Readings week of September 14th.
Updated: 19 hours ago
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, September 14th
Reading: Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
— Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage
Chant: I Am, I Am Yours, I Am Yours whether I live or die. — Michael Sciretti Jr.
Tuesday, September 15th with LeMel
Reading: Whom We Are
We are not merely who we are
not just the stories we’ve rehearsed,
the roles we’ve learned to play,
the masks we’ve mistaken for faces.
We are whom love has seen.
Whom grace has called by name.
Whom silence has softened.
Whom suffering has hollowed and hallowed.
We are not the authors of ourselves,
but the ones written upon—
by time, by tenderness,
by the ache of longing and the touch of joy.
Whom we are
is a question only stillness can answer.
Not an identity to be achieved,
but a presence to be received.
Whom we are
is not a thing we grasp
but a truth that gently takes hold—
when we cease striving
and let ourselves be found.
— Logan Jones
Chant:
Wednesday, September 16th with Tom
Reading: The Box
Take your God
into the woods. Find
a stump on which to set God
down. Slip into the mossy
silence if you can for
even five minutes un-God
God out of the box,
right out of the steel bars
of your mind:
smash the calf, strip
down to naked
bark, see what gives
when you let that god go.
— Tom Amsberry
Chant: Flow river flow
flow over me
Oh living water
poured out for free
Oh living water
flow over me.
— Refrain from Bob Hurd’s Flow River Flow
Thursday, September 17th with LeMel
Reading: Fragile beauty
Someday you will hear all things applaud your wonder.
Life claps in awe at the Divine performance.
When your veil is removed, you and everyone else
will see that being itself is holy.
Raising up children is the primary care
and purpose of this blessed state,
for it is an oasis of love created in the desert.
You see, the heart reflects the heavens
when it is merciful and compassionate.
So who would want to stand before a mirror
that is shattered and distorts the fragile beauty as we grow.
Our souls become oases for all life when they are unveiled.
— Meister Eckhart
Chant:
Friday, September 18th with LeMel
Reading: Fully Baked
O Seeker;
if a thought comes into your mind,
think also its opposite.
For either one may come true.
Hesitation between ideas may confuse you.
Opposing views may lead you to the truth.
See the end of the road
while you are still ahead of thought.
How long will you waste time with just thoughts and words?
Thoughts have such power over you.
From nothing you become sad,
from nothing you become happy.
You are burning in these flames
and I will not let you out
until you are fully baked,
fully wise
and fully yourself.
— Rumi
Chant:
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