Add this to Favorites

Looking for another good read? I am adding this to my Favorites,or book marks for a daily check in. This is another good writer in Christian spirituality. Of course any sites with material from Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen. Thomas Keating or some of our Christian mystic traditions get my attention too. But add this!
www.ronrolheiser.com

Solitude and Contemplation

Some times I go web wandering for sites that discuss contemplative prayer or centering prayer. I have been coming to appreciate the practice of silence as prayer. I am still better at reading about it than actually doing it. But I try...now and then. Some thoughts are gleaned from the contemplativerudder site. Some of these are notes I have pondered before. So I read Psalm 46:10 again "Be still and know that I am God."

"Nothing resembles the language of God so much as does silence."Meister Eckhard

The small truth has words that are clear;
The great truth has great silence.
Tagore


“If I have the will to stay in solitude,
confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild
fantasies jump about in my mind like
monkeys in a banana tree. The task is to
persevere in Solitude until my seductive
visitors get tired of pounding at my door
and leave me alone.”
Henri Nouwen

My beloved is silent music and sounding
solitude … a ceaseless stream of love that
springs-up every moment.
Teresa of Avila

THE SURRENDERED SOUL
“ I have to be still … to wait in darkness, and
feel it as holy. I have to be glad that my reason is
confounded, and that my faculties have no locus
of action and cannot be exerted to alter my state
….
“ I have to accept this strange scotoma of the
senses and reason, not with anger, not with
terror, but with gratitude and gladness.”
Oliver Sacks, M.D.

“Moses entered the darkness
and saw God within it.”
“ The text of Scripture is here teaching us that,
as the intellect makes progress and by a greater
and more perfect attention comes to
understand what the knowledge of reality is …
the more it approaches to contemplation … the
more it sees that the divine nature cannot be
contemplated.
“ Greater and more perfect attention advances
continually towards that which lies further within
... it is there that it sees God.
“ The true vision of what we seek consists
precisely in this – in not seeing: for what we seek
transcends … is everywhere cut-off from us by
the darkness of incomprehensibility.”
St. Gregory of Nyssa

“No one is so advanced in prayer
that they do not often have to
return to the beginning.” Teresa of Avila

Yesterday was my son's 16th birthday. We pulled off a surprise birthday party so the aftermath is that the bodies sleeping on the living floor have now risen (Friday morning) and moved on to a game of Risk. I remember playing that game. But they tell me the game has changed since my day.


I am still on my "stay home" vacation this week. Got lots of yard work and cleaning done. It feels good! I met with my spiritual formation group yesterday. We meet for about an hour every two or three weeks. We take a brief time of silence then check in with each other and see where the conversation goes from there. We started the group by sharing our spiritual history and then by looking at an Anthony DeMello book. We plan to read some of Marcus Borg's Heart of Christianity next.

I said I would stick in a few quotes in the blog to ponder now and then:

'True, deep-down goodness is never a matter of mere compliance with laws. Deep-down goodness shows itself in spontaneous generosity, uncalculating kindness, and unstinted love. It is itself inspired by a vision of goodness' (Westerholm, Understanding Matthew:The Early Christian Worldview of the First Gospel, 53).
...... I clipped this from a blog I read..I haven't read the book!

If God said,
"Rumi, pay homage to everything
that has helped you
enter my
arms,"
there would not be one experience of my life,
not one thought, not one feeling,
nor any act, I
would not
bow
to.
— Rumi


Rambling on

Baptism (and a song)

I was doing a baptism for a cute, bright, and very active two year old. He was not about to be held in anyones arms and by the time we got to the sacrament of baptism he was exercising his two year old authority and practicing a favorite word.."No..No..No! He was about to wander away from the chancel area when fortunately I was able to lift the baptismal bowl out of the baptismal stand. I bent down to his level and said his name and the magic phrase.."Look, I have some water over here..." This caught his attention and drew him towards me. As I was putting my hand in the water and placing it on his head, saying the baptismal words, he also reached his hand in to the baptismal water and following my example , put the water on his head. Of course it was cute! But it was good Wesleyan theology and liturgy too. While baptism is clearly a sacrament of grace that we receive and a "gift offered to us without price" it is also something in which we co-operate. That's what this little boy was doing, whether he knew what it meant or not, he too was having a hand in receiving it. His "No, No, No," had now become "Yes." I hope and pray that it will be a picture for his journey of discipleship as he grows into it.

