Pause in the solitude.
Sink into stillness,

Read the rest of the poem.

From The Contemplative Mystic.

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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Gathered Wisdom, Feb 13, 2024

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

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos
where you find
the peace
you did not think possible
and see what shimmers
beneath the storm

-Jan Richardson, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings

As Bro. Curtis Almquist reminds us, “Lent is upon us.” Ash Wednesday is tomorrow. We remember the time Jesus spent in the wilderness before he began his public ministry. It was a time for Jesus “to re-align himself to why God had given him life: to claim the right purpose, the right power, the right voice God had given him.” The focus of Lent, says Bro. Almquist, “can create space anew for the light, and life, and love to Jesus to teem in us and through us to our desperately broken world. Lent is to help us.”

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.
Visit their website for their Lenten study offering.

Ilia Delio sees love as a fire of transformation. God’s fire, she says, “is destructive because it can swiftly eliminate all self-illusions, grandiose ideas, ego-inflation, and self-centeredness.” God’s fire will forge us into an ever-radiant new presence of God because God is forever being born within us.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.
CAC will offer virtual sit meditations during Lent. Learn more here.

God is not against people having wealth – of money or talent or strength. The problem is that our wealth makes us think that we are self-sufficient, that we don’t need God. Jesus told us to be like little children because they understand that they need help.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser.

Were the desert mothers and fathers just a set of cranky, people-hating monastics? Or did they really give up all they had and move into caves the better to love God?

Read the book excerpt.

From Renovare.

Benedict cautions us to “listen with the ear of your heart.” This is the call to the spiritual life, says Deacon Joanna Seibert. It is a way to live in the world still connected to God. “First, we are to listen and pay attention. We are to use the ear of our hearts. We are to connect to something outside ourselves, hearing and loving. We hear and learn about love in a community outside of ourselves.”

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

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

If this post was forwarded to you, sign up to receive Gathered Wisdom in your email by subscribing at wisdomyears.org.

To learn more visit our website.