You Tube is not a tool I normally consider when researching the topics of prayer and spiritual growth. What is in your spiritual growth toolbox that you can use during times of dryness or difficulty? The best tool box is one filled with a variety of resources we can draw upon to help us celebrate the good times and thrive and learn from the troubled ones.I think we need to be careful as the vast variety of resources found on You Tube may differ from our beliefs and could also be filled with misinformation. Saying that, I have been fascinated in some of the creativity, information, and inspiration found on that site.Here are a few you may be interested in exploring:Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, based on Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat's bestselling book, is a six-volume DVD series consisting of 26 meditative and soul-stirring half-hour films. These videos are absolutely beautiful and are visual delights. The words carry you beyond your everydayness into a new … [Read more...]
Weekend Word of Power
The spiritual practice of sacred reading of the scriptures is called Lectio Divina - a holy reading of the Bible slowly, savoring it, and enjoying it with the Lord. The intention is not to learn or gain information but to deepen our relationship with God. St Benedict encourages us to “to listen with the ear of our hearts.”Join me once a week for Lectio Divina. I will share a verse and a word that spoke to my heart. Read and listen to the verses here. And gently ask God for a word or phrase that speaks to your heart for that day – that is what lectio means. Once we find that gift, we hold it, meditate, and savor its meaning. This step is called meditation.Then offer that word back to God in prayer or the third step of oratio. In prayer we allow our real selves to be touched and changed by the word of God.Finally, we simply rest in the presence of the One who has used His word as a means of inviting us to accept His transforming embrace. No one who has ever been in love needs to be … [Read more...]
Prayer – Drawing Closer to God’s Heart
Our prayers nourish our spirituality. When we communicate – both talking and listening – with God, his presence molds our very being to be more like him. Prayer is vital to our spiritual formation.Prayer takes many forms but sometimes other people’s prayers just hit the spot. They express our deepest longings with just the right word or phrase. Their prayer becomes our prayer.My hope is one of the following prayers speaks to you as it carries you closer into God’s loving heart.Lord, let the thick skin that covers me not be a hindrance to you. Pass through it. My eyes, my hands, my mouth are yours. This sad lady in front of me: here is my mouth for you to smile at her ... This smug young man, so dull, so hard: here is my heart, that you may love him, more strongly than he has ever been loved before.- Madeleine Delbrêl, Missionary and activist (1904-1964)My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I … [Read more...]
Six Spiritual Serendipities
I love the word – serendipity. The meaning of this word is to find something unexpectedly. Most serendipities brim with delight, surprise and “oooooo-abilty.”Horace Walpole first coined this word in 1754 in his retelling of a Persian tale The Three Princes of Serendip. Serendip was another name for the country we call Sri Lanka.If you watch, God loves to send us serendipities each day to encourage us on our journey, to provide us with wisdom and guidance or just to pop into our day to let us know how much he loves us and is with us.Here are six times lately where I tripped upon God’s gift of serendipity:1. Opening my Bible to “just the right” word of hope I needed to take another step of faith2. Looking up and witnessing God’s creative artistry in the clouds or sunset. He loves to play and paint in the sky, you know. And on my trip through Yellowstone this summer I just knew he had lots of fun fashioning that area.3. Pausing and taking in the sound of my three month old granddaughter’s … [Read more...]
Weekend Word of Power
The spiritual practice of sacred reading of the scriptures is called Lectio Divina - a holy reading of the Bible slowly, savoring it, and enjoying it with the Lord. The intention is not to learn or gain information but to deepen our relationship with God. St Benedict encourages us to “to listen with the ear of our hearts.”Join me once a week for Lectio Divina. I will share a verse and a word that spoke to my heart. Read and listen to the verses here. And gently ask God for a word or phrase that speaks to your heart for that day – that is what lectio means. Once we find that gift, we hold it, meditate, and savor its meaning. This step is called meditation.Then offer that word back to God in prayer or the third step of oratio. In prayer we allow our real selves to be touched and changed by the word of God.Finally, we simply rest in the presence of the One who has used His word as a means of inviting us to accept His transforming embrace. No one who has ever been in love needs to be … [Read more...]
An Invitation to Linger Longer with the Lord – A Spiritual Discipline
In my prayers lately, I sense the Lord inviting me to linger. To stay with him longer. To rest in his words. To pause in his presence. Even just saying the word out loud slows my tongue. LINGERLinger – what does that word mean? The dictionary defines to linger as “to be slow in parting or in quitting something; to remain although gradually dying, to move slowly.” Though at first I am attracted to the first and third definition, the reality of the second one – to remain although gradually dying – holds truth I often don’t face.I reread the story from Genesis 18 the other day about three travelers who visit Abraham. I knew the basic tale – three visitors arrived at Abraham’s tent in the heat of the day. He fed them and is told his wife will have a baby. Sarah laughs.But this time as I lingered with this story, I saw a new aspect to these verses: When three visitors unexpectedly show up, how does Abraham react? Abraham hurries and runs to offer hospitality – this is mentioned quite a few … [Read more...]
Fearless by Max Lucado
When you really listen to people, what emotion most often dwells at the surface of their difficulties? I hear fear. This is one reason why Max Lucado’s newest book, Fearless, is so important for people to read and discuss. Even the subtitle gives hope: Imagine Your Life without Fear.As a spiritual director, the fears I hear many times are not even recognized right away. In fact, some people will even deny their emotions are fear based. I know this personally since I am a regular practitioner of denying fear in my own life.Lucado’s book helps us to name the fears that drive us and exposing them to the light of God. Once we recognized and face that emotion, it is easier to let go, returning to trusting God to handle the situation.Lucado lists fears such as fear of not mattering, of disappointing God and overwhelming challenges. His easy readable writing style pulls in the reader to identify their own circumstances, then allowing God to once again take over. He reassures us that God … [Read more...]
Spiritual Listening or Half Listening?
I nodded and pretended to be fully listening as my husband shared a story with me. The truth was I was listening to the noise inside of me – “Oh, I forgot to tell him that….I need to get that done before bedtime….I wonder how much longer is on the timer before supper is done….”Not really listening, was I? And I am trained as a spiritual director, one who listens intently to another’s spiritual walk. HA! I am failing at basic listening skills lately. I would wager many of you don’t fully hear another person either. We get too busy planning what we will say next or thinking about our to-do lists. And adding to the internal commotion, all the external noise that interferes with effective communication – blaring sounds from the television, chirping as emails arrive, and the boom-booming from the CD player.To be a good listening, I need to be silent. An anagram rearranges or unscrambles the letters of one word to create a new word. Use the word silent as an anagram and the result is: SILENT … [Read more...]