Readings week of December 29th.

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, December 29th

Reading: 

Now God says to us

What He has already said to the earth as a whole

Through His grace-filled birth:

I am there. I am with you.

I am your life. I am your time.

I am the gloom of your daily routine. Why will you not hear it?

I weep your tears – pour yours out to me.

I am your joy.

Do not be afraid to be happy; ever since I wept, joy is the standard of living

That is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who have no hope.

I am the blind alley of all your paths,

For when you no longer know how to go any farther,

Then you have reached me,Though you are not aware of it.

I am in your anxiety, for I have shared it.

I am in the prison of your finiteness,

For my love has made me your prisoner.

I am in your death,

For today I began to die with you, because I was born,

And I have not let myself be spared any real part of this experience.

I am present in your needs;

I have suffered them and they are now transformed.

I am there.

I no longer go away from this world.

Even if you do not see me now, I am there.

My love is unconquerable.

I am there.

It is Christmas.

Light the Candles. …

It is Christmas.

Christmas that lasts forever.

— Karl Rahner, The Eternal Year 

Chant: Just be here, let go be here, keep within, within your heart, just be here, let go be here, keep within, within God’s heart – by Heather Ruce

Tuesday, December 30th

Reading: “This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble, it is something much more serious than this. It is an act of love for this unseen person who, in the very gift of love by which we surrender ourselves to his reality, also makes himself present to us.” – Thomas Merton 

Chant: In the center of the center, there’s a light that never ends, shining from the center, a light that never ends (x2), shining shining, a light that never ends, shining from the center, a light that never ends (x2) – Alexa Sunshine Rose

Wednesday, December 31st with Tom

Reading: Open Yourself to the Radiance

So, you wish to know God? Look deep within

for the little spark that ever burns in your soul;

refuse what is outside of you, and open yourself

to the radiance of that inner spark.

Focus all your attention on that little spark,

which will be satisfied with nothing but God

and refuses simply to learn about God;

if this is startling to you, how much more astonishing

it is to realize that the radiant light within you

won't be satisfied with what God is toward you.

That inner light insists on knowing where God

comes from. Where is that? Look into the depths,

all the way to the simple ground, the still desert,

where all you think about God counts as nothing

and where everything is finally nothing but God.

-- Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light

by Sweeney and Burrows page 165

Thursday, January 1st with Henry

Reading: The Body is Like Mary

The body is like Mary, and each of us has a Jesus inside.Who is not in labour, holy labour? Every creature is.

See the value of true art, when the earth or a soul is inthe mood to create beauty;

for the witness might then for a moment know, beyondany doubt, God is really there within,

so innocently drawing life from us with Her umbilicaluniverse – infinite existence …

though also needing to be born. Yes, God also needsto be born!

Birth from a hand’s loving touch. Birth from a song,from a dance, breathing life into this world.

The body is like Mary, and each of us, each of us has a Christ within.

– Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Translation Daniel Landinsky

Chant: This body is like Mary and each of us has a Christ within. (Henry)

Friday, January 2nd with Tom

Reading: Seeing is an Act

by Jeanne de Salzmann 

The question is not what to do but how to see. Seeing is the most important thing -- the act of seeing. 

I need to realize that it is truly an act, an action that brings something entirely new, a new possibility of vision, certainty and knowledge. This possibility appears during the act itself and disappears as soon as the seeing stops. It is only in this act of seeing that I will find a certain freedom. 

So long as I have not seen the nature and movement of the mind, there is little sense in believing that I could be free of it. I am a slave to my mechanical thoughts. This is a fact. It is not the thoughts themselves that enslave me but my attachment to them. In order to understand this, I must not seek to free myself before having known what the slavery is. I need to see the illusion of words and ideas, and the fear of my thinking mind to be alone and empty without the support of anything known. It is necessary to live this slavery as a fact, moment after moment, without escaping from it. Then I will begin to perceive a new way of seeing. Can I accept not knowing who I am, being hidden behind an imposter? Can I accept not knowing my name? 

Seeing does not come from thinking. 

It comes from the shock at the moment when, feeling an urgency to know what is true, I suddenly realize that my thinking mind cannot perceive reality. To understand what I really am at this moment, I need sincerity and humility, and an unmasked exposure that I do not know. 

This would mean to refuse nothing, 

exclude nothing, and 

enter into the experience of discovering what I think, what I sense, what I wish, all at this very moment. 

Chant: With you is the well of life and in your light we see light – Susan Latimer

Saturday, January 3rd

Reading:

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains,

at the huge waves of the seas,

at the long course of the rivers,

at the vast compass of the ocean,

at the circular motion of the stars,

and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.  

—St. Augustine

Chant: Don’t go away, come near. Come to the root of the root of your Self. by Joy Andrews Hayter

Sunday, January 4th

Reading: 

"The invitation is simple: Let go of indulging in the mind, realize it doesn't have the answers for you, and it doesn't have the answers for us collectively. Together we can begin to stop the insanity within ourselves and amongst each other. Realizing our deep, essential nature and finding the peace and happiness that lie there is not just something for ourselves; it's a gift to all humanity. Because when we begin to become expressions of what's possible for anybody and everybody, we are contributing to the goodness at the very core of who each and everyone is. When we can relate to ourselves from stillness, from a place before the mind, then we can begin to relate to each other from that same place. . . if you simply hold that as your intention, it will start to happen - maybe all at once, maybe bit by bit." — Adyashanti 

Chant: Awaken o my heart, Awaken o my heart, so I can move into the larger mind, for the kingdom is at hand – Tony Martin

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