Tag: last third of life

The Light of Grace

His parents told him he could buy whatever he wanted with his newspaper income, but when he bought a conga drum for twenty dollars, his father made him take it back. It was a memory that never left him.

Read the story.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

When My Father Faced An Emergency

What did her father do in an emergency, she was asked. You mean like the time the young man held them at knife-point while they were driving on the Big Sur coastline in California? That emergency? He was curious.

Read the delightful story.

From Awakin.

The Story of Accumulation

“The more you think you need to accumulate, the bigger fence you need to build around yourself and the fewer people you will trust and let into your life,” says Gareth Higgins, writing in Center for Action and Contemplation. “It’s the inverse of what it means to live in true peace and security, which only comes in the context of relationship with people you can trust.”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

A Lenten Fast to Live By

For what do you hunger? Can you even name it? Peace, yes, and freedom from fear. Safety for our children. A sense of spiritual well-being. And yet, our very daily practices undermine what we claim as our desires. Join the Wisdom Years community for a Lenten fast that invites us to lay down the old patterns and habits that deplete us and obstruct our full access to the divine image into which we were created.

Our study is from Feb 15 to March 21. We will meet weekly on Zoom for conversation, or you can use the material on you own.

To learn more

From The Wisdom Years.

The Dark Night as Impasse

Many good, healthy Christians speak of the “dark night of the soul,” a time when one feels completely bereft of God. It is a time when, as Fr. Ron Rolheiser puts it, “All the former ways you understood, imagined, and felt about things, especially as this relates to God, faith, and prayer, no longer work for you.”

Read the reflection.

More about Ron Rolheiser.

Paradox Holds Us

Author Debie Thomas reminds us that even when evil is real and among us, like the weeds growing alongside the wheat in the field, our railing against it will not change it. Rather, God has a plan and is in charge.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Effort Does Not Change the Person

Anthony DeMello reminds us that our intervention alone does not change a person. It is not what we do that brings holiness, says DeMello. “Holiness is not an achievement; it is a grace.”

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

Giving Ourselves a Better Story

“Whether we feel good or bad about ourselves,” says Fr. Ron Rolheiser, “is often predicated on what kind of story we understand ourselves as living within.”  Christians recognize that we live within a bigger story than our own, and that gives meaning and dignity to our problems.

Read the essay.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

Prayer for the New Year

Courtney Martin prays for peace, “By which,” she says, “I mean both may we not murder other people’s children, and also may we apologize to our own when we lob empty threats their way because we still haven’t learned how to take the deep breaths we are constantly asking them to take.”

Read the rest of the offered prayers.

From The Examined Family.

The Precious Present

Living in our bodies not our heads, spending time with children, walking in nature are all ways to be present to the moment. “God is not in the past or the future, but is there to greet us in the present moment,” says Joanna Seibert.

Read the short reflection.

From Joanna Seiberts’ blog.

Epiphany: The Lighted Path

Fr. Ron Rolheiser looks at the difference between King Herod’s reaction at the news of the birth of Jesus and that of the Wise Men in the biblical story. One seeks to kill the new king, the others bring  gifts. How do you react when your star is being eclipsed? This article and more are part of the Wisdom Years Epiphany study now on the Wisdom Years website. (Art by Helen Taylor.)

Find the material for the entire study here.

From The Wisdom Years.

An Awe Walk

Dacher Keltner describes awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world” – a magnificent sunset, a tiny baby’s finger. But participants in recent research reported finding awe in ordinary places. Keltner suggests taking an “awe walk.”

Read the article.

From Awakin.

Epiphany Wisdom from the Wise Men

Joanna Seibert tells the story from Tolstoy about the three old hermits who turned out to be wiser than the bishop. She recalls that in the many times when she has tried to share her wisdom in retreats and classes, she most often learns from those who have been down-and-out.

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Healing from grace

Terry Hershey recalls a story of how a poem brought healing to a group of young Kenyan women who were escaping from the horror of genital mutilation. Words of a poem have the power “to open doors, rather than shut them. To invite vulnerability, rather than disconnect us from our heart. To create space to give, rather than put up rigid boundaries that divide us from one another.”

Read the reflection.

From Terry Hershey’s Sabbath Moment.

