Tag: last third of life

Gathered Wisdom, Dec 17, 2024

Marjorie George

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

The Wisdom Years wishes you a blessed Christmas as we welcome the Holy One who comes to live among us.

Gathered Wisdom is taking a Christmas break. We will be back in January.

The Mystery of Bethlehem

With the birth of Jesus, new light comes into the world. Our ancestors in the faith knew that we needed this light particularly in winter time “when things seem most dark,” says Br. James Koester.

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Staying Awake

“Live as if you were going to die tomorrow,” say some. But can we really do that? It’s hard to be present to every moment, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. Having rituals helps. Starting each day with prayer is essential.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser blog.

A New Vision of God

For most of us, God will have the same characteristics as our mothers and fathers.  If our father was stern, God will be stern. “Jesus inserted into the human imagination a radical new vision of God—non-dominating, nonviolent, supreme in service, and self-giving,” says Brian McLaren.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Happiness Break: 5 Minutes of Gratitude

This practice guides you to take a good look at the things in your life that make you the most happy. At this resource, find more ways to bring gratitude into daily life.

Read the article.

From Greater Good Science Center.

The Sacrament of Joy

The little boys wanted to talk to the ducklings, so of course they got into the pond. “Every day, we are bombarded with the same insistent injunction—the implication that life begins some place other than where we are, right now,” says Terry Hershey. “And we too easily miss the ‘duckling moments.’”

Read the reflection.

From Sabbath Moment.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 10, 2024

Marjorie George

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

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.

-Og Mandino, quoted in A Better Way to Live by Craig Lock

Joseph and the Christmas Story

Like Joseph, stepfather of Jesus, sometimes we need to be willing to live righteously and follow the rules but be open to mystery. “What does one do when God breaks into one’s life in new, previously unimaginable ways?” asks Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser blog.

Sharing Someone Else’s Wound

When have you put yourself in danger to save another person’s life? When has someone done that for you? In World War II a Polish man purposely contracted a disease so he could share his medicine with a Jewish woman in a concentration camp.

Read the story.

From Awakin.

Letting God Be God

Explaining God is impossible and unnecessary. “If God is always Mystery, then God is always in some way the unfamiliar, beyond what we’re used to, beyond our comfort zone, beyond what we can explain or understand,” says Richard Rohr.

Read the reflection.

From  Center for Action and Contemplation.

Kindness

A kindness from a total stranger reminded Joyce Rupp of how often one kindness brings forth others. Like watermelons whose seeds produce more watermelons.

Read the reflection. 

From Joyce Rupp.

If Only

We all have times when we think changing one thing would change everything. If only my boss would give me a chance, we say. If only the children would behave. If only we had more money. If only Messiah would come, thought the Hebrews of Palestine. And he did. And it was they who needed to change.

Read or listen to the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Dec. 3, 2024

Marjorie George

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

Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

-Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance 
Found in Well for the Journey

Preparing For Advent: Watch For The Light

“Christ did not just come as a moral tune-up, self-improvement guru, or spiritual teacher,” writes Deacon Joanna Seibert, quoting from an Advent yearly favorite Watch for the Light. Jesus brings the presence of God within us, which can break through and be born in our hearts today. Watch for the Light is a collection of short essays from some of the best spiritual wisdom over the centuries.

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Redemption Song

We focus on repentance during Advent, but Br. Jim Woodrum calls us also, maybe even more, to the redemption that Christ’s coming offers us. This Advent, “let us heed the call of the prophets,” says Br. Woodrum, “turning towards the suffering of this world, resolving to accept the call to communicate the light, life, and love of our Creator.”

Read the essay.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Story…Our Aging Superpower

We have something to offer as we age – our stories.  “Our years give us perspective and experience, and we have an essential role to offer as storycatchers and storytellers committed to peace- making, reconciliation, and community repair,” says Christina Baldwin.

Read the essay.

From Sageing International.

Subverting Anxiety with Hope

“If to be alive today is to breathe the air of an anxious world, to be a Christian today is to subvert that anxiety with hope,” says Michaela O’Donnell. That is our job this Advent – to bring hope into a hopeless world.

Read the reflection.

From Fuller Seminary De Pree Center.

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov 26, 2024

Marjorie George

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

The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; It is gratitude that makes us joyful.
-Brother David Steidl-Rast, Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer

The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address

The Thanksgiving Address (the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen) is the central prayer and invocation for the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations.) The Address is recited in thanksgiving for the diversity that, like all wonders of Nature, is truly a gift.

Read the Address.

Found at Dance for All People.

