Faith & Life Inspirational Message

The evening prayer in my lectionary last night had a selection from a very short Psalm near the end of the Psalter.   Because I don’t live with the Psalms with the same depth as my monk friends, I still feel like I have often encountered a particular Psalm for the very first time.   I know I have read Psalm 131 before, but it felt like I had engaged it for the very first time.             As I often do, I compared two different translations of the Psalm.   The Jerusalem Bible begins by the Psalmist saying, “ Lord, I do not puff myself up or stare about…”   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) puts it similarly; “O  Lord , my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high…”   In this case I prefer the first option.   It seems to warn against feeling pride when it comes to spiritual things.               It makes me think o...

One of the books I use in a course on contemplative spirituality that I teach is by my friend and fellow Quaker, Parker Palmer.   Parker’s book, The Active Life , tries to describe what contemplative living looks like for the average person who will not join a monastery.   I like the subtitle of his book: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring .     One of the chapters I like focuses on “action, failure, and suffering.”   It is a story about an angel who wants to alleviate suffering---an angel who tries to care.             Clearly all of us know there is suffering in our world.   No doubt many who read these inspirational pieces have known some personal suffering.   I don’t know whether suffering is necessary in life, but I am convinced it is inevitable.   Live long enough and you will suffer.   Something the angel needed to learn was sometimes suffering cannot be allevia...

Some days I am sure there are some spiritual lessons I missed!   There is so much more talk and literature today on spirituality than was true in my growing-up years.   Perhaps there was more in the Roman Catholic Church, but I doubt it---not for the layperson anyway.   In fact, I never even heard “spirituality” language when I was a boy or even a young man.   The talk was always about “religion.”   For the most part, what I learned I learned by going to the little Quaker meeting.   There was the Sunday School hour, which never seemed very interesting or relevant to my life.                I became more actively interested in religion during my college years.   Part of the reason for this is those college years were the time I was trying to make sense of out my life.   Today I would talk about that as learning how to make meaning in life.   I feel fairly well along that road ...

If you have some acquaintance with Thomas Merton, famous 20 th century monk, and his writings, you might recognize the title of this inspirational piece to be a play on a title of one of his most famous books, New Seeds of Contemplation .   That book might be my favorite from Merton’s extensive writings.   It was originally published in 1961, some seven years before Merton tragically died in his mid-50s.   What many people---even those who might know some things about Merton---do not know is this book actually was a reworking of a previous book.   Merton’s first book was simple called, Seeds of Contemplation.             I come back to this book by an interesting happenstance.   A friend asked me if I had a copy of Merton’s book.   Apparently she is in a book club or some group that has chosen to use it.   Since she knows I like Merton, she figured I would have it.   Indeed, I do have it; ...

Sometimes when I am outside, it hits me how majestic and wonderful nature can be.   Since I grew up in rural Indiana, I have always known this to be the case.   However, we live much more insulated lives than people did when I was a little boy.   We live in controlled environments much of the time.   We use air conditioning to keep it cooler in the summer and, then, turn on the heat to keep the rooms warm during the winter months.   I am not complaining and am not suggesting we go back to the good old days! But I do think living life in an insulated way leads more of us to live more unaware.   Because our environments are controlled, we shape our reality as much as it shapes us.   This does not make us crazy, but it does allow us to live in a kind of illusion.   When it is nearly one hundred degrees on a summer day, it probably is a comfortable seventy-two degrees inside.   We have little awareness of the reality of nature.   And we n...

Everyone knows there are good days and there are bad days.   Sometimes we hear people say, “life has its ups and downs.”   We probably learn this lesson pretty early in life.   Actually, I think little kids experience the reality of life’s ups and downs even before they have language to explain it.   But they know it deep in the core of their beings.             I am also sure that most of us conclude early on that there is not much we can do about those “downs” in life.   Of course, some of those less than desirable periods are of our own making.   We do stupid things and pay the price.   But there are other “downers” in life that come our way and we are no more than sitting ducks for malady.   We get sick and sometimes suffer.   I know no person who gets up and says, “boy I hope I get really sick today!”   But clearly not a day goes by when someone in the world does not experien...

Sometimes I wonder if I would make it as a monk!   Actually I don’t really wonder, because I am fairly sure I would blow it.   There is so much about being a monk that I find attractive.   But I fear that I idealize what being a monk means.   And that is funny, since I have been to any number of monasteries and convents and actually know quite a few monks and nuns.                If I am honest, what really attracts me is not being a monk, but it is the way of life that monks and nuns undertake.   That attraction is deepened by the fact that a group of them undertake that life together in community.   And they do that life together with such intentionality.   I am sure that intentionality is a big piece of the attraction for me and it is probably why I know I would blow it!   That is because intentionality has to be married to discipline to be effective.     ...