Tag: spirituality

Gathered Wisdom, Mar 28, 2023

Marjorie George

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

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying but by recognizing and receiving the people and places and practices that offer us the warmth of encouragement when we need to unfold.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance

From Well for the Journey

Community

Being in community has much to teach us, says Joanna Seibert. In community we learn, among other things, how our gifts are needed in the world – and that we don’t have all the gifts, and that’s OK.

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

We Learn by Doing It Wrong

We tend to think that we learn by getting good at something. But Richard Rohr teaches that we learn best by our mistakes. “The only way we stay on the path with any authenticity is to constantly experience our incapacity to do it, our failure at doing it,” says Rohr.

Read the reflection

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

There are angels

To access our lightness, sometimes we have to see through the darkness. But always there are angels along the way. Enjoy this short video from Karma Tube,  an all-volunteer organization dedicated to contributing to the world in a meaningful way.

Watch the video.

More about Karma Tube.

Ask, Search, Knock

“Ask and it will be given to you,” said Jesus. (Matt 7:7).  But what if it’s not? What if I search and find nothing? Asking and searching takes an initiative and a willingness to expose our hearts, says Br Keith Nelson of the Society of John the Evangelist. Do we trust God’s generosity enough to name our need?

Read or listen to the sermon.

From SSJE

Faith through Mysticism

Being born into a Christian family and worshipping within a Christian church can give us a relationship to a religion, to an ideology, to a truth, and to a community of worship, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser.  But that is not the same as an actual faith in God .

Read the reflection.

From Ron Rolheiser’s 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, Mar 21, 2023

Marjorie George

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

When we awaken and are able to recall who we are and to whom we belong, when we stand up and dust ourselves off and begin the journey home, God comes running to meet us.

Br. David Vryhof, SSJE
Read More

The Way of Sabbath

Our five-week study of Sabbath wraps up this week. Abraham Heschel’s book The Sabbath has taught us a new way to celebrate the seventh day of the week. Rather than seeing the fourth commandment as a series of  do’s and don’t’s, we realize that God’s gift to us of Sabbath is an invitation to rest in the nearer presence of God as we will in eternity.

Find all the material on The Way of Sabbath at the Wisdom Years website.

The Seven Types of Rest Everyone Needs

Sleep and rest are not the same thing, says Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a physician and sleep researcher. She identifies seven types of rest we all need – including physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Read the excerpt from Dr. Dalton-Smith’s TED Talk.

Found in Daily Good.

Enter Spring,
Parker Palmer Muses on the Season

Before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck, says writer and teacher Parker Palmer. But in that mess are the conditions for rebirth. We often find that true in our own lives – what looks like it is totally dead and decaying actually holds the material from which new life comes.

Read the reflection.

Found at Fetzer Institute.

The Humility to Be Taught

Richard Rohr finds that Paul’s young disciple, Timothy, has a ”teachable spirit.” Timothy, says Rohr, possesses an “enduring sense of openness and humility that does not close down by reason of failure, facts, or cynical old age.” 

Read the reflection.

From the Center for Action and Contemplation.

A Turtle’s Silver Bead Of Quietude

Turtles survive winter by digging into the mud at the bottom of the pond. There they actually stop breathing. They live believing, – even if they can’t name it – that the world will one day warm again and welcome them into its sunlight.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

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, March 14, 2023

Marjorie George

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

Within yourself is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.

-Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

From Well for the Journey

The Way of Sabbath

We are accustomed to thinking that on the seventh day of creation, God did nothing, that God rested. But Abraham Heschel sees it another way in his book The Sabbath. On the seventh day, says Heschel, God created Sabbath and declared that Israel would be her mate, as a bride. The seventh day is not simply an abstract idea; it is a living presence and is to be treated as a welcome guest.

Materials for week 4 of the Wisdom Years Lenten study on the Sabbath are now posted. Find it all here.

Everyday Pilgrims

“Pilgrimage need not take place in an exotic, faraway locale,” says Richard Rohr. Pilgrimage can take place anywhere we experience God. One simply needs to have a purpose and place in mind where one can go in order to experience the Holy.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Living with Less Fear

Too many people live with a fear of God, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. “Everything inside of our Christian faith invites us to move towards God in intimacy rather than in fear,” he says. Rolheiser offers ten principles that invite us to live in less fear of the Almighty.

