Readings week of October 20th.

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, October 20th

Readings: "One of our cultural identities or myths is of the one who goes it alone and pulls herself up by her bootstraps—the rebel, the outlaw, the self-made person. What a lie. What an ingratitude. What a danger. We are each the recipient of innumerable currents of life—through the lives of others-streaming into and influencing our own lives. – Geoffrey Shugen Arnold

Chant: The streams of my Father’s love run daily through me, the streams of my Mother’s love run daily through me, from the holy Fountain of Life to the seed throughout the whole creation – Paulette Meier

Tuesday, October 21st

Readings: "While despair might permeate the greater part of the nation, others achieved a new realization of the fact that only readiness for self-sacrifice could enable a community to survive. Some of the greatest saints in history lived in times of national decadence, raising the banner of duty and service against the flood of depravity and despair." – Sir John Glubb

Chant: The earth is full, full of your [beauty, trueness, mercy], the earth is full, full of you, your [beauty, trueness, mercy] fills the whole earth – Darlene Franz

Wednesday, October 22nd

Reading: 'All the Good in You' by Andrea Gibson

When all the good in you

Starts arguing with all the bad in you

About who you really are,

Never let the bad in you

Make the better case

Chant: Surrender to the beauty, become a mighty kindness – Elizabeth Combs

Thursday, October 23rd

Reading: “The mystics have intuitively understood this: that we live grounded, rooted in this great "electromagnetic field of love [or mercy]." Itself invisible, it is the hidden bedrock of actuality. In it, all things live and move and have their being. Nothing can fall out of it…

“The all-important implication of this insight is that this field in which we live and move and have our being is relational... In this great electromagnetic field of love, everything - from the tiniest electrons to the great three persons of the Trinity — is endlessly exchanging, giving and receiving of itself in that riot of self-communication that, in fact, constitutes the very dynamism of love. This field is not an "it" but a Thou." And it is only in opening our own hearts to the irre-ducibly personal and relational nature of this Thou in whom we are rooted that we ever come to discover who we truly are.” – Cynthia Bourgeault, The Trinity and the Law of Three, p. 151

Chant: We Swim in Mercy, as in an endless sea, we swim in mercy, as in an endless sea – Psalm 103:11 put to chant by Susan Latimer

Friday, October 24th with Tom

Reading: ““We have a longing we don’t understand, for a oneness we don’t understand, but we know it’s true because we’ve tasted it. This is our awakened heart experiencing infinite love, again and again, in our most childlike hour.” And what can that childlike hour look like? “[It emerges when you recognize] the invincible preciousness of yourself experienced in moments when you find tears for yourself.” - James Finley

Chant: Return again, return again, return to the [Root of your Heart]. Return to who you are, return to what you are, return to where you are born and reborn again – Shlomo Carlebach, sung by Cantor Azi Schwartz of Park Avenue Synagogue

Saturday, October 25th with Tom

Reading: "Eckhart says an image is not of itself nor is it for itself. It has its origins (in God)... It does not belong to what is foreign to this origin. That’s very important... I do not belong to what is foreign to this image... An image receives its being immediately from that of which it is an image. It is one being with it and is the same being... Imagine you’re looking at an image of yourself in a full-length mirror except as a self-reflective thinking image of you. And it’s been through a lot of therapy, it’s meditated a lot, it’s worked through a lot of things and It/You think the time has come to branch out on its own, that it doesn’t need God. And you try to explain to the image as gently as possible that it won’t go well without God because it’s an image of you but the image just thinks you’re trying to hold it back, you’re preventing me. And so, to prove your point, you step halfway off the mirror, half the image disappears. It has a panic attack, has to go back on Xanax, goes into therapy, it says, “I’m not real.” Now, the image is real, it just isn’t real the way it thinks it’s real. And Eckhart says that’s us with God... See, we think we’re real without God. I think I’m here all by myself... We are the song God sings. And without God singing the song of us: no us! and we’re trying to find our way to experientially live in that." – James Finley, transcript of Turning to the Mystics: Eckhart

Chant: Do not cling to anything … be held in Love.

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