Readings week of July 6th.

Linda Lueng
Jul 6
3 min read

Updated: Jul 13

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, July 6th

Reading:“Our work is to cross a threshold into emptiness and stillness. It is like entering an empty room that proves to hold a great presence. The apparent emptiness of simple presence is richer than the crowded experience of ordinary personality. We can either be empty with Spirit or full of ourselves.

“The barriers before us include our thoughts and emotions, our psychic and worldly busyness, our house of idols, occupying us to no end. Our habits and conditioning keep us intoxicated and dull. If we accept the barriers, we will fail to cross the threshold. To cross the threshold from habits and conditioning to emptiness, which is the receptive quality of the soul, we must become still and patient. We must give up certain impulses and let go again and again. This is the way we come into our essential Self. We leave behind our compulsive egos, embodying the "I am" and selflessness at the same time.”

— Kabir Helminski, Living Presence, p. 35

Chant: Stilled and quiet is my soul, in love’s presence, I take my rest

— Sister Helen Marie Gilsdorf, RSM via Catherine Regan

Tuesday, July 7th

Reading: “The "I am" is not the mechanical self—the role-playing, superficial personality-that feels its existence through its ordinary reactions and resistances. With the right kind of attention and observation we can see the relationship between our various thoughts and sentiments and how each of them invokes some imaginary "I." Instead we can learn to feel our own existence through recollection and intention. A positive sense of I-ness emerges through recollection. It is the first thing we can trust: our own presence, the sacred "I am."

— Kabir Helminski, Living Presence, p. 35

Chant: Attend to the living presence, here and now

— Darlene Franz

Wednesday, July 8th

Reading: “The apparent conflict between a strong sense of our own presence and selflessness can be resolved if we realize that presence helps us to be more selfless. Selflessness is the soul's own willingness to make sacrifices in the material world as well as in the artificial world of personality. The "I am" is selfless in that it holds no special idea of itself, does not justify itself, and is not envious, resentful, or proud. Because it already feels secure in the infinitely merciful Spirit, it can accept the annihilation of what is false in the ego personality. If we are rooted in presence, we are capable of letting go of the demands of the ego. If we are not secure in the emptiness of pure presence, we will cling to events and things, to lies and fears. But in a state of presence, free of the coercions of the ego, we can become our most authentic selves.”

— Kabir Helminski, Living Presence, p. 35-36

Chant: Come into being as you pass away

— The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West

Thursday, July 9th

Chant: I am a hole in a flute that the Christ breath moves through, listen to this music, listen to this music

Friday, July 10th

Chant: Sink into the taproot of your heart

— Heather Ruce

Saturday, July 11th

Reading: “When I was a young monk in the monastery of Gethsemani I shared with Thomas Merton that I felt frustrated and inept in my efforts to experience God’s presence in my life. In offering an encouraging word, he said, “How does an apple ripen? It just sits in the sun.” He went on to add that this does not mean that I did not need to continue in my efforts to seek God. Rather, it means I needed to live in a contemplative stance of receptive openness to God, achieving in and through my sincere efforts a spiritual fulfillment that I, by my own efforts alone, was powerless to achieve. This, it seems, is the intimate and mysterious nature of how we ripen in becoming a mature spiritual person. We ripen in holiness and spiritual fulfillment as we learn to sit in the sun of God’s mysterious, sustaining presence that energizes and guides our efforts, bringing us to realms of grace that are beyond, way beyond, anything we can achieve by our own efforts alone.”

— James Finley

Chant: Be right here, in the Heart of God

— Henry Schoenfield

Sunday, July 12th with Tom

Reading: Waterwheel

Stay together, friends.

Don't scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made

of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water

and turns and gives it away,

weeping.