Bags of gold.

Good day good people,

Today marks the second week of the season of Advent. And Friday was the feast of Saint Nicolas, the celebration of the fourth century Greek bishop whose profound generosity and kindness would become one of the biggest influences of the Christmas season worldwide. One legend has it that he aided three poor sisters whose father didn't have the resources to pay their dowries and were in danger of be taken into slavery or prostitution. To spare the daughters, Saint Nicolas was said to have secretly gone to their house three evenings in a row and tossed bags of gold through the window which landed in the shoes drying in front of the fireplace. This story, and several others like this, revealed his heart of service and joy of sharing which have shaped many rituals and traditions of giving during this time of year.

As we continue collectively in our work to nurture and strengthen the sun within by way of conscious absorption and conscious imitation, we might want to be on the look for how we can be of service to and share it. Like Saint Nicolas, maybe there is a situation that we are aware of in which a person, place, animal, ancestor, etc. is in need and in which "tossing bags of gold into their shoes" would potentially make a life altering difference. In our case, the gold we would be sharing is the substance we have been working with—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, trust, mercy, compassion, faithfulness, perseverance, forgiveness, courage, steadfastness, generosity, fidelity, abundance, serenity, equanimity, metis, etc. A gift freely given, regardless of outcome.

We are putting ourselves under the influence of the sun within and beyond so that we can serve our post of being a source of its ordering and affirming influences in both our internal and external environments.

With love and trust,

Heather

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, December 2nd with Joy

Body Prayer: Await - Allow - Accept - Attend (Julian of Norwich)

Reading: “If I may offer a few closing words for those of you who are fellow practitioners of Centering Prayer, I would say that it is in this particular dark night that all the years logged in Centering Prayer come to their fruition. You have learned repeatedly, ever since that first introductory workshop, that Centering Prayer is all about releasing your attention from its subject-object configuration.

“That's what it means, from a practical standpoint, to "consent to the presence and action of God." Anything that attracts your attention to a focal point qualifies as a "thought, and the instructions are to let all thoughts go. So the gradual fading of the subject-object dichotomy in favor of a different mode of spiritual attentiveness is already familiar territory, and you have begun to learn how to make your way within it.

“Meanwhile, the repeated discipline of letting go of all thoughts during the prayer time (truly, "a thousand opportunities to return to God, as Thomas has described it) has gradually patterned into you the intuitive recognition that whatever you are clinging to is what is getting in the way. You have learned that the journey of transformation goes hands-free into the dark, trusting that what is truly needed will be provided, and that what is provided is indeed truly needed. You relax and let go into it. In the dark night of spirit, those two crucial pieces of training are what will guide you through. As they did Thomas.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic

Chant: Purify my heart, purify my heart, let me rest in you (Joy Andrews Hayter)

Tuesday, December 3rd with Joy

Body Prayer: Await - Allow - Accept - Attend (Julian of Norwich)

Reading: Mother Wisdom Speaks by Christine Lore Weber 

Some of you I will hollow out. 

I will make you a cave. 

I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness. 

You will be a bowl. 

You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain. 

I will hollow. 

I will not do this to make you clean. 

I will not do this to make you pure. 

You are clean already. 

You are pure already. 

I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you. 

I will do this for the space that you will be. 

I will do this because you must be large. 

A passage. 

People will find their way through you. 

A bowl. 

People will eat from you. 

And their hunger will not weaken them to death. 

A cup to catch the sacred rain. 

My daughter, do not cry. 

Do not be afraid. 

Nothing you need will be lost. 

I am shaping you. 

I am making you ready. 

Light will flow in your hollowing. 

You will be filled with light. 

Your bones will shine. 

The round open center of you will be radiant. 

I will call you brilliant one. 

I will call you daughter who is wide. 

I will call you transformed.

Chant: I surrender, I surrender

Wednesday, December 4th with Joy

Reading: Blessed Are You Who Bear The Light by Jan Richardson

Blessed are you who bear the light in unbearable times,

who testify to its endurance amid the unendurable,

who bear witness to its persistence when everything seems

in shadow and grief.

Blessed are you in whom the light lives,

in whom the brightness blazes — 

your heart a chapel, an altar where in the deepest night

can be seen the fire that shines forth in you

in unaccountable faith,

in stubborn hope,

in love that illumines every broken thing

it finds.

Chant: In your light may we see light, In your light we offer light (Joy Andrews Hayter)

Thursday, December 5th with Chris

Reading: When You Are Empty

When you are empty,

feeling bereft,

or not feeling much at all,

hesitate before trying

to fix your situation,

because this happens

to be just what

you are: a vessel

awaiting the fill

of heavenly

fullness beyond any

this-worldly feeling.

— Jon M. Sweeney, Mark S. Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light

Chant: Open my heart, open my heart  (by Ana Hernandez)

Friday, December 6th with Chris

Reading: Placing Attention by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

As the weather is changing

and the light is changing

and the birds at the feeder

in the yard are changing,

as the leaders are changing

and the feelings are changing

and the way that we see

each other is changing,

I notice the invitation to turn

toward the truth

of what does not change—

something so vast, so unnamable,

so unable to be grasped and held,

something so present

there is no life without it,

that knows itself

through you, through me,

through clover and tree and cloud

and goes on and on and on forever.

That. I turn again and again

toward that.

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

Sunday, December 8th with Lacey

Chant: Mercy, we live in Mercy. Mercy, we move in Mercy. Mercy, we breathe in Mercy. Mercy, we breathe out Mercy (by Faye Cox)

Reading: “When love touches suffering, the suffering turns love into mercy.” — James Finley

“Mercy is the great weaver, collecting and binding the scattered and broken parts of our lives in a tapestry of divine love... in the words of Psalm 103—[we] swim in mercy as in an endless sea. Mercy is God's innermost being turned outward to sustain the visible and created world in unbreakable love.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope

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