Category Archives: Meditation

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation

Putting it in Words

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[Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, June 24]

When we speak deep truths, something irrevocable occurs. We can’t unsay them, even if we speak them aloud to no one but ourselves. An I love you spoken and heard can transform the world well beyond the sayer and hearer. An I love you left unsaid may be deeply felt, but there’s a certain something it only gains in the saying. It may not be necessary, but it is vitally important.

The same is true for words of grief. To pick up the phone and tell someone that a beloved parent/friend/husband/wife has died is to make it real in a way it wasn’t beforehand. The words don’t change the loss, but they change it from an external reality to the heart’s own truth.

Meditation, observation, philosophy

Repeat Behavior

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[The Daily Stoic; Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman; New York: Penguin, 2016]

When I need to pray the most is when I’m least likely to do so. Life’s cares and woes knock me down because I refuse to rely on my soul’s source of strength. Eventually, I’ll return to prayer, but not before I try to carry on without it. It makes no sense and it does me no good.

It takes courage to walk the path of prayer, perhaps or precisely because I am fundamentally changed in ways that move me away from the person I was toward the person I am becoming. That kind transformation, living that kind of miracle, isn’t for the faint of heart.

[Sharon Salzberg is an author and teacher, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.]

art, Meditation, observation

Forgive and Forget

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[Daily Peace; Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2016. Image by ArTDi101(shutter stock)

Forgiving is an act of releasing someone else from the burden of causing us pain. It’s an act of will that can restore the inner peace of another.

Forgetting is an act of releasing ourselves from the burden of pain inflicted upon us. It is an act of grace that restores our own inner peace. Until we offer this grace to ourselves, we are only halfway through the forgiveness process.

[This is one in a series of writings. For more information, click Daily Meds above.]

Meditation, observation

Nouwen’s Words

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Choosing Love

How can someone ever trust in the existence of an unconditional divine love when most, if not all, of what he or she has experienced is the opposite of love – fear, hatred, violence, and abuse?

They are not condemned to be victims! There remains within them, hidden as it may seem, the possibility to choose love. Many people who have suffered the most horrendous rejections and been subject to the most cruel torture have been able to choose love. By choosing love they became witnesses not only to human resiliency but also to the divine love that transcends all human loves. Those who choose, even on a small scale, to love in the midst of hatred and fear are the people who offer true hope to our world.

[Henry Nouwen, Bread for the Journey; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997, June 14]

The cruel insult. The shove out of the way. The hurtful exclusion. Wishing harm and ill to others for any number of irrational reasons. All these acts come from the same darkness that prompts hatred and violence. It is a fearful well that so many drink from, thinking it will quench the loneliness and unworthiness that is burning their lives away from the inside out.

The genuine compliment. The helping hand. The invitation to join the conversation. Wishing healing and goodness for no reason in particular. All these acts come from the same transcendent light that fosters all life.

Small or large in scale, there’s a holiness to adding light rather than darkness to the world.

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation, Theology

For Whose Benefit?

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Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:21-22

For most of my life, I assumed that the reason Jesus told Peter to forgive another was for the benefit of the other person. It seemed like a lot to require of anyone, and it still does.

The older I get, the more inclined I am to see how forgiveness benefits the forgiver as much or more than the one forgiven. To be released from that acid gnawing away at body and spirit that corrodes the very heart of my being until I forgive is a grace bordering on the miraculous.

Is releasing another from a burden of guilt, of restoring another’s inner peace, too high a price for the reprieve from my own suffering?

[Daily Peace: Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2015; photos by Marek Minch and Elena Alyukova-Sergeeva. For more on this series, click Daily Meds above.]

Meditation, observation

Road Block

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You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible – and no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacles! Perhaps, but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom. But what if some other of my area of my action is thwarted? Well, gladly accept the obstacle for what it is and shift your attention to what is given, and another action will immediately take its place, one that better fits the life you are building. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.32

[Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, The Daily Stoic, New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016, June 8]

For the past two weeks, I’ve been taking different exits off the highway to get to work. Most all of them lead to another road I’m already familiar with, but coming in at different places by unfamiliar roads. Yesterday’s exit brought me to an accident scene. Flashing lights, several rescue vehicles, and a lot of orange cones diverted me onto an unfamiliar road going in the wrong direction. My first instinct was to turn around and get back on the highway, but that would put me at the accident scene again – a hindrance to the people working at the scene and likely a several minute wait to get through. Instead, I drove forward. In less than five minutes, I was back on a familiar road. I didn’t get to take the unfamiliar road I wanted to take, but I did end up finding a new route to work – one I may not have found without a forced detour.

It’s easy to forget that there are many ways to get where I need to go, and that my preferred way is not the only and may not be the best one. And what is true on the road is often true in life.

[This is one in a series of writings. For more information, click Daily Meds above.]

Meditation, observation, Prayer

Quiet Neighbors

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On a walk by the Battenkill yesterday, my companions and I stopped to read this sign.

They are our quiet neighbors, fostering life all around us with little to no fanfare, asking very little in return.

If I can’t stop to appreciate the majesty and beauty of trees, my soul is diminished.

In all seasons, they remain a steadfast presence.

What a wondrous blessing to walk among them.

Thanks be to God for the green life of trees.

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation, Theology

With age…

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[Author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail; excerpt from Daily Peace; Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2015]

What is unforgivable? It’s an important question that arises whenever harm comes into our lives. And an even more critical question: who cannot be forgiven?

The older I get, the more I am convinced of this: when I assign someone to the land of the unforgivable and unforgiven, I end up living there, too. Only by the grace of God can either one of us find release.

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation

What is Required?

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“What is your vocation? To be a good person.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.5

The Stoics believed, above all else, that our job on this earth is to be a good human being. It is a basic duty, yet we are experts at coming up with excuses for avoiding it.

Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016, p. 165

One of my family’s core beliefs: you weren’t put on this earth to be miserable. Most often, it came out when one of us had been dealing with a difficult situation or person over a long enough period of time to warrant some kind of change – this affirmation that none of us was meant to live a miserable life.

On occasion, it was used in the other sense – none of us was meant to be the cause of suffering and misery for others. This wasn’t because the lives of others were of lesser value, but because there were other ways of saying the same thing that were more frequently said: treat others as you want to be treated; if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all; how would you like it if…; you were put here to be a gift to the world.

You would think it goes without saying that all of us have a responsibility to be good to others and to be good to ourselves, that such a thing is too obvious to miss, but it isn’t true. What’s left unsaid is easily forgotten or ignored – and the world is the lesser for that omission.

Say it in whatever person’s words work for you – Marcus Aurelius, Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai, or Mother Teresa. Or go with the classic:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8, NRSV

Meditation, observation, Prayer

Pity or Mercy

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Jesus, the Blessed Child of God, is merciful. Showing mercy is different from having pity. Pity connotes distance, even looking down upon…Mercy comes from a compassionate heart; it comes from a desire to be an equal. Henri Nouwen

[Nouwen, Henri J.M.; Bread for the Journey; San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1985, May 28th excerpt.]

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have Mercy. Lord, have mercy. [Kyrie Eleison]

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

If Henri Nouwen is right, then asking for mercy is a request for more than forgiveness of transgressions: it is seeking the company of someone who restores our dignity and fragile sense of self worth instead of stripping it away from us. This is a revolutionary request that can transform our inner lives as we seek to make amends for our shortcomings in our outer ones. We expand instead of contract – and perhaps we will dare to show mercy to others so that they may expand as well.

[This is one writing in an ongoing series. For more information, click Daily Meds above…]