Devotional /reflection tools

As part of the trip to Rosebud SD I put together some reflection guides for the group members to use. Its the sort of thing that you get when you let an introvert plan the devotions...you get devotions for introverts! Most of the reflection guides will be over on my sermon blog


Awareness
As you go throughout this day and review this day; be open to some personal sign of God’s presence.
Look for some thing that reminds you of God or some characteristic or action of God.. If it is something that you can pick up and take with you, do so, otherwise write about it or draw a picture etc.

In your evening devotions read this poem By Jane Kenyon
I am the blossom pressed in a book,found again after two hundred years….
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper….
When the young girl who starves sits down to a table she will sit beside me….
I am food on the prisoner’s plate….
I am water rushing to the wellhead,filling the pitcher until it spills….
I am the patient gardener of the dry and weedy garden….
I am the stone step,the latch, and the working hinge….
I am the heart contracted by joy…the longest hair, white before the rest….
I am there in the basket of fruit presented to the widow….
I am the musk rose opening unattended, the fern on the boggy summit….
I am the one whose love overcomes you, already with you when you think to call my name.
Source: "Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks" in Jane Kenyon, Collected Poems

Do you believe that God is present in the smile of a child, in the tears of a parent's grief over a suffering adolescent, in the sudden breakthrough of understanding between quarreling spouses? Eternal truths can be learned by observing the most common elements of life: nursing an infant may be a window into God's nurturing care for each of us; bandaging a cut can help us know the healing desire of God; playing games may speak of the divine playfulness that knows our need for recreation; tending a garden may teach us the dynamics of growth. Families learn that they are sacred communities when they begin to name and claim the many forms of God's grace in their daily life.
- Marjorie J. Thompson
from "Family: The Forming Center

By E. B. White Source: Notes and Comment, the New Yorker
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

AT SOME moment in the day, deliberately gaze at a tree, a shrub, a flower, a bird, a cloud, sunlight, rain, and greet it as a loving partner. Look at it fully and lovingly. Touch it if you can or open your palms to its presence. Let God’s love speak, reach out to you through it. Move gently deeper than the outward appearance and greet the hidden, living mystery.
- Flora Slosson Wuellner Prayer, Stress and our Inner Wounds
From p. 73
Possible group sharing...what were your God sightings today or the signs that you saw? How will this influence the way you live tomorrow?