Readings week of March 9th.

Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, March 9th

Reading: “Joy is not a heightened state of happiness—it's entirely different. It's an experience of communion, of "being one with" beyond the boundaries of self, of interbeing Joy is a sensation of our entire being, difficult to describe in words but similarly felt whenever we experience it. Strangely, the experience of joy often feels the same as sadness. In my experience both joy and sadness feel like an embrace of my whole being. I feel energy beyond what my physical body can contain, yet it does. I am laughing. I am crying. I am doing both simultaneously. It doesn't matter what I name it. I am fully alive, fully present.” — Margaret J. Wheatley, Who Do We Choose to Be?

Chant: You the One, One in All, say I Am, I Am You 

— The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West

Tuesday, March 10th

Reading: Deep within the still center of my being, may I find peace. 

Quietly, within the circle of this grove, may I share peace.Gently, within the circle of all life, may I radiate peace. — The Druid’s Prayer

Chant: Deep peace of the rolling waves to you, deep peace of the silent stars, deep peace of the blowing air to you, deep peace of the quiet earth, let peace, let peace, let peace fill your soul, may peace, may peace, may peace keep you whole  — Sara Thomsen

Wednesday, March 11th with Lacey

Reading: “I have tried to suggest a new way of picturing hope. In this new positioning, the underlying sense of corporateness is physically real, for that ‘electromagnetic field of love’ is the Mercy – and the Mercy is the body of Christ. Through this body hope circulates as a lifeblood. It warms, it fills, it connects, it directs. It is the heart of our own life and the heart of all that lives. Hope’s home is at the innermost point in us, and in all things. It is a quality of aliveness. It does not come at the end, as a feeling that results from a happy outcome. Rather, it lies at the beginning, as a pulse of truth that sends us forth. When our innermost being is attuned to this pulse it will send us forth in hope, regardless of the physical circumstances of our lives. Hope fills us with the strength to stay present, to abide in the flow of the Mercy no matter what outer storms assail us. It is entered always and only through surrender; that is, through the willingness to let go of everything we are presently clinging to. And yet when we enter it, it enters us and fills us with its own life – a quiet strength beyond anything we have ever known.” — from Mystical Hope by Cynthia Bourgeault, pgs. 86-87

Chant: Oh Mercy, I/we entrust myself to you, that I/we may be transformed

Thursday, March 12th

Reading: I Worried by Mary Oliver 

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow 

in the right direction, will the earth turn 

as it was taught, and if not, how shall 

I correct it? 

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, 

can I do better? 

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows 

can do it and I am, well, 

hopeless. 

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, 

am I going to get rheumatism, 

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. 

And gave it up. And took my old body 

and went out into the morning, 

and sang. 

Chant: Love, don’t worry. My love, don’t worry. Perfect love casts out fear. 

— Lyndsey Scott

Friday, March 13th with Catherine

Reading: “If we are quiet and listen and feel how things move, perhaps we will be wise enough to put our hands on what waits to be born, and bless it with kindness and care.”

— Wayne Muller, Sabbath, p,175-6

Could It Happen Anywhere? Worried about what was to come, I went to the river and listened to the constant song as water met stone, met log, met wall. The endless white hush of it. Song of building up banks. Song of tearing them down.Song of surrender to invisible force. Song of changethat is ever the same and not the same. And in the listening, I found refuge — not in the longing to hide, not in the sound — I found refuge in the listening. Refuge in the openingof the senses. In attuning to what is here. Wave and currentand eddy and flow and the attentiveness that livesthrough this [woman] person. And I listened and listened, listenedto it all, and was opened by listening. At some pointthe listener disappeared. What was left waslistening itself. For a time, peace found me there.

— Rosemerry Wahtolla Trommer

Chant: Draw me deeper into silence, draw me deeper into you.   

Saturday, March 14th

Reading: No Strangers Here by Skip Renker

Sometimes strangers apologize

for a public noise they’ve made,

a cough in a waiting room,

a sneeze in a library, a fart

by someone’s kid in an elevator,

or they offer no apology

for throat clearing, loud sighs, lip smacks.

Here we all are making noises in lobbies,

stores, on streets and sidewalks, each sound

often unconscious, seemingly random,

but maybe they’re part of a cosmic pattern,

not unlike the law-abiding explosions

in every galaxy, blast after blast

neither out of control nor haphazard,

but somehow connected, necessary kin

to every other possible vibration.

Hindu sages believed reverberations

from the sound of the original OM

continue to make and pervade

the universe. We live among our

earthbound human compatriots—

if we sit in silence, we hear

breathing, and every whisper

knows no bounds.

Those noises strangers make in public,

sometimes half suppressed or

throats clear, lips pop, noses snuffle,

shoes scuff. Here we all are

in lobbies, elevators, stores,

on streets, sidewalks, parking lots,

each sound seemingly random, but maybe

they form a pattern, not unlike

the law-abiding explosions

in distant galaxies, sounds

neither out of control nor random,

but somehow necessary, kin

to every other sound in the universe.

We live among our earthbound,

human compatriots. Sitting

in silence, we hear

breathing, and every whisper

knows no bounds.

Chant: Om

Sunday, March 15th with Henry

Reading: The lamps are different,

But the Light is the same.

So many garish lamps in the dying brain’s lamp-show,

Forget about them.

Concentrate on the essence, concentrate on the Light.

In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire,

The Light streams towards you from all things,

All people, all possible permutations of good, evil, thought, passion.

The lamps are different,

but the Light is the same.

One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,

Endlessly emanating all things.

One turning and burning diamond,

One, one, one.

Ground yourself, strip yourself down,

To blind loving silence.

Stay there, until you see

You are gazing at the Light

With its own ageless eyes.

— Rumi, translated by Kabir Helminski

Chant: I AM the Light of the world, I AM the Light of life.

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