“We must sow the seed, not hoard it.”
“May you make progress every day!”
“Arm yourself with prayer instead of a sword; be clothed with humility instead of fine raiment.”
St. Dominic
Author: Resa Pearson
Friday Videos: July 9th, 2021
Modern Masters of Religion: Fr James Martin on Merton start it at :55 and stop at 10:31
The nature of Meditation and contemplation Jim Finley 8:08
Friday Videos: July 2nd, 2021
True Wisdom and the self beyond ego. Jim Finley. 17:18
Silence and Contemplation – Merton in His Own Words
Questions to Ask When Waking
What would you do if you really knew
that life was wanting to sing through you?
What would you say if your words could convey
prayers that the world was waiting to pray?
What would you be if your being could free
some piece of the world’s un-whispered beauty?
What would you stop to bless and caress
if you believed that blessing could address
our painful illusions of brokenness?
What would you harvest from heartache and pain
if you understood loss as a way to regain
the never-forsaken terrain of belonging?
What would you love if your love could ignite
a sea full of stars on the darkest night?
— BERNADETTE MILLER
This is the time to be slow
This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
–JOHN O’DONOHUE
Stop All The Clocks
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
–W.H. Auden
Self-Portrait
It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can feel it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
– David Whyte, Self-Portrait in Ten Poems to Set You Free
Blessing in the Chaos
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,
that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.
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
within the storm.
–Jan Richardson, The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief
Oceans
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing…Silence…Waves…
–Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
–Juan Ramon Jimenez
Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
— Jane Kenyon