This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://practicalfaithnow.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://practicalfaithnow.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Rolling the Stone Away

I hope wherever you are in the world and whatever tradition you claim as your own, you had a beautiful day filled with life and love yesterday. I attended my Quaker meeting in the morning and our pastor (my meeting is semi-programmed) spoke about the immediacy of the presence of God in our midst...how the resurrection is really about Life not in the past but Now. A wonderful message.

I left envisioning that moment in the story when Mary goes to the tomb and the rock has been rolled away. The one she's looking for is no longer there. I was thinking, "what have I entombed in my life that isn't there anymore?" Perhaps saving love for a special someone. Maybe holding back from telling the whole story. Maybe keeping a rein on my own creativity. Perhaps clinging to old stories that no longer fit.

What have you entombed in your life as "that's the way it is" or "welcome to my life"? Perhaps if you really look, you'll see the rock has been rolled away and all that energy is free now, out in the world blessing others, flying to the points on the globe where it can do the most good.

Epiphanies

In honor of the 58th anniversary of Thomas Merton's epiphany (shown below), the Merton Institute of Contemplative Living invited people to share their own epiphany moments. The result is a set of PDF files with more than 100 entries. The stories are uplifting and hopeful--if you have a moment, check it out.

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race ... there is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed...

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1996

Daily blossom of mindfulness

Hi everyone, I hope you're having a good March! I created the PDF available at the following link after reading a beautiful online interview with Thich Nhat Hahn. I thought it would be wonderful to print the reflection and put it where I will read it each morning as I'm preparing for my day. What more do we need? A grateful and graceful life full of compassionate action. Beautiful. :)

Download Mindfulness Makes Life Beautiful and Meaningful

Thinking of friends in Santiago...

Promises for you...

He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

...and...

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

-- Psalm 91:4 and 91:11-12

Spiritual direction(s)

It is interesting how life continues to shape us (as we shape life) and bring happy new possibilities and opportunities for growth. Not long ago a friend who is also a family therapist recommended a dear client to me for spiritual direction, and that sweet event planted a seed that is blossoming into a spiritual direction practice. This is a natural outgrowth of my time in seminary (with an MDiv in pastoral care and counseling), my years as an on-call chaplain for two Indianapolis hospitals, and the observing and living and writing I do here on this blog (as well as on my Narrative blog and Scribd publications).

• Here is my practice statement
  
• Here is my privacy policy

Fascinating, growing, wonderful things...blossoming in love. What is your heart whispering to you today? Take a minute to listen quietly...I'll bet whatever it is, it points you in the direction of Joy. :)

I *heart* Albert Einstein

Whether you interpret this quote through a Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, naturalist, environmentalist, genealogical, historical, or quantum physics lens, it whispers come out and play...

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” --Albert Einstein