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For every human to meditate on.


What a historical week here in the United States. There is so much to celebrate and I think everyone agrees that there is a lot of healing ahead of us. There is still a need to allow our hearts to be broken and grieve. We need to make space so that we can move forward together.

At the inauguration Amanda Gordon offered this country a poem that speaks to this and is worthy for every human to meditate on. It is below in the readings and I encourage you to work with it in lectio divina or audio divina this year. Here is a link to listen. Let it continue to speak to you as you listen from your heart.

The contemplative life is also about healing and making space for that which is seemingly contradictory. It is about making our life our prayer so that our stillness and resting in God is not separate from all that we do but rather a pervading posture that infuses everything. Side note, as you continue to engage the practices that help support this aim I want you to know that you are welcome to join the ‘collective contemplative pauses’ for any part of it, even if you aren’t able to join at the start or stay the whole time.

May you be anchored.

May you be surrendered.

May you be connected.

May you be free.

May you trust the invincibility of your own heart.

With love,

Heather

Here are a some of the readings from the ‘collective contemplative pauses’ this week:

“Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.”

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

— Martin Luther King

‘Blessing for the Brokenhearted’

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” — Henry David Thoreau

Let us agree

for now

that we will not say

the breaking

makes us stronger

or that it is better

to have this pain

than to have done

without this love.

Let us promise

we will not

tell ourselves

time will heal

the wound,

when every day

our waking

opens it anew.

Perhaps for now

it can be enough

to simply marvel

at the mystery

of how a heart

so broken

can go on beating,

as if it were made

for precisely this—

as if it knows

the only cure for love

is more of it,

as if it sees

the heart’s sole remedy

for breaking

is to love still,

as if it trusts

that its own

persistent pulse

is the rhythm

of a blessing

we cannot

begin to fathom

but will save us

nonetheless.

—Jan Richardson

‘The Hill We Climb’

When day comes we ask ourselves,

where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry,

a sea we must wade

We've braved the belly of the beast

We've learned that quiet isn't always peace

And the norms and notions

of what just is

Isn’t always just-ice

And yet the dawn is ours

before we knew it

Somehow we do it

Somehow we've weathered and witnessed

a nation that isn’t broken

but simply unfinished

We the successors of a country and a time

Where a skinny Black girl

descended from slaves and raised by a single mother

can dream of becoming president

only to find herself reciting for one

And yes we are far from polished

far from pristine

but that doesn’t mean we are

striving to form a union that is perfect

We are striving to forge a union with purpose

To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and

conditions of man

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us

but what stands before us

We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,

we must first put our differences aside

We lay down our arms

so we can reach out our arms

to one another

We seek harm to none and harmony for all

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:

That even as we grieved, we grew

That even as we hurt, we hoped

That even as we tired, we tried

That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious

Not because we will never again know defeat

but because we will never again sow division

Scripture tells us to envision

that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree

And no one shall make them afraid

If we’re to live up to our own time

Then victory won’t lie in the blade

But in all the bridges we’ve made

That is the promised glade

The hill we climb

If only we dare

It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,

it’s the past we step into

and how we repair it

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation

rather than share it

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy

And this effort very nearly succeeded

But while democracy can be periodically delayed

it can never be permanently defeated

In this truth

in this faith we trust

For while we have our eyes on the future

history has its eyes on us

This is the era of just redemption

We feared at its inception

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs

of such a terrifying hour

but within it we found the power

to author a new chapter

To offer hope and laughter to ourselves

So while once we asked,

how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?

Now we assert

How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was

but move to what shall be

A country that is bruised but whole,

benevolent but bold,

fierce and free

We will not be turned around

or interrupted by intimidation

because we know our inaction and inertia

will be the inheritance of the next generation

Our blunders become their burdens

But one thing is certain:

If we merge mercy with might,

and might with right,

then love becomes our legacy

and change our children’s birthright

So let us leave behind a country

better than the one we were left with

Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,

we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one

We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,

we will rise from the windswept northeast

where our forefathers first realized revolution

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,

we will rise from the sunbaked south

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

and every known nook of our nation and

every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

battered and beautiful

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid

The new dawn blooms as we free it

For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it

— Amanda Gorman

“If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that [the person] who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness. By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”

— Martin Luther King

“When we have clarity of mind and heart we are able to know delight, to engage the sensual world around us with a pleasure that is immediate and profound. In his essay “Down at the Cross,” James Baldwin declares: ‘To be sensual . . . is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.” Poet Adrienne Rich cautions against the loss of the sensual in What Is Found There? Notebooks on Poetry and Politics: ‘Sensual vitality is essential to the struggle for life. It’s as simple —and as threatened— as that.’ Estrangement from the real of the senses is a direct product of overindulgence, of acquiring too much. This is why living simply is a crucial part of healing. As we begin to simplify, to let the clutter go, whether it is the clutter of desire or the actual material clutter and incessant busyness that fills every space, we recover our capacity to be sensual. When the asleep body, numb and deadened to the world of the senses, awakens, it is a resurrection that reveals to us that love is stronger than death.”

— Bell Hooks

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