Now on a different note...A Song! Something from Prairie Home Companion passed on to me from Brent Olson. Follow the link (or address) to the Methodist Blues. Feel free to sing along. I did!http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2004/06/12/scripts/methodist.shtml
Rambling on.

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Old Valentines Day Card

Yesterday I enjoyed another one of my "stay home" vacation days. I got the chain saw out and trimmed out half of a dead tree, set up a new flower bed (pictured below), mowed lawn, ran a few errands and then settled in to put away some of the pictures that had been my grandmothers. A few cards and newspaper clippings were also in the collection. There was a Valentine's day card to my grandparents and it was signed "With love from Rory" At first I thought it was a card she had sentimentally kept because it was from me. But then I noticed that it is not my handwriting. My mom had signed it. It looks like an older card. So what is the story? Was it from I time when I was too young to send one? It didn't look that old! Was it a card that I had asked my mom to send for me? Possible. Or did I forget, and my mother was helping us all out so grandma wouldn't feel forgotten? I don't know. But what if my mom was doing for me what I should have, and would want to have done, but failed to do. I need help like that; people who help me to be better than I am to others. I want to remember people and let them know that I love them and care for them. But I don't always get it done. Who then, "covers" for me? Thanks, Mom, and everyone else who helps me say "from Rory with love."



Would it be too theologically syrupy to say that is also what Jesus Christ helps me to to do; covers for me, and does what I would want done (to say "God I love you") if I could really get around to it? I'm thinking that is what we are all here for, to help us all say I love you...to live in the grace-full Spirit of Christ. The world needs to hear that more.



Rambling on.

Fishing

Last night was the annual Launch Fishing Trip on Lake Milacs. Its sponsored by the church Men's Group but has become an annual invite for family and friends. The Launch takes 40 passengers and its pretty easy fishing. The crew hands you a baited rod and reel, they set your depth and you watch your bobber. It begins around 7 pm and ends around 11 or so. I think I have only caught two or three fish in my 8 years with that trip. But I always enjoy it. As they say, "the fishing will be good but the catching may be slow." Bob always cooks one of the best hamburgers of the year and this year the weather was wonderful. Way off in the distance we watched a cloud put on a lighting show. We enjoyed the sunset and watched the stars come out. This year I had the pleasure of my daughter, Sara, sitting next to me on the boat. The very first year I was appointed to Park Church my son, Nicholas, and I got invited to go on the Fishing trip even before we had moved into Brainerd. Nick had just finished with first grade. I remember a few of the men on the boat would get a fish on the the line and then say. "Nick, come and hold this fishing pole for me." It was a great way to be introduced to a congregation. To bend a phrase from Jesus, "Fishing can be about ministry." I'm thinking that the Bishop in Minnesota could suggest that all appointments begin with a fishing trip.





Rambling on.

Old Photos

I am in my home town of Thief River Falls right now. I came here on Sunday evening so I could say "Happy Father's Day" in person to my dad. We spent some of yesterday afternoon going through my Grandma Ethel's pictures. Grandma died just last fall. We found that her framed pictures usually had another picture or two layered behind the one was being displayed so every frame had to be checked. Sometimes it would be layers of pictures with the same great-grandchild so you can see him or her growing in the sequence of school pictures. Of course the photo albums and boxes of pictures spanned 4 or 5 generations. Some of the cars and scenes were right out of a Grapes of Wrath movie set or a Bonnie and Clyde wardrobe. Grandma and Grandpa had lived, traveled and worked out west so there were pictures from oil fields and the California fruit crops. Usually we would look at pictures of relatives and look for physical resemblances. My mom says she kept pictures of really good looking men and women even if she didn't know who they were just so we could say we had good looking genes to draw from. You gotta find hope where you can! We also found some photos of men in uniform (at least one form WW1)and some WW2 rank insignia and campaign ribbons, dog tags and what we think was a silver star but no way to sort out which items belong to whom. Story lost! They say a picture is worth a thousand words" but that's only half the story. There are stories that go with the pictures. As my mother or my aunt told a story I kept thinking or saying "write it down." It was a good afternoon.

