Readings week of June 1st.
- Linda Lueng
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, June 1st
Reading: Eternal Source of Life, you are the core of our being.
Flow through our bodies like a life-giving river.
Wash and transform the negative conditions in our hearts, minds, bodies, and circumstances with light, love, and grace. — Ray Simpson
Chant: I am Present to the Presence, it is my only care, I am held by the Presence, the fountain of creative love — Kristy Christian
Wednesday, June 3rd
Reading:
Abandon yourself to the Beloved, draw closer and closer to Love.
For when you dwell in peace within
Love's heart,
and know the Divine Spirit in your own heart,
You become as nothing, yet all things are yours.
As you radiate the healing love of
your inmost Being
into a suffering, scarred, yet ever-sacred world,
Offer grateful praise from the Chalice of your heart
to the One who loves through you.
— Nan Merrill, from her interpretation of Psalm 119
Chant: You, eternal Love, all-permeating Holy. You, eternal Love, all-permeating Holy. While all is fading away, you are staying still there. While all is fading away, you are staying still there. — Kaarina Ruusuvirta, kaiken läpäisevă Rakkaus
Thursday, June 4th
Reading: Even now, I am becoming wind, something less flesh, more movement, more current, less here, more everywhere. Though the moment I think I know this truth, the knowing re-solids me,
makes me into clay that pretends it is wind.
But becoming clay again, I am destined to crumble, disintegrate, until 1 am dust and once again one with the wind. How to trust anything then, except this infinite becoming and rebecoming-and whatever it is that is alive inside it all.
That. I put my faith in that.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Faith, from her blog A Hundred Falling Veils
Friday, June 5th with LeMel
Reading: Lantern in Shade
“Know the bright, keep to the obscure; be model of the world”
Brightness, 明 míng, is obvious: sunlight on a wall, praise in a crowded room. Obscurity, 玄 xuán, is depth: black soil run through with roots, or the inner chamber where ideas ferment away from noise. Laozi asks us to be familiar with both, but to be allied with the second. A jade carver once buried uncut jade in garden beds over the winter, believing cold ground would make the grain of the stone tighter. The greatest effect of the cold, though, was that it made the jade darker, with the beauty of the stone only revealed later while being worked by the carver.
A scholar of the Western Han, Jia Yi, wrote verses, but hid them in his travel chest for thirty years. He feared applause, given too readily, might steal their freshness. The poems were found after he died, and their strength and subtlety eventually long outlived his contemporaries. His work became better-known, perhaps, because the writing had matured in the dark, like the buried uncut jade. Laozi honours patience like this: real light pours out of work done far from an audience.
To “be model of the world” is to let work done in private inform one’s public presence. Keep your tasks in the shadows long enough for them to ripen, and don’t worry about praise. A lamp only guides because it stands still. Cultivate complex things away from the view of others, because when you finally lift the curtain, the wonder of what you’ve done will inspire others without blinding them.
— 365 Days of Tao: A Daily One-Page Guide to the Tao Te Ching for Simplicity, Stillness, and a Calmer Life by Dae Lee
Chant:
Give us patience
To cultivate depth
Well rooted in You
Saturday, June 6th with Catherine
Reading: Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment
Do you think peace requires an end to war?
Or tigers eating only vegetables?
Does peace require an absence from
your boss, your spouse, yourself?...
Do you think peace will come some other place than here?
Some other time than Now?
In some other heart than yours?
Peace is this moment without judgment.
That is all. This moment in the Heart-space
where everything that is is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking
that it should be some other way,
that you should feel some other thing,
that your life should unfold according to your plans.
Peace is this moment without judgment,
this moment in the Heart-space where
everything that is is welcome.
— Dorothy Hunt
Chant:
Peace be still
Peace be still
The storm rages
Peace be still
Sunday, June 7th with Catherine
Reading: John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
John 20:19-22
On the evening of that first day of the week, even though the disciples had locked the doors of the place where they were, out of fear…, Jesus came and stood before them.
”Peace be with you,” he said. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. At the sight of the Lord the disciples rejoiced.
Chant:
Dona nobis pacem, pacem
Dona nobis pacem
— Elizabeth Von Trapp
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