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

The Grand Predicament

Most of us live with the idea that we are not enough, not sufficient, that we don’t belong. So we are endlessly trying to make ourselves better. Ironically, knowing that we are enough comes when we finally surrender to a moment of not knowing.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

A poem

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me.

Read the rest of the poem.

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, Mar 7, 2023

Marjorie George

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

It may be that there is a laundry list you have prayerfully assembled to tackle this Lent. You are not going to get to everything. Pick one or two things and then stick with those. Hold these intentions as a focus of your prayer with Jesus and ask him to heal and transfigure them. In this way we can turn a season of discipline into a lifetime of discipleship.

Br. Jim Woodrum, SSJE
Read More

Awake and Connected to Our Divine Parent

Have you ever noticed that when you take your children to a playground they want to play with their friends but every once in a while glance at you to make sure you are still there? It is a form of “heathy attachment,” and is mindful of our relationship with God.

Read the essay.

From Renovare.

Bringing Forth New Life

Amma Syncletica, one of the Desert Mothers from the third and fourth centuries, advises the spiritual seeker to stay in one place. Just as eggs in a bird nest will not hatch if the mother abandons the nest, so the monk or the nun grows cold and their faith dies when they go from one place to another, says Amma. What is the lesson here for us?

Read the reflection from the Rev. Mary C. Earle on Richard Rohr’s “Daily Meditations.”

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

Peace to Those Who Enjoy God’s Favor

Have you ever stood by the window watching for someone to get home – a child coming from school? A teenager out with your car for the very first time on a Saturday night? A spouse driving home from work during a bad storm? That is how God loves us, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Read the essay.

More about Ron Rolheieser.

Age-Tempered Living: Choosing your Changes

“Getting older changes us and we can cooperate with it, or fight it, and it’s usually some kind of combination of the two,” says writer John Schuster. His method of choice in aging is “tempering” – doing more of what gives him joy and less of what doesn’t.

Read the reflection.

From Evocateur by John Schuster.

Three Lessons of Revolutionary Love in a Time of Rage

In a TED talk, Valerie Kaur reminds us that revolutionary love is what we need most right now. She compares it to being willing to go through labor in the name of love. As a Sikh, she speaks as an American who has been labeled as dangerous and “the other.”

Watch the powerful video. ( 22 min)

From Karma Tube.

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 28, 2023

Marjorie George

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

Lent is a time to take stock of the dualities in our lives. Listen and discern where God is giving you life, where God is speaking life into your life. Yet also, where has this life been robbed from you? Where does God invite you to lay aside the worship of other gods? Where does God invite you to walk back into larger life that Jesus shows us?

Br. Sean Glenn, SSJE
Read More and Comment >

The Way of Sabbath

“In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil, there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity,” says Abraham Joshua Heschel in his book The Sabbath. The Wisdom Years five-week study of Sabbath is now online for individual or small group study.

Find it here.

I Have What You Need

What do we need? And do we really need it, whatever “it” is? The world tells us we need more, we deserve more, but what the world offers doesn’t satisfy.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

Keep Changing

Why is it so hard to change? Maybe because we are in love with ourselves. We’re in love with “our way of thinking, our way of explaining, our way of doing,” says Richard Rohr. But Jesus calls us, from the very beginning of his preaching, to change, to turn, to repent.

Read the reflection.

From Center for Action and Contemplation.

You Don’t Have to Know: Our Dark Materials

There will be dark times in our lives. There will be illness and suffering and death. We have to live it, we have to acknowledge it, but there is always a light for the way.

Read the reflection.

Found on Tarrantworks.

The Prayer of Charity

There is a long­standing Christian dictum that nobody makes progress in the spiritual life unless he or she prays, alone and in silence, for an hour a day, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser. The problem is, few of us – good Christians and all – find the time to do it. Or is it make the time? Maybe there is another way to pray.

Read the essay.

More about 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, Feb. 21, 2023

Marjorie George

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

Dreams give your soul wings. And images from dreams are the exquisite patterns on the wings. Hold your dream images as you would hold a butterfly — in your open, quiet palms, … gently enough so that they still can fly.

