Blessings that Make Us Believe – When We Open our Hearts

       I don’t know why this phrase – blessings that make us believe – came to me, when I sat down to write this morning.  Maybe I saw it online or while reading a book.  Regardless, now I want to spend time pondering what it could mean for maybe you and me today.

When I think about my blessings, I have so many that their number is too high to spend time counting.  I wouldn’t get anything else done!  But what about those things (places, people, events) that happen to all of us that at first glance don’t appear to be blessings at all?

Throughout my years of study and having a spiritual director, I’ve had times to figuratively imagine (and literally draw) a timeline of my life.  But it wouldn’t really be a straight line, because looking back at my life, it has never gone just directly forward.  What about you?  If you drew the timeline of your life – no matter how long or how short – would it be simply a straight line?

My timeline, when I drew it, had dips and drop offs, curves and canyons, high and low points.  And some of what I’ve considered the lowest points have been the times when I felt most alone – alienated from good people and also from God.  The times when my life would curve around (and around!), was I making progress - by going deeper – or was I just spinning my wheels?  What about you?  What made your lowest times?  What caused them?  How do you see them now?

I think if I’d drawn a timeline during my early adult life, I probably would have looked outside myself to explain the worst times, blaming others for my life being in the pits.  And during those same years, I probably would have seen most of my good times as being of my own making.  

Ah, but then one gets older and hopefully wiser…  And not the wisdom from life experience or reading good books, but a more important, timeless wisdom: Awareness that we are more than just physical beings; we are body, mind, and spirit. All three are equally important – and I will daresay that our spiritual side is the most important of the three (I know you had to see that coming). 

If we go about each day, living in the wisdom gained from body, mind, and spirit, we become aware of everything in life being a blessing in one way or another.  We learn from each bad time; we grow when we have to reach out for help; we begin to wonder if we were created for something other than just living a convenient, comfortable, and easy life.  Then we start to look for our purpose – and once that happens, watch out! Our hearts open to the life we were meant to live – the life that God is beckoning us to have with the Spirit.  And once our hearts are open to Possibility, our lives are never the same.

There is nothing we experience without God's presence. Wisdom helps us realize that God is with us always and no matter what – when we spin our wheels, take two steps back, or fall into a deep hole.  It’s part of seeing “God in all things.”  And everything – eventually – can then become blessing.   💙

Midweek Meditation – Heart to Heart

       Hello Friends… For about three years I volunteered in the pastoral care department of a Federal Prison in Florida.  I saw and listened to how time can begin to wear on inmates.  Seeing this, I wanted to help ease their sorrows and boredom by giving them a little something to do.  So I created a two-page “Midweek Meditation,” handed out each Wednesday.  On one side was usually a scripture passage which I would then incorporate into a reflection for the week, and on the other side I’d create a word search puzzle or something to occupy their minds for a few minutes.

I think I was the one who gained more from this exercise, as it gave me a chance to write about my favorite subject – God!  And too, because of my audience, I was always reminded of my many blessings.  So I thought I would do something similar for Wednesdays in this Blog.  I’ll offer a scripture reading or a prayer or a quote from a book for you to ponder throughout your day.

The first thing I thought of to start with is my favorite prayer by Thomas Merton. (http://www.merton.org/). And because I was too comfortable at my desk to get up and find one of my books that contain this prayer, I Googled it instead.  To my delight, a YouTube video version of the prayer came up – it is Merton’s prayer read by a young Franciscan friar that I had the pleasure of meeting last year, Fr. Dan Horan, OFM.  So I include his reading of the prayer, accompanied by photographs of the beloved Thomas Merton (Trappist Monk and priest) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqtvB0_MqEM

                                                               ☩ 

May our day ahead be filled with the certainty that God is with us each moment, and there is nothing God desires more than our companionship.  Today let’s step out in faith – even if we don’t yet believe this truth fully – and trust that we please God just by our choosing to search for Him.  Amen.  💙

Waiting and Wondering – A Lesson for the Heart

“’For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Eternal, ‘plans for peace,

not evil, to give you a future and hope – never forget that. At that time,

you will call out for Me, and I will hear. You will pray, and I will listen.