The Wedding Banquets

In this week of Thanksgiving when many of us will enjoy plentiful food at family tables, we recall that Jesus used banquets to speak of God’s generosity. “God is clearly into abundance and excess,” says Richard Rohr, “and God’s genuine followers share in that largesse: first in receiving it and resting in it, then in allowing it to flow through them toward the world. 

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Crafton: Living with Limitations

It is true that as we age we lose some abilities. It takes us a little longer to accomplish some tasks, we have to think a little harder to come to a decision, we can’t do the heavy lifting any more. What we must do now is determine how to use the gifts and abilities we do have.

Read the reflection.

From Joanne Seibert.

Matchmakers Connect Teens and Elders.

What do an 82-year-old and a teenager have in common? They are both big basketball fans. That is just one of the things that cements an unlikely friendship fostered by an organization that pairs elders and teens for the benefit of both.

Read the article.

Found in Daily Good.

Advent Hope

Advent begins this Sunday, December 1. In this season of expecting God to fulfill God’s promise of joy and peace, we wait in hope. We are reminded that hope, as Ron Rolheiser says to us,  is a vision of life that guides itself by God’s promise, irrespective of whether the situation looks optimistic or pessimistic at any given time.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser blog.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov. 19, 2024

Marjorie George

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

When people enter into difficult conversations with honest love – able to deeply disagree and be disagreed with, without questioning the human dignity of the other – they have chosen to what they belong: love, reconciliation, and God. 

Br. Lucas Hall, SSJE
Read More

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

This is the Way, Walk in It

“For a path to be a path, you have to be able to see it, more or less, or at least catch glimpses of it, every so often,” says Br. James Koester. “And for that to happen, somebody needs to have walked it ahead of you.” Are you leaving a path for those coming behind you?

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

We Cannot Be Self-Made

We belong to each other; we are created in part by our relationships with each other. The African word for it is ubuntu. “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished.”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

The Tower of Babel

It was at the building of the tower of Babel when suddenly people began to speak in many different languages such that they could no longer understand each other. We no longer speak the same language in this country, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “We can no longer understand each other on virtually every key issue. We no longer share any common truths. Rather, we all have our own truth, our own individual language.” (Painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder created in 1563. Public domain.)

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

The Good News You Might Have Missed

Yes, it’s scary out there. Yep, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But now for some 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.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov 12, 2024

Marjorie George

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

At the deepest levels of our hearts we are all aching, for each other and for the same eternally Loving One who calls us. It would be well, I think, if we could acknowledge this more often to one another.  
-Gerald May, Will and Spirit
Found in Well for the Journey

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

Our Vocation to be Bilingual and Ambidextrous

St. Paul thought that the second coming of Christ would happen in Paul’s lifetime. Clearly it did not. How are we to live, then, in this secular world until we come to eternal life?

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

 

Lessons From A Sunrise

What do you expect from the morning sunrise? What if it’s cloudy and hazy?

Read the brief reflection.

From Interrupting the Silence.

God’s Love Includes Imperfection 

We are living in love if we can maintain a daily yes, says Richard Rohr. “That doesn’t mean we don’t recognize injustice and stand against it, but we don’t let our hearts become hardened and our minds become rigid in its judgments.”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Campaign for kindness

“Choosing kindness isn’t about avoiding our differences but navigating them with respect and compassion,” says a campaign that seeks to navigate faith and politics in a congregation with divided political views.

Read the reflection or listen to the NPR interview.

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.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Nov 5, 2024

Marjorie George

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

In chaos, I choose love.
In conflict, I choose love.
Even to the end, I will choose love.
I will not save the world,
but I will help the world;
I will be a force for good.

-Steve Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light (www.unfoldinglight.net)

Advent Rejoicing

Life is messy. But our God promises to stand with us in the midst of it. That is the message of Advent, says writer and podcaster Kate Bowler. This Advent, the Wisdom Years community will connect with the Advent message using Kate’s offering The Weary World Rejoices. We will read daily devotionals on our own, then come together on Thursdays, Dec. 5, 12 and 19 for an hour of online conversation.

To lean more and sign up to join us, click this link.

Trusting in Christ’s Peace

We need a little good news. Like hearing that however bad the storms of life become, Christ is there to calm the waters and bring peace. “Peace” and “be still” can be our watchwords also, says Bishop Barbara Harris.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Intelligence versus Wisdom

What is the difference between being smart and being wise? “Wisdom is intelligence that’s colored by understanding,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “When intelligence is not informed by empathy, what it produces will generally not contribute to the common good.”

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

Standing in the Gap

How do we stay hopeful in the face of despair and disillusionment—especially when politics threaten to tear us in two? In this podcast, Kate Bowler speaks with Parker Palmer, a writer, teacher, and activist. Palmer brings wisdom from the years of living in this world without letting the bad in it overcome the good.

