Day One: Henri Nouwen Prayer Quote
Reminder to pray for your relationship prayer request:
I thought I would start out our prayer challenge with a story from Henri Nowen’s book, Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith, that I will tell in my own words. It is such a terrific story about the kind of faith that we can use for this month of prayer. It is the story of the flyer and the catcher in a circus. Nouwen befriended a troupe of trapeze artists. As they talked about the beautiful dance of trapeze flying, the leader of the group shared that as a flyer he must have complete trust in his catcher. The audience sees the flyer as the star but, the leader maintains to Nouwen, it is actually the catcher who does everything. The worst thing a catcher can do is to try to catch the catcher. The flyer could break his own or the catchers wrists,ending their careers. A flyer must fly and trust and a catcher must catch… “when I fly…I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely up.”
May you experience the freedom and trust of flying and being caught in the dance of prayer this month.
If you would like to comment on this blog post, reply below.
If you have a prayer quote that others might be blessed by, contact me and I will use it for one of our 30 days.
30 Day Relationship Prayer Challenge
We have not connected since our “Contemplative Ways blog” in January/February. I am writing now to encourage you to join those in our community for a 30-day relationship prayer challenge.
We are now entering the half way point in our year where we sometimes need a challenge to remember one of our purposes in prayer. Some possibilities for this monthly prayer relationship challenge:
- Pray for someone in your family for 30 days. Prayer changes relationships. You may be invited to pray for your spouse or someone else in your family. Watch for the changes God may bring in you as you pray.
- Pray for relationships in your neighbourhood, your church community or your country or another country.
- Pray for your personal relationship with God in whatever way you may be invited to do so.
- Pray for your relationship with yourself where you have been wounded in some way and are being invited to change or heal.
- Go to your cell phone and text in the word ‘praying’ and send to 75-309. You will receive a message where you will send back an affirmative that you wish to join the prayer challenge. During the 30 days, you will receive a short text daily, reminding you of your pledge to pray and if you wish, you can go to Spiritual Direction to receive the prayer quote of the day.
- OR, if you would like to stay with the emails, go to the opt-in box for the prayer challenge. When you opt-in, you will receive an Email where you need to confirm your opt-in to the 30-day challenge. You will receive a daily reminder email with a prayer quote for one month.
Lynda
For those of you who are choosing the mobile route:
I have not used mobile instead of email to communicate with groups in this way but I notice I like to use texts myself so I am trying this new program out. You will be in my BETA group! We will be in this new adventure together.
Frequently Asked Questions for the mobile texts?
I have a mobile phone but I don’t know how to text?
Press your text icon – then the icon for a new message. At the top of the page see the word ‘To:’ Put in the numbers 75-309. Below that there is a box with the word ‘send’ beside it. You will put the word ‘praying’ in the box. Then press send. You have just sent your first text. Follow the same pattern when you are sending the confirmation email. Any challenges, go to www.spiritual-direction.com and contact me and I will endeavour to further help you in this new adventure.
What does it mean when the first message says that there may be charges involved?
When you receive the message from Signal (that is the name of the mobile program) that says that there may be charges involved, that would be regarding your mobile phone plan and whether or not you currently pay for text messages.
What if I get tired of receiving the messages before the 30 day challenge is up?
Just send to: 75-309 and put the message ‘stop praying’ in the message box and press send. You will not receive any more messages. If you have any trouble with that just go to www.spiritual-direction.com and let me know in the contact me box and I will help you.
God’s Loving Initiative
Penned by Gwen
One of the most profound acts of worship is expressing gratitude. And I have found nothing that provokes gratitude more profoundly in me than contemplating God’s loving initiative in my life.
Have you ever taken some hours to list all the times in your life when, before you could ask, God was already on the way to meet you? The drama of the home-coming of the prodigal son comes to mind in that, while he was still a long way off, the Father ran to meet him.
Most of our blessings come to us that way. We are often not aware of what we need most. By the time our perception meets awarenessthe answer has already been initiated by the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.
All of nature is there, attending us in beauty, feeding us, providing oxygen.We take it as our due. Our injured body begins healing before we are aware of the extent of the damage. Those commodities are so constant and available that they seldom make it onto our gratitude lists, which most often reflect a contemplation of how our felt needs are being met: I am lonely. I need comfort. “Suddenly” a friend calls with a “how are you doing?” We are overwhelmed with work and an idea “pops into our head” for how to streamline it. Who, do we think, orchestrates these coincidences?
My most recent number one gratitude evolved when the winter seemed too long and too dark in my rental situation. The day after I had said aloud, I will be content. It is enough, a friend I had seen only a few times since I knew her 40 years ago called “out of the blue” with a proposition for a place which provides clean air, and an abundance of light AND A VIEW OF THE OCEAN. Does such an event just “happen”?
There is no end when one begins to contemplate the things for which gratitude is due. For the God we encounter in our best moments is much closer than we ever dreamed, much more involved in the nitty- gritty of our lives than we had dared hope. As a doting Father He opens the windows of heaven and pours out blessings on us beyond our wildest dreams.
Just as I was finishing this posting I became aware of the following entry on Richard Rohr’s blog:
The Jewish people have a beautiful prayer form, a kind of litany to which the response is always “Dayenu!” (“It would have been enough!) They list one by one the “mirabilia Dei”, the wonderful works of God for their people and themselves, and after each one, shout out DAYENU! As if to say, “How much is it going to take for us to know that God is with us?!” It builds satisfaction instead of feeding dissatisfaction.
