Readings week of January 5th.

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, January 5th

Reading: “The paradox:

All experience strips us of much except our sheer strength of mind, of spirit.

All experience reveals that upon these we must not finally depend.

Brooding over us and about us, even in the shadows of the paradox, there is something more—

There is a strength beyond our strength, giving strength to our strength.

Whether we bow our knee before an altar or

Spend our days in the delusions of our significance, 

The unalterable picture remains the same;

Sometimes in the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, 

We can hear the whisper in the heart

Giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.” — Howard Thurman

Chant: Listen, listen wait in silence listening; for the one from whom all mercy flows – The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West

Tuesday, January 6th

Reading: 

Not gold, nor myrrh, nor even frankincensewould I have for you this season,but simple gifts, the ones that are hardest to find,the ones that are perfect,even for those who have everything (if such there be).I would (if I could)have for you the gift of courage,the strength to face the gauntletsonly you can name,and the firmness in your heart to knowthat you (yes, you!) can be a bearer of the quiet dignitythat is the human glorified.I would (if by my intention I could make it happen)have for you the gift of connection,the sense of standing on the hinge of time,touching past and futurestanding with certainty that you (yes, you!)are the point where it all comes together.I would (if wishing could make it so)have for you the gift of community,a nucleus of love and challenge,to convince you in your soulthat you (yes, you!) are a source of lightin a world too long believing in the dark.Not gold, nor myrrh, nor even frankincense,would I have for you this season,but simple gifts, the ones that are hardest to find,the ones that are perfect,even for those who have everything (if such there be). — A Christmas Prayer, Rev. Maureen Killoran

Wednesday, January 6th 

Reading: “Even though we have turned the solstice corner & the days are getting a bit longer and the nights a little less dense, we are still in the depths of winter, when life is nestled in on itself. My invitation to you is to savor the last sips of the sacred dark. Do not squander this time of indwelling. You’ll be called back outward again all too soon.”

Extravagant Stillness

Be patient, my heart.

The time of the cave is coming.

The season of quiet.

The deep drink of stillness

you have been thirsting for.

Secret, luminous darkness.

Fruitful, radiant night.

Your access has been paid.

All year you have made

an offering of your life,

Flung your treasures into the

clamoring hands of the world.

You have lost yourself in the lyrics,

Recollected yourself in the silence,

Forgotten again and again

where you come from,

Where you are meant to return.

Return.

…

Drop the distractions, now,

and head home.

The door is open. Go in.

Deeper and deeper inward.

Enter the womb of the world

and take refuge there.

This is not the season of sorrow,

but of gratitude.

The extravagant, fiery beauty of autumn

heralds the coming of the holy quiet.

Be still.

Be wildly, voluptuously quiet.

…

— Mirabai Starr 

Chant: Draw us deeper into silence, draw us into you. Draw us deeper into stillness, draw us into you. – Henry Schoenfield

Thursday, January 8th

Reading: “We are on one of the most important evolutionary cups in about 2,500 years, where a whole structure of consciousness, a whole way of looking at the world, the rational, mental structure of consciousness, which is not just a stage in personal development, but a whole era in which a civilization, the Western civilization, has come into being and framed its religious and institutional questions. It's a whole window in which we look at reality. That's breaking in. And it's giving way slowly and incredibly painfully, in the breech birth of all times to the integral structure of consciousness, which is once again, a whole new way of perceiving reality, of connecting the dots. It adds a new dimension of perspective to it. 

So centering prayers hits very, very strategically positioned in this, and we have to begin by realizing that we are, in fact, in a larger global upheaval, and that any sort of distress and dysfunctions and anguish as we find within our own microcosm are being played out much larger in the culture, in the world, consciousness is shifting. 

Contemplation in all religious pathways already anticipates some of the skills that are going to be needed in the new iteration, as we step in to becoming fully up to speed, as our operating system upgrades so that we can run the integral program. Because what it does is, as Thomas says, it gives us 20 minutes to take a brief vacation from ourselves. And in that vacation, you're no longer perceiving the world through the subject object, dichotomy, I in here, looking at that, out there, which is the drive shaft, neurologically, of the mental structure of consciousness. So you're already beginning to get used to what it's like to become aware without putting your attention on a specific thing and separating the playing field and bringing it back to a little me, little I.” – Cynthia Bourgeault, Closer Than Breath Centering Prayer Summit

Chant: Bind my head and my heart in you, holy one, holy one, holy one — The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West

Friday, January 9th

Reading: “We have to go beyond the reference point of personal healing and into holiness where we started, because the first iteration, the signature teaching of this centering prayer, is firmly based yet in the old metal structure of consciousness, perceiving the world through I. And my job is to get rid of, you know, dismantle my false self and become my true self. But that is still a way of framing the world that's based on the mental structure of consciousness. It says, ‘I have, I am, my true self’ and it's in here somewhere inside, and everything else has to be fixed. It's exactly that that's going to disappear, give way, as we move into the new structure of consciousness to a new way of holding I, which is not quite so tight and atomized. . .

“It's a tool, and it's a beginning tool for the stabilization in our lives of a new way of being in the world and a new way of perceiving reality. It's a very good tool, and in order to strengthen this tool and to really help it to move into a new basis, I think the strongest thing that's needed is a broader three brained awareness, and that boils down to a deeper embodiment. So much of what we're doing in contemplation and the contemplative practice and the old contemplative disciplines of the church have been owned and created in the mental structure of consciousness by the intellect. . . But the new way of thinking is really a new dimension, a depth capacity, added to your thinking that is impossible to describe from the outside, but can begin to be approached by a deeper and more respectful attention to embodiment.” – Cynthia Bourgeault 

Chant: Deeply descend into I Am, deeply descend into One – The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West

Saturday, January 10th

Reading: “Take a step back from what you are experiencing, from thoughts, feelings, sensations, and notice instead the simple fact that you are. Notice the fact of being, of being aware, of awareness itself.

“See that this simple being, this knowing presence, is more intimate to you than any particular experience. It is more fundamental than your thoughts and feelings, more fundamental than the sensations of your body, your memories, the story you tell about your life, your activities and relationships.

“This does not diminish the value or beauty of these experiences. It simply recognises that the fact of being, of being aware, is what you are before you are any of them. Before you have the experience ‘I am a man’, ‘I am a woman’, or even ‘I am a person’, you have the experience ‘I am’.” — Rupert Spira

Chant: Humming ‘Moving through’ – Alexa Sunshine Rose

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