Readings week of November 10th.

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, November 10th 

Chants: 

Sink into the taproot of your heart – Heather Ruce

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, deep within and all around – Henry Schoenfield

Tuesday, November 11th

Chant: Come be with me, all you who carry heavy burdens, I will give you rest, I will give you rest – chanted by Colleen Thomas

Wednesday, November 12th

Reading: "We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena... It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." – Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot

Chant: Surrender to the beauty, become a mighty kindness – Elizabeth Combs

Thursday, November 13th

Chant: Neither activities nor possessions will ever be able to satisfy the spiritual longing radiating from our souls. – words of Catherine Whitmire put to chant by Paulette Meier

Friday, November 14th with Catherine

Reading: "We shall not cease from exploration 

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover 

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always – 

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything.)"

– T.S. Eliot, excerpt from Four Quartets

Chant: Be right here, in the Heart of God – Henry Schoenfield

Sunday, November 16th

Reading: "Prayer is easy only for beginners and for those who are already Saints. During all the long years in between, it is difficult. Why? Because prayer has the same inner dynamics as love, and love is sweet only in its initial stage, when we first fall in love, and again in its final, mature stage. In between, love is hard work, dogged fidelity, and needs willful commitment beyond what is normally provided by our emotions and our imagination.

It's when I say, "I don't know how to love," and, "I don't know how to pray," that I first begin to understand what love and prayer actually are." – Ronald Rolheiser

Chant: Let my trust be in your Mercy, let my hope be in your Love – Henry Schoenfield

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