Check out my new 'World Reflections" Section
Interesting stories and anecdotes that reach into insights I have gained abroad.
Healing Grief, On-line Course, by Terry Douglas.
You are invited to participate in an 8-
week, on-line course, entitled
Healing Grief Page that captures a journey of healing following deep loss.
Meditation – April 21, 2009
Posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Scripture: And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:5
Prayer: Help me to get to a deeper sense of hope.
Response: Hope is actually easy to grasp as long as you keep control out of it, that is, what you expect, or think you are entitled. Let me say a word about entitlement – it is what you think you are owed for your loyalty, service, position, and I could go on. Hope is the antithesis of entitlement. Hope generates surprise within you, anticipation, sort of a great expectation and acceptance. In hope your shoulders relax, grip loosens, eyes soften, and breathing slows and deepens. You see hope is manifested in the chatter of the birds before dawn, knowing in hope that dawn awaits.
Now this hope was not simply sprinkled over you, but poured as holy oil over your head and into your heart in the presence of the Holy Spirit. How do I know this, you might ask? Let me say most definitively that each moment you snare in stillness will be a clear confirmation of what I say and, if it is possible, will become more manifest with each succeeding stolen moment in silence. You see, in stillness, you will explore regions of the heart that are not bounded by the rhythms of the body. The Holy Spirit will be your guide and in his company you will learn of hope, surprise, and love.
For this day, see if you are able to articulate wordlessly – I realize the contradiction – your hopes free of what you would control, hold, or possess; rather accept, even recognize for the first time who you are as spirit and then express in some gesture of the heart your hopes. You might be surprised at how detached – not irresponsible – from the goals that fix you, and how your hopes – [...]
Meditation – April 19, 2009
Posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009
Scripture: The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. Psalm 135:15-18
Prayer: I came upon these verses after viewing the pink filigree of clouds above the sea as the sun was preparing to rise. Teach me about idols.
Response: idols are what keep your attention from me. It may be for an instant or constant as you allow your attention to be captured. Before you exclude yourself from idol worship because you don’t consider yourself rich, explore the traits of idols and those who become like them. They have a mouth but have lost capacity to speak; they have ears, but cannot hear; and there is no breath within. And let me repeat that this is a description of idols and those who become like them.
Idols serve as a shortcut for idle, even lazy souls. Would that your journey on the path could be a virtual one taken from your recliner, but it isn’t; you must take the steps, no idol substitutes. The capacity to speak, engage, see, hear, and breathe are all aspects of who you are in union with me.
And idols are not limited, of course, to a golden calf to be worshipped; they are found crafted in all the corridors of the mind and heart, encompassing what one does with precious time, and with scant consideration to the person one is now. Before you consider yourself guilty as charged or innocent, accept if you will that I seek a special, direct, current, authentic relationship with you. I need no intermediaries; do you? Reflect upon what I have provided you.
All for this morning.
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Meditation – April 18, 2009
Posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009
Scripture: “You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me . . . When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” Jonah 2:3-7
Prayer: Living by the ocean and especially when the seas are high as this morning, this imagery catches my attention. I can see myself riding above and under the swirl. Give me a deeper meaning.
Response: So it is deeper you want. See the seas as the natural metaphor for your life, any life. Awash, you raise your hand up to be plucked to the safety of a vessel; yet, no vessel seems to be near. I said seems because at just that time, that moment, an awareness, a higher consciousness actually, flows through you; and the sea, any sea, any tumult, is reduced to water, salt, foam – elements with which you can deal. Your raising of a hand is an unspoken prayer, a groan from the heart, and it is heard with even more clarity that a hymn sung by the most majestic choir in a world-renown cathedral.
In prayer you raise your awareness, gestured perhaps by an arm raised, a knee lowered, a pause in your routine that even someone sitting alongside might not notice. It is that flicker of recognition I seek from you in the crowded room of your life so that you become aware of your dawning awakening to my love and grace. You see, your gesture, your prayer, is for you even though you think that you are rendering it to or for me. If you were surfing, I would be on the beach watching you ride that first wave to the shore. Though you wave to me to catch my attention; your wave is really for you to appreciate on your own this discovery in love.
So in life [...]
Meditation – April 17, 2009
Posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Scripture: The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again. Ecclesiastes 1:5-7
Prayer: My first response to these verses is Oh, well. Bring me a deeper meaning.
Response: A stage is set for you and you are invited to participate. All nature is assembled and performs its parts flawlessly even in tumult; and you are asked to speak your truth against this glorious backdrop. These verses are not to convey what’s this life all about anyway? You are invited to take in the harmony and allow it to influence, to balance your own inner harmony.
I am sure you haven’t missed that you too rise and set and do hurry back – you are called home. Yes, there are times you are the wind blowing to the south and then the north – but even the wind calms and returns on its course. You are the young stream dashing against the rocks, then boulders, until you reach the open water – and then ascend once again.
See the cycle as a rhythm in life, and most especially in your life. It would almost be better – in fact it is better – not to dwell on photographs of the past as on storms of the past. Be present to now and filled with expectation of today – be it the sun about to rise, the wind shifting directions, the stream discovering a new channel to journey. And even if I am asking too much of you, it doesn’t matter; the movement and harmony of life continues with or without your awareness.
All for this morning.
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Meditation – April 14, 2009
Posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
Scripture: They asked each other: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32
Prayer: Help me to realize that I don’t have to be on a road to hear you.
Response: For today see yourself walking in the rain along a darkened road before dawn. You are wrapped in thoughts of tasks to accomplish as close as you pull your jacket closer to ward of the rain blowing in from the sea. Without warning, a feeling, a thought penetrates your attention and encourages you to abandon your concerns, those distractions that keep you still, and to think more deeply. It is at such moments that you experience an ascent or is it a descent into the realm of the heart – where mind and its analytical ability are put aside
At such times, your heart does burn with a recognition that those on the road to Emmaus experienced. And your recognition, difficult for you to accept so wedded are you to past events recorded, is the same and is available to you each time you pause in the rain of your life – if you catch my meaning.
How can I make it clearer than to say over and over to you – using words, sights, relationships, events, circumstances – that I am walking alongside you? Be at peace and listen, observe, sense my presence on your road to Emmaus.
All for this morning.
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