Tag: Spirituality and Practice

A matter of emphasis

The perspective of age

A new eCourse is being offered by Spirituality and Practice. The course (which begins October 7) will offer us opportunities to explore ‘the view’ as we pause in our ascent and look out.

About the course:

Aging is a great adventure, an opportunity to deepen and enrich our spirituality. In this e-course in Spirituality & Practice’s Elder Spirituality Project, Joan Chittister discovers blessings behind every aspect of growing older. There is a difference, she notes, between age, aging, aged, ag’ed, and ripened. Through this month-long program, she reframes aging and encourages us to discover through reflection and practice what new perceptions and attitudes about growing older can mean for our own lives.

More information about The Blessings of Aging with Joan Chittister

Wind Chimes: 8 Nov 2012

Sunrise in New Zealand

weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning

Psalm 30:5

There is a dynamism in the chimes, can you hear it? Stillness and silence giving way to movement and sound and …. What do you hear?

A brief reflection on Ruth

In the story of Ruth I find a marvelous, mysterious, messy and invigorating dynamic of scarcity and abundance, barenness and fecundity, death and life, playing-it-safe and taking-risks, self-giving and self-satisfaction, despair and hope, death and life. Read it with an eye to these dynamics, listen to the story for the truths it has to teach for living in 21st century America. Please share with me (and others) what you hear. ~dan

A report: Justin Welby to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury

“Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, has accepted the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.” The Telegraph article dated 7 Nov 2012

There has been no official announcement of this appointment (7am PST on 11/8/12), but follow up articles suggest The Telegraph is confident of their report. ~dan

Hope of the dawn

Hope of the dawn.
Joy of the day
Peace of the night
Renew us we pray.

Theresa Mary Grass in Pocket Prayers and shared in a Spirituality & Practice email dated 14 May 2012

Photo: Moriori on Wikimedia Commons ~dan

Wind Chimes: 27 Sep 2012

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

James 4:8a NRSV

Here is today’s sampling of the music made by the Spirit in the Wind Chimes.
What do you hear?

Being present: A Spiritual Practice

Quote . . .Being present in the spiritual life always has a double meaning. There’s present, as in here, in attendance. And there’s present, as in now, a moment of time. What is the spiritual practice of being present? Being here now.  [1]

Drawing near to God by “reading” God in Nature

We have to begin with the first bible, which is creation itself—that God has revealed who God is through what is. If we don’t learn to honor, respect, and learn from creation—the natural world—I think it’s very unlikely that we are going to know how to read the second bible—the written Bible—with respect, reverence, and in an open way. So I believe (and of course this is very Franciscan for me) that we have to start with the first bible, which is the created world itself, or nature. [2]

Obama at the U.N.: A new religion doctrine

President Obama on Tuesday (Sept. 25) gave a forceful speech at the United Nations, in which he challenged much of the world’s assumptions about free speech and religion.

The article, by Lauren Markoe, goes on to extract five points which she says “add up to as close to an Obama Doctrine on Religion as we’ve seen.”

Read the article on Religion News Service

________________________
[1] One of my favorite websites is Spirituality & Practice. A section of their site is devoted to Spiritual Practices. Among the practices (and a dimension of “draw close to God and he will draw close to you”) is “Being Present.”

You decide

“Recommend books, poetry, music, movies, videos, and so on,” we tell each other on Sunday. Just last Sunday (5/20/12) Stan recommended The Last Week by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. (It is available at the Rancho Mirage Public Library.) Here are 2 Book Reviews to help you decide to pick it up and read.

A book review from Spirituality & Pracitce

Marcus Borg (Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time) and John Dominic Crossan (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography) set out to explore the last week in Jesus’ life against the backdrop of Roman imperial control. Their purpose is not to attempt a historical reconstruction of what has become known as the “Passion” or suffering of Jesus, but to probe the things Jesus was passionate about. The text they use is the Gospel of Mark, the earliest to be written, the most succinct, and the one with the most time markers for the week’s events. Read more.

A book review from Journey with Jesus

In this simple exposition written for a general audience, two leading New Testament scholars use the Gospel of Mark to explain what happened to Jesus during his final week. They use Mark because most scholars consider it the earliest of the four Gospels, the primary source for Matthew and Luke, and because when you read carefully you see that Mark details the last eight days of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. Read more.

Keep the conversation going: what is your experience with this book?

%d bloggers like this: