Category: Examen
Devotion
Centering . . .
We seek salvation through our power
Yet you hang your useless bow in the clouds.
We seek salvation through our progeny
Yet your lineage follows lines of faithfulness.
We seek salvation through our independence
Yet your commandments plead for accountability.
We seek salvation through our denial
Yet you hold forth the serpent and beckon us to look.
We seek salvation through our intellect
Yet your wisdom is written on our hearts.
We seek salvation through our heritage
Yet you invite us to make a journey of faith.
May your invitation to journey
overcome our comfort with the familiar.
Katherine Hawker, 2003. http://liturgyoutside.net/Lent5B.html
Ponder . . .
Pumpkin Seeds
You can do two things with pumpkin seeds. Eat them, an excellent source of protein, or plant them, and watch a successful seed bring back 100 more.
The farmer who plants the seeds aggressively, without regard for, “hey, be careful, I could have eaten that seed,” often ends up with many more pumpkins and many more seeds. On the other hand, the person who guards all the seeds and then eats them ends up with not much.
And of course, money works the same way. Time, too.
Seth Godin, March 11, 2015
Remember . . .
A Franciscan Blessing
May this uncomfortable invocation open us to a more profound Gospel life.
May God bless you with discomfort,
At easy answers, half-truths,
And superficial relationships
So that you may live
Deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression,
And exploitation of people,
So that you may work for
Justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears,
To shed for those who suffer pain,
Rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand
To comfort them and
To turn their pain to joy
And may God bless you
With enough foolishness
To believe that you can
Make a difference in the world,
So that you can do
What others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness
To all our children and the poor.
Amen
shared with the IAS Group by the DC Seminar Leader
Wednesday Devotion
Words for reflection on the day ahead or the day past.
Centering . . .
GOOD
If creation is
good, does that mean it couldn’t
be better, or best?
Maybe God gave us
a start, trusting us to keep
a good thing going.
Sometimes good is hard
to find: even a brief glimpse
seems an illusion.
God, give me the faith
to trust in your goodness, and
the strength to share it.
Good, Lent Haiku by Mike Cross, a member at Bethany Christian Church in Tulsa
Ponder . . .
Pitchers and Hitters
Hitters don’t have much of an agenda other than, ‘swing at the good balls.’ No one blames the hitters when the pitcher has a hot hand and throws a no hitter.
Pitchers, on the other hand, decide what’s going to happen next. Pitchers get to set the pace, outline the strategy, initiate instead of react.
When your job is in reaction mode, you’re allowing the outside world to decide what happens next. You are freed from the hard work of setting an agenda, but in exchange, you dance when the market says dance. “I did the best I could with what was thrown at me. . .”
Finding the guts to move up the ladder is hard. When you decide to set the agenda and when you take control over your time and your effort, the responsibility for what happens next belongs to you.
Seth Godin, Pitchers and Hitters, February 20, 2015
Remember . . .
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.
Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.
The Lord does not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
the Lord did not hide from me, from us, but hears the cries.
those who seek shall praise the Lord.
May our hearts live forever!
and proclaim deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
Adaptation of Psalm 22 by Michael Davison