The Dance of Hope

“The roots of fear run deep,” says Steven Charleston in his book about the survival of Native Americans.  In today’s world, “the hope we embrace must run just as deep. No matter what happens we must keep dancing, hand in hand, joined in a circle of equality, constantly moving in the slow rotation of justice and prayer.”

Read the reflection.

Found in Center for Action and Contemplation Daily Meditations.

May Your Cup Always Overflow

A poem from John Paul Moore

As I go along my journey
I’m reaping better than I’ve sowed
I’m drinking from the saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.

Read the entire poem.

from Awakin.

Niksen: The Dutch Art of Purposefully Doing Nothing

Research has shown that “Doing nothing, but with a purpose to do nothing or no purpose at all, may help to decrease anxiety, bring creativity to the surface, and boost productivity,” says health journalist Elisabeth Almekinder.  The Dutch and other cultures have perfected the art of doing nothing.

Read more.

From The Blue Zones newsletter.

Receiving Our Faith Tradition

There are many good, right-thinking people today who are disenchanted with organized religion. They often were raised in the Church so they can neither walk away from it totally nor accept its faults and flaws. This is not a bad thing, writes Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Read the essay.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

The Constellation of Your Belonging

This practice from Grateful Living reminds us that we are all connected to each other and are “held by life itself.” Using guided visualization and reflective prompts, this practice “focuses on tuning in to the constellation of your belonging.”

Engage the practice by listening to the audio or reading the transcript.  

From Grateful Living.

Preparing For Advent: Watch For The Light

Deacon Joanna Seibert recommends a book she returns to every Advent, re-reading with joy her previously underlined passages. The editors, in their introduction, remark that the main purpose of the book is “to encourage the rediscovery of Advent as a season of inward preparation.”

Read Seibert’s reflection.

From Joanna Seibert’s Daily Something.

Advent Resources

Even in the darkness we wait, for we have been promised a light that will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will never be able to overcome it (Jn 1:5).

From our website for your Advent journey:

A collection of daily meditations and and inspirations for Advent for you to choose from. And a reading list of Advent books.

And our Advent book study of All Creation Waits.

Advent begins Dec. 3.

Real and False Humility

Humility, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser, does not consist of “self-effacement, self-deprecation, never blowing our own horn.” Humility is recognizing the gifts God has placed in us and offering them to God for the furthering of God’s kingdom.

Read the reflection.

More from Ron Rolheiser.

Gratefully Navigating the Holidays

The holidays can be joy-filled and delightful, but they can also be painful, especially for those who have lost a loved one in the past year. We remember how it was last year, when our loved one was here, and are appropriately sad. Joe Pimo of Grateful Living offers some suggestions for navigating the holidays this year.

Read the reflection.

From Grateful Living.

Take courage … I am with you … do not fear

God’s people had finally returned from exile and found their temple was in ruins. So much work needed to be done to rebuild it. Despair and discouragement set in. But God said, “Yet now take courage … for I am with you … do not fear.” As God often says to us.

Read or listen to the sermon.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Advent Resources

Even in the darkness we wait, for we have been promised a light that will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will never be able to overcome it (Jn 1:5)

From our website for your Advent journey:

A collection of daily meditations and and inspirations for Advent for you to choose from.
Plus our own Advent Quiet Day on Nov 30.
And our Advent book study of All Creation Waits.

Advent begins Dec. 3.

The True You

Renovare offers three meditations that focus on remembering how much God loves us just as we are. With reflection questions and the opportunity to respond.

Read the meditations.

From Renovare.

What is it Like Being You?

We get labeled and categorized right from our birth. What if this causes us to never look deeply into who we are, and who are the people we think are so different from us? God’s creation is full of diversity, and God invites us to take pleasure in that.

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

A Breakthrough in Consciousness

“Aging can be either a life of nostalgia or a wholehearted engagement with the future,” says Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio in a meditation for Center for Action and Contemplation. When we live in what she calls “integrated consciousness” we live in moments of failure or disruption “with a lightness of spirit, a sense of openness to divine love.”

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Affective Prayer

Too often, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser, our prayers are from our intellect instead of our heart. “What is common in prayer,” he says, “is the tendency to talk to ourselves rather than to God.” What we most need in prayer is to hear God say that he loves us. We need to hear this in our hearts, not our minds.

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser.

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.