-Jill Mellick, The Art of Dreaming: Tools for Creative Dream Work

The Way of Sabbath

What if we thought of the fourth commandment as an invitation rather than a command? Would that change how we celebrate Sabbath? In The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches that Sabbath is a sanctification of time, not place.

Join us for our study.
The Way of Sabbath starts February 23.

Get the details here.

What I Regret Most Are Failures of Kindness

What does American writer George Saunders regret the most about his life? Being unkind to a little girl in the seventh grade, as he tells a graduating class.

Read the speech transcript.

From Daily Good.

Mercy, Justice, and Walking Humbly

What does God require of us? He tells us through His prophet Micah: “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Scholar and retreat leader Megan McKenna unpacks what that means in her reflection.

Read the reflection.

From the Center for Action and Contemplation.

God’s Quiet Presence in Our Lives

Most of the time, God’s presence within us and in our world is not dramatic. We mistake that for God’s absence. However, says Fr. Ron Rolheiser, “God lies inside us as an invitation that fully respects our freedom, never overpowers us; but also never goes away.”

Read the reflection.

From the blog of Ron Rolheiser.

Being Nice Isn’t The Same As Being  Kind

Being kind means caring. It means making an effort, says Donna Cameron. It is different from being nice. You can be nice but still reserved. You can be helpful but not warm and welcoming.

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

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 7, 2023

Marjorie George

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

Taking a moment
to figure out
how you really feel
instead of letting
old patterns decide for you
is one of the most
authentic things you can do

-Yung Pueblo, Clarity & Connection

From Well for the Journey

Visio Divina

Praying with our eyes is how Vivianne David describes visio divina. Traditionally, we take that to mean looking at art, but actually we do it all the time. Sitting in nature and allowing it to draw us to the God of creation is an act of visio divina.

Listen to the podcast (30 min)

From Renovare.

#heartivism: Gently Shaking The World

Activism so often includes anger and acts of violence. I am right, so you must be wrong. But Nipun Mehta, founder of Service Space, preaches “heartivism” – a third way between two “right” positions. This article is long but worth the read.

Read Mehta’s talk delivered in January 2023 for the 20th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium at University of Pennsylvania.

Found in Daily Good.

Musings About Valentine’s Day

Joyce Rupp intends to approach Valentine’s Day this year “as a time to observe and affirm the relationships that influence our lives in constructive and satisfying ways.” The lovers, friends, relatives, and colleagues who  “enrich us with their acceptance, guidance, and valuable encouragement.”

Read the reflection.

From Joyce Rupp’s newsletter.

God Hole

“Each of us has a hole in our mind, our heart, and our body that only God can fill,” writes Joanna Seibert. “So instead, we try to fill it with relationships, food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, sports, work, power . . .” But God calls us to help each other find that God hole and fill it with “the best unconditional love we can muster.”

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Our Longing for God’s Justice

For Isaiah it was not enough that God would someday shower righteous people with blessings. There must also be punishment for the unrighteous – a “day of vengeance” (Is. 61:2). We are not so far from calling for vengeance ourselves. Like the older brother of the prodigal son, we might be doing a lot of things right, but lack warmth for others in our hearts.

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.

The Way of Sabbath

The Way of Sabbath

Marjorie George

On Our Website starting February 23

and Gathering by Zoom

Thursdays, 4 to 5:15 pm (Central time)

February 23 to March 23

Pulling from the wisdom of The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel, we will look at Sabbath not as a set of rules for one day of the week, but as a model for living all the days of the week.

Our time with friends and family on the Sabbath can make us more sensitive to the needs of other human beings.  Celebrating the grandeur and beauty of nature on Sabbath, we are made more sensitive to the needs of the earth and reminded that God calls us to serve as co-creators of a just and compassionate world. Time for silence on the Sabbath shows us the value of solitude and silence every day. As we celebrate Sabbath, we can carry with us something of the sabbath through the rest of the week.

Sabbath, says Abraham Heschel, is not only a day of detachment from material things. “It is a day of attachment to the spirit.”

Together we will read The Sabbath by Heschel, then gather on Thursdays from 4 to 5:15 (Central time) for conversation by Zoom.

The study material will also be posted on the Wisdom Years website for use by congregations, small groups, or individual study.