I'm thinking of how the Internet is now a part of my "daily devotions." Along with a cup of coffee and a quick read of the Brainerd Dispatch, I turn on the computer and read A Daily Spiritual Seed that shows up in my e-mail. Then I read the daily posting from inward/outward that comes from the Church of the Savior in Washington DC. I go to the Spirituality and Practice website and read the spiritual practice of the day. On the Upper Room site there is a daily reflection link. (Some of these are listed in my links section.)I have a few other sites I visit if I have time. I get Verse and Voice sent to me from Sojourners at another email address. Somewhere in all of this I might note a thought or quote in my journal. If I'm really being intentional about this I will get in a morning walk around the block or spend a few minutes in silence. Of course all this gets intertwined with the morning routines of kids getting to school, the dog needing attention, and whatever else I need to be doing for work. I think the devotions are included with the "getting ready" for work. John Wesley may have had his little prayer room to enter at 4:30 or 5 in the morning but I wonder how he would do things today? I think he would have done some "on line" reading with his devotions and then considering all the pamphlets he published and letters he read and wrote, I think he would have blogged.
Rambling on....

RUMI Quotes
My initial thought for this blog was to sprinkle in some favorite quotes... so that is on for today.
Rumi was a 13th century Persian mystic poet from the Sufi tradition. I got introduced to him during visits to the Episcopal House of Prayer in Collegeville and continue to be amazed by his insights.

Rumi writes:
'All my talk was madness, filled with dos and don'ts. For ages I knocked on a door-when it opened I found that I was knocking from the inside!"

Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it's a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame's core.

Guest House
This being human is a guest house Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,still treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you out for some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make sense any more.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

At Annual Conference session I get tempted, as always, by the Cokesbury display. I was impressed by a new curriculum piece in the Beginnings series. It's about spiritual practices. I downloaded one of the free samples and it confirmed my first impression. I asked a few folks at the Wednesday lectionary group to look it over also. I would love to use it at Park Church.
Here's a quote that the author passed on from G.K. Chesterton.

"At the back of our brains, so to speak, there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of...the spiritual life is to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder."

What a phrase! "...submerged sunrise of wonder."
Rambling on.

Rory's Rambles. I am not sure what will come of this. I read the blogs of others, especially when they are writing about church, theology and spirituality, and I see my daughter blogging away on the computer at home. So here goes.

I think I will use this as a way to pass on some of the quotes that I collect, often from other blogs, with some reflections on daily events.

Today, for example, I am thinking of how a year ago our family was preparing for a month of July travel in the UK and Ireland, with a quick side trip to Paris. It was an awesome vacation with monumental sites and history! This year’s summer will be more modest. In August we will go to Michigan to celebrate my wife's parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Some time in June I will be exploring the back yard, listening to the birds, noticing the wind in the trees, maybe using the screen porch that we got all cleaned up for daughter Sara's high school graduation. Vacation this year, might be discovering what is around me, and in me. Something like the inner journey. Pilgrimages are not so much about going to a holy place, as much as being in holy places along the way. More than a few people have pointed out that holy ground is always beneath our feet. Jesus said the kingdom of God is at hand... or near you, or with you... or among you.
Either way... I don't have to go very far to make a discovery, see a monument, or be renewed.But still, I wonder if I will even go that far?

Rambling on.