Listen to the podcast.

From Kate Bowler.

Growing Older

Getting older is about learning how to let go, says Bishop Steven Charleston – even letting go of names and memories we can no longer recall. He places memories with the Holy Spirit, to be recalled on the other side.

Read the short 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.

Gathered Wisdom, Oct 22, 2024

Marjorie George

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

Attention is the most concrete expression of love. 
What we pay attention to thrives. 
What we do not pay attention to withers and dies. 
What will you pay attention to today?

-Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life
Found in Well for the Journey

Called to Love 

What do we do when we are faced with a decision to make? How do we discern what God would have us do? It is a matter of love, says Ruth Haley Barton. The questions to ask is, “What does love call for in this situation? What would love do?”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Come to Me 

It’s not so much that the Church is being persecuted these days as it is that so many people are indifferent to the Church. Jesus met the same obstacle, says Br. David Vryhof of Society of St. John the Evangelist. And yet so many are carrying burdens that Jesus would help with if only people knew to ask and were willing to trust.

Read the reflection.  

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

The Chat Checkout

Few of us willingly choose the slow checkout line at the grocery store. But Dutch grocers now offer a “chat checkout” where people choose the slow lane just for the conversation. The idea is catching on in other locales – in France they are called “Blablabla checkouts.”

Read the article. 

Found in Daily Good.

Forest Dwelling

We can age as wise elders, or we can just age. A program from Oblate Seminary in San Antonio, Texas, has as its aim living into the diminishments of aging in such a way that we live our last precious years with more grace, an open heart, and a deeper awareness of the presence of God.

This series of videos shares some of the wisdom offered by the program.

To learn more about Forest Dwelling.

Facing The Unknown

Trust is our currency and wisdom is our direction says Bishop Steven Charleston. “When we follow the Spirit, the unknown is only a bend in the road.”

Read the reflection.

Found in Joanna Seibert blog.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Oct 8, 2024

Marjorie George

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

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When the eyes and ears are open, even the leaves on the trees teach like pages from the Scriptures.

-Kabir, as quoted in Legacy of the Heart by Wayne Muller
From Well for the Journey

10 Questions for your Autumn Equinox

It’s autumn – a time for slowing down and pondering.  The days are shorter – what is one activity that you want to stop doing? Courtney Martin offers 10 provocative questions for the season. 

Engage with the questions.

From The Examined Family.

Joy in Solidarity 

They met the small little man in a migrant shelter where he had stopped for a warm bowl of soup before crossing the border into the United States.  He would have to cross the desert, and his feet were filthy and sore inside his thin sneakers.

Read the story.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

A Place to Watch the Rain

The recommendation said that the man could sleep in a storm. His employer found out what that meant when the bad weather hit. In the midst of a storm, “we survive by affirming who we are,” says Terry Hershey.

Read the reflection.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

Parker Palmer: On The Brink Of Everything

Joanna Seibert introduces us to Parker Palmer’s wisdom on growing older in his book On the Brink of Everything. “Palmer takes us to the brink of an alternative life,”.  Says Seibert “It is a slower life where we observe and become aware of so much we missed in this world while living at a frantic pace.”

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Searching for a Word Filled with Reality

Faith is not something you achieve, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “Faith is a journey, with constant ups and downs, with alternating periods of fervor and dryness, with consolation giving way to desolation, and with graced moments where God feels tangibly present eclipsed by dark nights where God feels absent.”

Read the reflection.

From 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.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Oct 1, 2024

Marjorie George

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

Your sacred space is where you find yourself over and over again. 

-Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion 

New Beginnings

Retirement is one of the many transitions we face in the last third of life. And though we may choose it and welcome it, we still will go through difficult emotions. Hilda Davis offers this Flourishing in Transition (FIT) ritual as we seek clarity for the path ahead.

Read the article.

From the Fuller De Pree Center.

Autumn and Impermanence

Autumn reminds us that there is a time to let go. Every autumn, says Joyce Rupp, “I turn and face the big question: how to cherish who and what I have but to hold these gifts freely, with open hands and heart.”

Read the reflection. 

From Joyce Rupp.

Patience with God

Our greatest faith struggle, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser, is being patient with God. Jesus said the meek will inherit the earth, but mostly it doesn’t seem so. Justice does not seem to prevail. “How long, O Lord?” we ask.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser.

Practicing the Gospel

The early Franciscan friars were more interested in practicing and living the gospel than in simply teaching about it. What about us? The prophets ask, “Why aren’t you doing what you say you believe?”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

God Callings

It is not just in our quiet time that we connect with God. Everything we do, all day long, is part of our following and serving God.  Sometimes we are doing, other times we are being – it is all our offering to God.

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.