There is no cost for the study. Participants will need to buy their own book: The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel, publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

To indicate your interest in this offering or if you have questions, please send an email to Marjorie George at marjoriegeorge62@gmail.com or to wisdomyears2020@gmail.com. 

To support independent book sellers, order from St. Mark’s Bookstore at https://www.stmarksbookstore.com

We apologize if you receive this notification more than once. We just don’t want anyone to miss this exciting news.

Gathered Wisdom, Jan 31, 2023

Marjorie George

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

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

Found at Well for the Journey

Reclaim Your Chicken

Writer Jon Bernie says that connectedness comes when we practice awareness without effort.  No trying, no doing, no defensiveness, no chicken with its head cut off.  Just gazing and seeing without resistance. “This is what it means to understand profoundly—not personally—what responsibility really is: the realization that we are interwoven with everything and everyone.”

Read the reflection.

From Awakin.

Crowd Solidarity

Sometimes, says Diana Butler Bass, our prideful knowledge of scripture keeps us from clearly hearing the truth of the biblical message. The crowd that heard Jesus utter the Beatitudes might have been far different from us and so heard those words in a far different way than we do.

Read the reflection.

From The Cottage Sunday Musings.

The Unchosen One

What happens when a child actor is overlooked for the part of Anakin Skywalker for a Star Wars movie?  It depends on how you tell your story, says Devon Michael, who tells his own story in this Karma video.

Watch the video.

From Karmatube.

Unexpected Grace and Gratitude in Prison

Artist Brooke Rothshank went to Elkhart County Jail in Indiana to teach a class to the prisoners not knowing what to expect. But, she says, “When I left that first day I felt as if I had discovered a room full of goodness that was hidden away. I know these men made mistakes. I know I’ve made mistakes.  We didn’t know each other’s past, so all we could do was start right there in the present.”

Read the reflection.

From Grateful Living.

Today’s To-Do: Reach Out to an Older Relative

We often connect with the older adults in our lives only at family gatherings and holidays. But talking to older adults can be interesting and good for everyone. An article to pass on to your younger family and friends.

Read the short article.

From The Upside.

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, Jan. 24, 2023

Marjorie George

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

If you sat down and made a timeline of the growth spurts in your life, you would likely see a distinct pattern emerge—of setbacks, consistently setting you up for breakthroughs, “failures” leading you towards opportunities, challenges leading you toward growth, feeling lost eventually toward “finding yourself.”

-Gregg Levoy, Psychology Today, November 3, 2022

Found at Well for the Journey.

Waiting for the Thaw

“It is in that place between despair and hope that we find the beauty of the thaw,” writes Virgina May Drotar. It is in the spring thaw that new life and God are most potent. The old is dying off but the new has not yet arrived. It is the season that teaches us to be patient.

Read the reflection.  

From Daily Good.

Being Part of the Symphony

We spend most of our lives as part of the entire orchestra, contributing to the music with our particular talent and instrument. But sometimes we are called on to do a solo, and then we must always keep our eyes on the conductor.

Read the reflection.

From Joanna Seibert.

Commitment to What Makes Life Worthwhile

Endurance is staying with a task that matters, regardless of how difficult it may be. But, says Joan Chittister, “The notion of endurance takes on negative overtones, when I fail to realize that it is meant to bring out the best in me, not the worst. Endurance is not misery, not martyrdom, not spiritual masochism. Endurance means that I intend to survive the worst, singing as I go.”

Read the essay.

From Benetvision and Joan Chittister.

Mosquito Bites

W.H. Auden once said that when grace enters, we must dance. But what are the little irritations that often prevent us from seeing the presence of grace – like mosquitos at a picnic?  The challenge for us is not to let the minor difficulties impair our ability to see the grace that always surrounds us.

Read the reflection.

From Fr. Ron Rolheiser.

Still Following the Epiphany Light

How do we respond when we sense God is calling us into a new relationship with Him, either by our own choice or the circumstances life has brought us? What thresholds will we need to cross, and what opportunities and challenges will we encounter along the way? How do we begin again, incorporating all that life has taught us this far?

Our online study “Following the Epiphany Light” ends this week, but the material will remain on our website. It is ideal for personal use or for small groups in your congregation.

Find the material here.

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.