Today’s prayer is from the Divine Hours:
“Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Read more in The Divine Hours.
Each Friday I share some of my favorite finds related to praying or writing. If I think it could help you pray or write better, then I’ll include it below.
Do you have someone else’s article or post to share? Join the Contemplative Writers Facebook group, comment on today’s post on my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter (@edcyzewski) to nominate your favorite articles, blog posts, and books by Thursday at noon each week.
The Perpetual Panic of American Parenthood
Instructions on Prayer from a Trappist Monk
Being the Gift the World Needs
Protestant Barriers to Contemplative Prayer (see page 6 of this PDF)
From Ed’s Blog: When Your Parents’ Simple Religious Answers Don’t Work
The Contemplative writer is ad-free and never shares sponsored content, but it is a lot of work to maintain. We rely on affiliate links from the books we share and the generous donations of our readers. An automated monthly gift as low as $1 per month or a one-time gift of $5 goes a long way to sustaining our mission to provide contemplative prayer resources for our readers.
Learn how your support, through a one-time gift or small monthly gifts can keep this website running: Support Us Today
There’s a good chance you’ve said that you’re “busy” in the past week, and definitely within the past month. However, what exactly are we saying when we are busy? And what is the true cause of this way of living?
In an interview with Zen Habits, author Jonathan Fields shares a number of reflections on what it means to be “busy”:
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“Being busy, alone, need not be a bad thing. What makes it good or bad is why we’re busy, what we’re busy with, and what we’re giving up along the way.
Being busy as a reaction to the compounding agendas others, to what they’ve chosen to heap into our lives, without considering whether any of it matters to us, that’s a problem. It drops us into a state of mindless autopilot busyness, reacting rather than responding.”
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“Did you choose, “I will begin checking my email first thing before I get out of bed, and then respond to what everyone else says is important today?” Was there a moment where you said to yourself, “I will respond immediately, in real time to every email that hits my inbox, every to-do I’m tasked with and every status update on Facebook?”
Not likely, you just started doing it, and the technology that supports this behavior is the perfect intermittent reinforcement machine. In short order, it becomes habit.”
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“The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.”
Psalm 146:8-9, NRSV
We’re often faced with situations where we can lift ourselves up in the esteem of others, secure our own safety, and ensure that we aren’t in a vulnerable position.
God, on the other hand, has drawn near to those who are most vulnerable and in need of help. That doesn’t mean they see the kind of success we have associated with being “blessed.”
The greatest blessing is to fully entrust yourself into God’s care, whether by choice or circumstance.
That doesn’t always feel like winning or being lifted up. In fact, it often feels lot like bowing down, which is right where we will be most aware of our need for God. We will certainly be in the loving gaze of God when we help those who are in the greatest need.
Week Three: Real Freedom… from Ourselves…
What gets in the way of our freedom? Most of the time, we do!
In Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr writes about the way the ego, our desire to uphold our self images, and the ways that we judge others all can lead us away from our true selves, union with God, and union with others.
This week’s quotes include the following:
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“When we live out of the ego, we impose our demands on reality. But when we live in God’s presence, we await reality’s demands on us. “
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“As long as we are comparing and differentiating from the other, we can’t love the other. We judge it.”
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“Most don’t know how to surrender to God. How can we surrender unless we believe there is someone trustworthy out there to surrender to?”
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“We don’t live in our bodies where we can feel our own feelings and trust our own experience. Instead, through commercials and advertisements and jingles we live in images and appearances.”
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“I’ve seen far too many activists who are not the answer. Their head answer is largely correct but the energy, the style, and the soul are not.”
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The Final Thanksgiving from the Divine Hours:
“Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised; for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see: a Light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.” Amen.
Each Friday I share some of my favorite finds related to praying or writing. If I think it could help you pray or write better, then I’ll include it below.
Do you have someone else’s article or post to share? Join the Contemplative Writers Facebook group, comment on today’s post on my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter (@edcyzewski) to nominate your favorite articles, blog posts, and books by Thursday at noon each week.
Spinning and Being Spun by Nancy Nordenson
Stop Adopting Other People’s Anxiety
Yes, the World Is Going Berserk, but Inner Peace Is Still Possible
From Ed’s Blog: Why Evangelicals Lack Compassion for Doubters and Doubters Lack Compassion for Evangelicals
The Contemplative writer is ad-free and never shares sponsored content, but it is a lot of work to maintain. We rely on affiliate links from the books we share and the generous donations of our readers. An automated monthly gift as low as $1 per month or a one-time gift of $5 goes a long way to sustaining our mission to provide contemplative prayer resources for our readers.
Learn how your support, through a one-time gift or small monthly gifts can keep this website running: Support Us Today
We are surrounded by distractions that are more than appealing to our minds that crave a quick win and pleasure. Choosing to focus runs against, the grain and the more we give in, the harder it is to say no.
So what recourse do we have when a text message pings or a commercial calls for our attention? This compilation of studies offers some practical steps you can put to good use when you writer or pray:
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Your lazy brain is happy to just react to that relentless bombardment of stimuli coming its way. But when you just react, you don’t usually make the best choices. And while you’re definitely doing something, you’re rarely achieving your goals.
That’s because when you’re reacting, you’re not in control of your life. In fact, reacting is the opposite of control. You see something fun and you chase it. You see something scary and you run away. Either way, your environment is determining your behavior.
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When you need to get work done, put your phone on the other side of the room. Make distractions harder to reach.
When you have fewer things to react to or you make it harder to react to them, you’ll be less reactive.
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Neuroscientists say stress takes your prefrontal cortex — the rational part of your brain — “offline.” Quite simply, stress makes you stupid. And that’s why just reacting often makes you do stupid things.
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Learn how your support, through a one-time gift or small monthly gifts can keep this website running: Support Us Today
Praise the Lord! I will thank the Lord with all my heart as I meet with his godly people. How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them.
Psalm 111:1-2
How do we become aware of God’s presence in our lives?
First, we prioritize time spent in Christian community, giving thanks together for the ways God has been present and provided for us. As our faith struggles or falters, we’ll find encouragement through the stories of God’s faithfulness among others.
Second, we grow in our delight of God by pondering the ways that God has been at work in our lives.
We shouldn’t be surprised that we struggle to see God at work if we don’t take time to ponder his presence each day.
Week Two: Replacing Illusion with RealityIn his book Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr writes about the great surrender that must take place before we can find God and our true selves in prayer.
He is quick to note that God is already present. In fact, we cannot escape God’s presence but we can obscure it or overlook it. Our illusions about ourselves or about God can get in the way.
Therefore the great goal of every spiritual practice is to help us move past our illusions, distractions, and oversimplified answers so that we can be truly present for God.
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“We have no real access to who we really are except in God. Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less than we are. Only when we live and see through God can ‘everything belong.’ All other systems exclude, expel, punish, and protect to find identity for their members in ideological perfection or some kind of ‘purity.’”
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“We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in every breath we take.”
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“All spiritual disciplines have one purpose: to get rid of illusions so we can be present.”
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“When we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation. Fixing something doesn’t usually transform us. We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves. We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer.”
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“When we avoid darkness, we avoid tension, spiritual creativity, and finally transformation. We avoid God, who works in the darkness—where we are not in control! Maybe that is the secret: relinquishing control.”
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Read more in Everything Belongs…
The Contemplative Writer 