You will look for Me intently, and you will find Me. Yes, I will be found

by you,’ says the Eternal…”    - Jeremiah 29: 11-13  (The Voice)

A prayer partner, another spiritual director and retreat leader, sent me a hand-written note that I received yesterday.  It included this scripture passage within it.  And although I have seen it and been led to read this Old Testament passage so many times, it seems that each time I read it, it has a new meaning for what is going on in my life at the time.

For me right now, I am waiting and wondering about an important upcoming decision.  The decision is not mine to make but someone else’s, and it will impact me profoundly, either way.  And yet I have placed what happens into the Hands of my Creator, who I have learned does listen.  My Heavenly Parent – the One I am learning to trust more deeply – always has the best in mind for me. 

How about you?  Have you been in a similar situation?  How did you handle it?  Did you think that you had to do it all yourself?  Did you believe that nothing would get done unless you were in charge?  Did you lose hope in waiting, or did you find that prayer or reading scripture helped you?

This quote, and note from a friend, came at just the right time.  Through it, I am reminded of the numerous times that God has taken care of me over the years…  No, my answers did not come right away.  Sometimes the answer did arrive sooner than later, and it was “no.”  The bad times did not lift immediately.  Nothing in life is easy.  Pretty. Much. Nothing. But I hold on to this promise that God made before the Babylonian-exiled Israelites.  I too am not alone.  The One who matters most in my life says, “You pray. I’ll listen.” And, right now, that’s the finest thing my heart can hope for.  💙

   [Thanks, Lorie!]

Love God wth all Your Heart... and Love your Neighbor

       I spent part of my weekend reading a 2019 memoir by Dr. Ayaz Virji entitled Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America. The title is based on what is the basic premise of faith in Judeo-Christian beliefs. But Jewish and Christian people do not hold a monopoly on this belief.  Loving God and loving our neighbor is a tenet of life among all of God's faithful children. 

Dr. Virji is so shocked the day after the 2016 US presidential elections that he threatens to leave the small town in Minnesota where he has moved, with his family, to bring an improved healthcare system to this rural part of the country.  As a devout Muslim, of Indian descent, he became angry and bitter when he found that some of the very people he treated (and saved) were the ones who voted in a way that felt to him like a slap in the face. 

But thankfully, with some divine intervention, he and the Lutheran associate pastor in his town put together a series of lectures for Minnesota (and beyond) to educate people about what Islam means to 99.99% of those who are of the Muslim faith.  His talks come from his heart, and he only wants people to understand that radicals and terrorists do not speak for his religion, any more than the Rev. Jim Jones, of the Peoples Temple fame, spoke for all Christians. 

About midway through his book, Dr. Virji talks about what prayer – praying five times a day – means to him and to his faith: “I say essentially the same prayers every day, texts from the Quran… In Islam, we believe that the prayer begins when it ends – with the deeds you perform after the prayer is done…. We ask of ourselves, ‘What are you doing? How are you treating people? Are you doing the right thing? What are you doing when nobody is watching?’” [p. 117] 

This paragraph was the most poignant for me, in his whole book, as it reminded me of the Letter of James in the Bible: “See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.... For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” 

And before James wrote his epistle, Jesus had told the story of the Farmer (a metaphor for God) sowing seeds that fell in different places along the ground – some fell by the road where birds ate them, some fell on rocky ground where the seeds grew quickly with shallow roots so were then burnt by the sun, some grew among weeds and the sprouts were choked out by them. But the seeds that fell on fertile ground began to grow and yield fruit in the form of grain for all to eat and enjoy. (Matthew 13: 1-9) I know that God has planted seeds in me (and in all of us, really), but did they fall among weeds, that distract and dissuade, or on the good soil of a faithful heart? 

As I sit here at my computer, I started my day in prayer and plan to continue it throughout today.  But how will my prayer truly begin at the end of my words or at the end of my silence?  As Dr. Virji says, I too “am exercising discipline,” [ibid] by spending time in prayer – but then what? 

I have to ask myself, “Is a prayerful heart ever just enough?”  💙