Maybe we all should begin our days with a similar litany of satisfaction, abundance, and enoughness. God you have given me another day of totally gratuitous life: my health, my eyes, my ears, my mind, my taste, my family, my freedom, my education, clean water, more than enough food, a roof over my head, a warm bed and blanket, friends, sunshine, a beating heart, and your eternal love and guidance. To any one of these we must say, “And this is more than enough!”
If we begin our day with any notion of scarcity, not-enoughness, victimhood, or “I deserve”, I promise you the day will not be good–for you or for those around you. Nor will God be glorified. (Richard Rohr: Unpacking Paradoxes: Prayer to Avoid Entitlement, January 30, 2012.)
May THANK YOU, Dayenu! be ever on our lips.
Valentine’s Day
On Valentines Day my thoughts, of course, turned to love. I decided I would use this day to endeavour to notice the reflection of God’s love in my day. It was a wonderful day! This writing would be too long if I told you all that I noticed but I will share of few wonders. I awoke to cloudy weather but there was a lovely strip of blue sky that reminded me of God’s love in the midst of grey. I saw the persistent purple winter pansies that had made it through the cold frosts and snow. I recognized the image of God in a mom whose face literally shone with love as she talked about her children. I stopped in at the florists and smelled the wonderful scents of the valentine flowers and experienced the excitement and smiles of the patrons as they made their purchases of gifts they would soon be giving in love. I recognized the enlivenment and love in creativity, as I saw the face and heard the excitement of someone who had found meaningful work. I recognized the love connection of the pokes and giggles of the children in my waiting room. I heard the extreme pain of the loss of love in a crises call and was reminded how we are created for love. I saw a squirrel wildly and freely jump from a branch to a feeder in search of food. He looked as if he were having fun. I wished I took the time to see love in my world in this way, everyday. I was reminded of a poem by Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) found in Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky.
Love Does That
All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
With heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
To her stable and brings
A pear, but more
than that,
he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does
that.
Love frees.
May you find freedom in the touch of God’s love in your life today.
Thank You
Just wanted to place a final posting to our 40 days of contemplative ways blog postings to thank everyone for your participation and your wonderful encouraging comments, some posted and some not. I also wanted to thank my posting friends for their openness and generosity of spirit in sharing their contemplative ways with us. I so appreciate who they each are to me and how they have touched my life as well as yours by their writings.
It is my hope that you go away from this great start in the year with a new practice that brings you closer to your sense of the presence of God. Bless each of you as you go forward in the year 2012, with the assurance of God’s extravagant love in your life. Allow the assurance of that love to move you through the doors of opportunity in this year.
God’s Peace and Blessings to you all.
Sustaining the Contemplative Practice of Lectio Devina
Posted by Lynda on Feb 11th, 2012 | Comments Off on Sustaining the Contemplative Practice of Lectio Devina 
We have come to the end of our 40 days Postings. Our last posting is very appropriate in that it addresses the question of how to keep going with what we have started. You have met the now famous Brent Unrau from his former post on labyrinths as a contemplative practice. Here Brent is talking about his personal experience with lectio devina and how he integrates this into his busy every day life. I hope you will be encouraged to find a way to continue what you have started in these 40 days.
Sustaining the Contemplative Practice of Lectio Devina
By Brent Unrau
Wild horses could not drag me out of bed at for a 6 a.m. 90 minute solitary observing of a lectio divina time, yet for the past six weeks I have found myself looking forward to and drinking in the the rich experience of attending a small lectico divina group that gathers at Small Ritual Coffee Society in White Rock, Wednesdays from 6-7:30 a.m., my busiest counselling day of the week.
More and more I am convinced that I cannot follow the contemplative disciplines well alone, that I need a group context to support and sustain them. What a treat to exchanges early morning hugs, find our seats, grab our needed coffees or teas, open up our various translations with expectant smiles and wait to hear which scriptures we get to focus on. I love the rhythm of the four questions, with 15-20 minutes silence between each question, silence alone is so different from intentional silence supported as a group.
- What word or phrase does God want to reveal to you this morning, what catches your attention that you may need to hear this morning, that you feel invited to slow down and focus on ( silence)?
- To what purpose is that phrase or word being underlined and illuminated to you or for you (silence)?
- What changes do you feel asked to make in light of these fresh revelations and truths (silence)?
- What might it look like to live out (incarnate) and express this in your daily life (silence)?
As hints of dawn begin to emerge space is giving for open sharing. It’s as though each of us is a specific instrument, designed in unique ways to resonate with the vibrating tones of the notes and music. We gather to warm up and pay attention to the sheet music in front of us, wondering what the Holy Spirit Conductor may want to reveal. We drink in the moods, cadences and meaning of the score through the particular givenness (limits, range, design) of our instrumentation. But we do it together, leaning into what each instrument has to say, what stuck them at they listened to the same piece of music(scripture) and how they say it through the tone and feel of their voice. What sweet wonder to hear and value what each person adds to the conversation, building the moment, revealing the deeper glory and meaning of the music, hearing the vast potential and beauty of the score through this early morning rag tag practice symphony. With gratitude and playful joy we depart to our individual daily challenges and routines, humming the fresh comforting tune of the music under our breath allowing it to resound in and through us and then around us out into our needy world.
