Readings week of September 7th.
Updated: 5 days ago
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, September 7th
Reading: “As a young man, I was told to hurry up, if I wanted to win the race of greatness. Turned out it wasn’t a race but a maze. And finding no way out, my friends and I secretly wanted to be king of the maze because we couldn’t find the kingdom within, which time revealed as not the grit or fairy tale of castles, but the wild and gentle grasslands that feed the ordinary soul.
“As the years went by, it became clear that every soul is a cell in the global body and our health depends on each other. And every soul is also an agent of light, like chlorophyll, absorbing what matters and turning it into the air we breathe and the sweetness that keeps us alive. And it’s the call of every age to dismantle the maze and relearn how kindness is the blood of the heart and turning light into food is the work of the mind.
“So, where are you in the drama of the maze and the liberation of the global soul?
“Where can you best place your concern? For the tiniest gear can stop the machine and the smallest seed can enliven the forest. We must never underestimate the power of one heart, one mind, or one soul to shift the course of history. Not with a grand gesture but with a steady contribution of life-force to the waking tide of the Universe.” — Mark Nepo
Chant: Surrender to the beauty, become a mighty kindness — Elizabeth Combs
Tuesday, September 8th
Reading: “The meaningful ways to make such a steady contribution are infinite. But each is carried by the mystery of relationship and the hard work of bridging. In truth, what makes the bridging of relationship so necessary is the immutable truth that the unnamable power of life is most enlivening when it keeps flowing from one living part to the next.
“Just as the heart can’t keep us alive without the network of veins and arteries, the Living Universe can’t keep us alive without the network of relationship. How then can we discover, create, and maintain bridges of relationship that let the Whole inform, heal, and enliven the part? This is a practice we could call spiritual bridging, one we have to personalize so our gifts can bring our life-force into the world.” — Mark Nepo
Chant: The streams of my Father’s love run daily through me, the streams of my Mother’s love run daily through me, from the holy Fountain of Life to the seed throughout the whole creation — Paulette Meier
Wednesday, September 9th
Reading: “This brings to mind how neighbors formed a line to hand sandbags to each other to prepare for a hurricane. And how friends and strangers in Santa Fe, New Mexico formed a line to move 3000 books, a few at a time, from the old bookstore to the new one six blocks away. And how toward the end of WWII, weary soldiers formed a line to lift masterpiece after masterpiece from the salt mines in Germany, rescuing the priceless artwork of Europe stolen by the Nazis.
“Whatever makes us help and hold in times of need, we become what we offer over a lifetime. Love long enough and we become love. Build foundations long enough and we become foundational. And bridge long enough and we become a bridge. This is inevitable and quite beautiful, if we can get out of our own way. This earnest transformation depends on our devotion to the life of questions and the life of giving. For asking and giving reveal what connects us. Asking and giving brings us home.” — Mark Nepo
Chant: O Mercy, I entrust myself to you, that I may be transformed
— Suzanne Toolan, RSM & Catherine Regan
Thursday, September 10th
Reading: “We are talking about transformation, of course, a kind of sacred alchemy. And it is precisely this alchemy that defines our essential human task. The secret of our identity does not lie in the outer form or in how successfully we manipulate the forms of the sensible world. Rather, it lies in how we are able to set them (and ourselves) aflame to reveal the inner quality of their aliveness. The names of God lie coiled within the physical forms of things; our particular and uniquely human task is to spring the trap and set them free. They cannot manifest apart from the sensible realm (that's what the sensible realm is here for), but neither will they manifest automatically within it unless there is a further act of conscious transformation. That is our job.”
— Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, p. 55
Chant: O Mercy, I entrust myself to you, that I may be transformed
— Suzanne Toolan RSM & Catherine Regan
Friday, September 11th
Reading: “Do not lose sight of the reality of our One, inter-twined, single heartbeat. We do not breathe a breath that does not beat in your pulse. When you see a tree, we know the shade. Beneath the surface skin, muscles, bones, and hidden in valleys unexplored is the land we both come from and never left. You need not rediscover, for we are not a breath away. The valley of perfection and awareness takes us beyond love, beyond sensing, beyond anything you can hold, and anything we can show.
“We know your vision could expand. You do not walk alone, struggle alone, or accomplish alone. Your life is our life. We have never left your side or you ours. There is never a time, a moment, a breath in the Universe in which we are separated. Your pain is our pain. Your joy is our joy.
“We cannot shape your life. Be of strong faith. Be filled with belief in yourself that is unmatched, determined and brave. Most of all, be aware that every star, in every galaxy, in every course of the Universe can, if you will just turn, reflect your light. There is no end to that light. There is only an end to darkness.
“Be of great peace for we love you dearly.”
— Gregge Tiffen, To Earth from Second Earth
— The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West
Saturday, September 12th with LeMel
Reading: “If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies: Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank people will try to cheat you: Be honest anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight: Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous of you: Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten by tomorrow: Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway.”
“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”
— (Mother) Theresa of Calcutta, whose feast day was September 5th
Chant:
Sunday, September 13th
Reading: “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love. … The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.” — Mother Theresa, Come Be My Light
Chant: May our hearts be full of grace, our souls fueled by love
— Words of Martin Luther King Jr. put to chant by Heather Ruce
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