The truth is that life is full of surprises both good and bad, right? Things happen that we can't control and can rarely anticipate. This sometimes causes great stress and pain.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Acceptance by Cheryl Jones
The truth is that life is full of surprises both good and bad, right? Things happen that we can't control and can rarely anticipate. This sometimes causes great stress and pain.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Meditation in Motion
Friday, July 27, 2012
A Season of Promise Invitation from Fr. David Cinquegrani
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
"Listening" from Being Home by Gunilla Norris
Somehow, I must sit to listen.
Standing implies the readiness for action,
for the executing of the will.
To hear You I must sit down and calm down.
The magpie mind chatters.
It doesn’t know about stopping.
How helpless I feel in its automatic firing,
its busy babbling. It is impossible to hear You
as long as I am full of sound.
I turn this helpless prayer toward You.
Help me to be quiet, to sit here
…slowly unknowing everything,
becoming dark, becoming yielding…
just sitting.
Click here for information on our weekend retreat with Gunilla Norris at Holy Family,
Thursday, March 8, 2012
How the Light Gets In
I was recently on retreat at Casa Del Sol, House of the Sun. I treasure each of my days there. This retreat house is located at Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian Conference and Retreat Center in the high desert mountains of New Mexico, about 70 miles from Santa Fe. The Casa is an old adobe hacienda. It is located several miles from the main ranch area, up a breathtakingly beautiful road. This is where Georgia O’Keefe did much of her painting. Although the hacienda has been restored with love and care in recent years, it is still prone to cracks as the desert land around it shifts. I have been there twice this year. Both weeks have featured a brilliant full moon. My visits have been so well timed. Nights are very dark at the ranch which makes the soft moonlight even more prominent.
I have a habit of rising early in the morning there to take pictures as the sun is rising. The light wash of dawn is a surprising and beautiful visual gift for us early risers. One morning before the sun was up over the horizon, the moon was setting to the west slightly above a portion of the hacienda. That adobe wall sports a noticeable crack just beneath the roofline. One of my favorite photos from the week features that cracked abode illuminated by the full moon as it set. The cracked abode and moonlight reminded me of a quote I tucked in my journal and brought with me on retreat. These words are credited to Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen: There is a crack in everything; That’s how the light gets in.
In a culture that prizes perfection and self-sufficiency or the appearance of them, not much value is placed upon what is cracked. But in truth, everyone and everything has its share of cracks. If Cohen is to be believed, there is the potential of wondrous illumination in the cracked places. No doubt there are plenty of cracks in the lives, experiences, and efforts of those of us who value and tend, write for, sell, and pray over Groundcover. Cohen’s words ask us to reconsider how we view our cracks. Do we attempt to hide them or mask them with our shame? Or do we remember the light we may see when we look at them with gentle eyes? What is broken can often be broken open into something greater.
In this time of year when many faith and wisdom traditions in northern climates have celebrations around light, I suggest we lift up the healing light that shines along the pathways of our cracks. May that light be guidance and blessing for each of us and for others through us. Thank you for the cracks you reveal that the light might shine upon us all.
Rev. Dr. Martha Brunell
Pastor, Bethlehem United Church of Christ
Join us for a weekend retreat with Martha. Click here for more information.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Please Wait for Me by Leo F. Flangan, Jr. Ph. D.
It’s more than 10 years since 9/11. Looking back I can see the journey that I and many others have taken. For each of us it is a unique journey – yet we share many paths. One thing we have in common is the difficulty of crossing the chasm created by our experience between ourselves and our loved ones. Another is letting go – not of what we have been through – but of the many habits and routines that just don’t feel right any more. We also face the challenge of letting our loved one’s know where we are on the journey.I can’t recommend how you should communicate to those you care for. I can tell you finding a way is essential.
I wrote the following entry, when the depression of PTSD was so heavy I couldn’t leave my easy chair. It asks my wife to wait for me and have confidence in my return.
I know you love me. I know you worry for me. You feel the pain that springs from me.
I saw horrors and soaked them up like a sponge. I now know that fear is not something that you feel in the pit of your stomach – it is something that occupies your whole being.
You want to come back with me to the place where it happened. You want to understand for yourself. You want to see and feel what I feel. Please don’t. Please don’t try.
I seem distant and to myself. I don’t talk and laughter is a sound I can’t often find.
But you touch me in a way that heals. You are my connection to what we had and what we will have. You are my anchor in what was normal. Let me come to you. Give me time and I will.
I will do things and go places that seem to increase my pain. Sometimes you think I am risking my sanity and my soul. I am finding my way to healing. It will take time. Let me come to you. Be there for me.
Please don’t ever try to really share the horror and pain of this experience. If you join me, I fear we will both lose our strength. We will both be adrift. I need you to be where you are for me. Wait for me. Be patient with me. I will come back to you.
You have the hardest job. The most desperate. To stay where you are for me and let me complete my journey. Trust me that I am not lost – I am coming home.
And when I return, I will be different. I will be stronger than I was. I will have faith in myself. I will love you more…and we will go forward together.
Leo is one of presenter's for our Firefighter's Retreat February 24-26. Click here for more information or to register.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The End of the World ... as We Know it
It's that time of year again when we are given the ominous prophetic words concerning the end of the world. One line especially from the second reading from First Thessalonians has been given an over literal prominence; "We who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with those Christians already dead, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." This verse has been recognized for centuries by theologians as fanciful, apocalyptic language certainly not to be taken literally.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
For more information about Centering prayer and Fr. Meninger visit: http://www.contemplativeprayer.net/