Tag: meditation

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.

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Gathered Wisdom, Sept 17, 2024

Marjorie George

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

Peace in its most fundamental form is the connection of one human spirit to another.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from A Network from Grateful Living’s Everyday Gratitude
Found at Well for the Journey

Violence Begets Violence

There is nothing good about violence, says the late Rev. James Lawson, writing in Daily Meditations. “It drains emotional, psychological, moral, and spiritual energy with no good consequences.”

Read the reflection.  

Found in Center for Action and Contemplation.

A Sparrow’s Song To Lift Up the Sky

The sky is falling, and what can one little sparrow do about it? Our society is crumbling, and what can one little act from you or me do about it? Maybe the one little thing we add will be the yeast to bring about change.

Read the reflection.

From Daily Good.

Do Not Fret

There is much to fret about in our world today, but Psalm 37 calls us particularly to leave off fretting. Instead, we must “claim our own agency to make for right in what is within our own reach and power,” says Br. Curtis Almquist, “especially on behalf of the powerless and voiceless in God’s creation.”

Read the short reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

 

Embittered Moralizing

As we age, we tend to become bitter, angry, and judgmental, especially against those who have not done the right things like we have, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. We become the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. How fair is it that someone who hasn’t gone to church in years gets the same mercy from God as we who are there every Sunday?

Read the reflection.

More about Ron Rolheiser.

Unceasing Thoughts Becoming Unceasing Prayers

Brother Lawrence knew how to pray without ceasing – while he was scrubbing pots, cooking, or buying wine for dinner. Henri Nouwen says to turn unceasing thoughts into prayers.

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.

Gathered Wisdom, Feb 27, 2024

Marjorie George

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

Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you.

-Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, Stories That Heal

Feeling Lost? Here Are Four Steps to Finding Your Path

No matter our age, checking in with ourselves to see if we are living our values adds meaning and purpose to life. Here are some research-tested ways to figure out a way forward when we get derailed.

Read the article.

From Greater Good Magazine.

Flying Loose in Turbulent Times

“We are living through the breakdown and breaking open of much that has defined modern life,” says Cameron Timble, a pilot and pastor. It’s time to loosen our grip.

Read the article.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Healing Power of Sanctuary

Terry Hershey quotes Joseph Campbell: we all must “have a room, or a certain hour (or so) a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. If you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”

Read the reflection.

From Sabbath Moment.

Remaining Grace

Abide has  a “gutsy quality” to it, says Br. Luke Ditewig. “Abide also means to remain or to stick with through challenge. Jesus says: ‘the Father stuck with me. I’ll stick with you no matter what. Abide in my love,’ Jesus says. ‘Remain with me.’ ”

Read the reflection.

From Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Ultimate Consolation

Do we always have to open the door to let Christ in? Is the doorknob on the inside or on the outside? In John’s gospel, Christ goes to the huddled disciples after the resurrection and walks through the door. What does that teach us?

Read the reflection.

From Fr. 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.