The truth is that we shall only understand the balance of severity and confidence, of the strenuous and the relaxed, in the context of the common life. Every believer must have an urgent concern for the relation of the neighbour to Christ, a desire and willingness to be the means by which Christ’s relation with the neighbour becomes actual and transforming. But that urgent concern arises from the sense in myself of the cost and grief involved in separation from…
A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes Guard Thou my soul, Strengthen my body, elevate my senses, direct my course, order my habits, shape my character, bless my actions, fulfil my prayers, inspire holy thoughts, pardon the past, correct the present, prevent the future …… AMEN
compassion A friend told me of visiting the Dalai Lama in India and asking him for a succinct definition of compassion. She prefaced her question by describing how heart-stricken she’d felt when, earlier that day, she’d seen a man in the street beating a mangy stray dog with a stick. “Compassion,” the Dalai Lama told her, “is when you feel as sorry for the man as you do for the dog.” Marc Barasch
There is a famous story that Gandhi told of himself and the girl who was addicted to eating sweet foods. The story goes that a troubled mother one day came to Gandhi along with her daughter and explained to Gandhi that her daughter was in the habit of eating far more sweet food than was good for her. Please, she asked, would Gandhi speak to the girl and persuade her to give up this harmful habit? Gandhi sat for a…
And so it is with the glory of God expressed in human creation. It is not only in the ardent lover, the faithful friend, the wise counsellor, the trusting child that we see God’s glory. There is glory also in the anger of the oppressed, the pain of the wounded and the loneliness of the despised. It is the glory of God that puts such as these first in the Kingdom of Heaven, and makes us all interdependent – as…
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
You see, only love can move across boundaries and across cultures. Love is a very real energy a spiritual life force that is much more powerful than ideas or mere thoughts. Love is endlessly alive, always flowing toward the lower place, and thus life-giving for all, like a great river and water itself. When you die, you are precisely the capacity you have developed to give and to receive love. Your recognition of this is your own “final judgment” of…
Compassion and patience are the absolutely unique characteristics of true spiritual authority, and without any doubt are the way both Francis and Clare led their communities. They led not from above, and not even from below, but mostly from within, by walking with their brothers and sisters, or “smelling like the sheep, as Pope Francis puts it. A spiritual leader who lacks basic human compassion has almost no power to change other people, because people intuitively know he or she…
the endless knot The endless knot is one of the eight fortunate symbols in Tibetan Buddhism. It has many meanings. It is a pattern that is closed in on itself with no gaps, signifying the interrelatedness of everything. It shows that the apparent disharmony and contradictoriness of the world we see is, seen properly, an illusion, disguising a world that is balanced, complete, and utterly interconnected. In particular, it signifies the union of compassion and wisdom: that they are…
We all have an ambiguous relationship with Authority or power and so we should as Christians. I wonder when you last felt powerless? To be powerless is something we all fear briefly clothed, but God laughs when we take it too, so we anxiously remind ourselves of all our virtues and capabilities. Our instinct as human beings is to build our sense of worth, our self-confidence and value on our past achievements, looks, wealth, status, job or family. In other…
surprise Expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise. become a stranger To need of pity Or, if compassion be freely Given out Take only enough Stop short of urge to plead Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart Or greater than a star; Tame wild disappointment With caress unmoved and cold Make of it a parka For your soul. Discover the reason why So tiny human midget Exists at all So scared unwise…
water If I were called in To construct a religion I should make use of water. Going to church Would entail a fording To dry, different clothes; My litany would employ Images of sousing, A furious devout drench, And I should raise in the east A glass of water Where any-angled light Would congregate endlessly. Philip Larkin
the shout The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. from Walt Whitman, Song of myself
in a glass darkly Though I spake with the tongues of men and angels and yet had no love, I were even as sounding brass: or as tinkling cymbal. And though I could prophesy and understood all secrets and all knowledge: yea if I had all faith so that I could move mountains out of their places and yet had no love, I were nothing. And though I bestowed all my goods to feed the poor, and though I gave…
Charity and freedom are inseparable. Love must be free. Only charity is perfectly free. Love is loved for itself, not determined by anything else outside itself. It is not drawn by the satisfaction of anything less than itself. Only in charity, that is disinterested love, is love perfectly spontaneous. All love that is less than charity ends in something less than itself. Perfect charity is its own end, and is therefore free, not determined by anything else. God alone…
white flower He said, I am with you always. That means, when you look for God That God is the looking itself, Yes, and the thought of looking And the you that thinks the thought Always, already, all of it; There is no outside. A white flower grows in the silence Let your speech be that flower. Rumi,
watchful If you value yourself watch that self, carefully; the wise should be watchful. Self must govern self. Who else would do this work? If the self is well controlled you have found a good master. It is your self that does wrong it is your self that suffers it is your self that purifies; no-one can do it for you. the Buddha
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience -Teilhard de Chardin
Generous orthodoxy is aware of the need to keep listening and learning in openness to the Spirit and to the world for the sake of the gospel, it seeks to keep conversations going and not to end them. Generous orthodoxy does not so much specify a particular point or position as it establishes a spacious territory defined by certain distinct boundaries in which there is space to live, move, and breathe while exploring the wonders and mysteries of the faith….
In our era, the idea that we should lead happy, balanced lives carries the force of an obligation: We are supposed to push aside our anxieties in order to enjoy our lives, attain peace of mind, and maximize our productivity. The cult of “positive thinking” even assures us that we can bring good things into our lives just by thinking about them… There is something quite hollow about the ideal a life unruffled by anxiety. It’s why I think that…