Tag Archives: Daily meditations

Care of Souls

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Philosophy is spiritual formation, care of the soul. Some need more care than others, just as some have a better metabolism or were born taller than others. The more forgiving and tolerant you can be of others – the more aware of your various privileges and advantages – the more helpful and patient you will be. Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

[The Daily Stoic, New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016, p. 225]

When I worked in catering, I memorized various ways to set up tables in a space because it wasn’t something I could do with ease. Eventually, I got proficient at setting up a room without memorization – but it took years and a lot of practice, and patient coworkers willing to show me how.

When my patience is tested due to someone else’s inability in something that comes easily to me, I do my best to remember the patience of others – and to remember that it isn’t just a set of skills or a completed task at stake: it’s the care of souls.

The Eye of the Beholder

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The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. Eden Philpott’s, English poet, novelist, and playwright

I suspect that beauty, magic, and holiness have surrounded me since I took my first breath. Darkness and cruelty, too. How ironic that I expect the latter and not so much the former…

[Quote from Daily Peace, Washington, D.C.:National Geographic Society, 2016.]

Choose Them Wisely

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A word doesn’t merely say something, it does something. It brings something into being. It makes something happen. What do writers want their books to make happen?

I wish that I had told my writing students to give some thought to what they wanted their books to make happen inside the people who read them…

[Frederick Buechner; Listening to Your Life; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, July 22/23 excerpts. Also online.]

What do I want my words to make happen inside the people who read them? If I’m writing a sermon, meditation, or Sunday school lesson, I want to offer just a glimpse of the marvelous and holy world that surrounds us and that lives inside us. The focus of my doctoral work was born in asking and answering that question.

Words open doors within our souls. They give voice to our deepest emotions, and they offer a particular perspective – a way of seeing life. They are tools that allow us to communicate, and they are also weavers of reality. They are powerful. They can heal and harm because they become part of the inner voice that speaks to us of our value from waking to sleeping – and sometimes even in our dreams.

Scripture is sacred because it is a word-constructed doorway that the Spirit draws us through into the love of God. Scripture is sacred because it is a word-constructed means to loving our neighbors more fully. It is the Living Word because it does something for us and with us.

It’s no wonder that Jesus is called the Word Made Flesh.

This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them down, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John21:24,25

Life Changing

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If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. Buddha

[July 20, Daily Peace; Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2016]

It’s been a rainy, flooding, smoky, humid July in Vermont. For the past few days, I’ve had the added pleasure of a summer cold. But the sun came out today, and today’s Daily Peace quote prompted me to step out onto the back deck. The dozens of Jerusalem artichoke flowers I could see each had at least one bee. My potted thyme is also covered in blooms.

These are not rare species. They are as common as can be. In a world that values what is rare and delicate, it’s easy to undervalue, underestimate, and overlook the beauty in the common and hardy. It’s a peculiar and pervasive blindness – and one I might have kept had the words of the Buddha not intervened.

No Thanks Necessary

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When you’ve done well and another has benefitted by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top – credit for the good deed or a favor in return? Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.73

One of the main differences between icons and other paintings: icons are never signed. The person who writes an icon is creating beauty as an expression of prayer and faith – an expression that is designed to foster the prayers and faith of the ones who stand before it. An iconographer is creating something that is meant to be moved through – a beautiful means to a holy encounter with God. Signing it, taking credit for it, might impede that moving through and defeat the purpose of the icon.

If I think of everything I do as creating something beautiful as an expression of prayer and faith, I won’t need to claim credit or expect recognition and thanks. Seeking that third thing just might defeat the purpose of the act – and it certainly won’t help it.

[Quote from The Daily Stoic; Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman; New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016, July 15th; Icon of Saint Matthew]

Expected

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My assumptions will prevent me from a deeper understanding of almost everything – even if those assumptions were fairly accurate at some point. If I expect to find only weeds in an untended garden bed, I’ll be blind to the wild strawberries and chives gracing the space.

The same is true of God: how can I encounter God if I’m not willing to admit that any idea I have about God is partial, and may prevent me from living into a love so marvelous that it is beyond words to express?

Sadly, this unwillingness to let go of my current view of God is often commended as remaining true to the faith rather than seen as what it is: ignorance.

Learning For A Reason

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The Daily Stoic; Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman; New York: Penguin, 2016, p. 204

The difference between learning in a way that leads to a fruitful life for self and the world and learning that doesn’t go that way is the difference between wisdom and knowledge. A genius may use her or his knowledge and skills for irrelevant or harmful ends; a wise man or woman uses his or her skills in a way that deepens the spirit and gladdens the world.

There are evil geniuses, but no evil wise ones. Something to think about…

A Second Look

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We are all of us more mystics than we believe or choose to believe – life is complicated enough as it is, after all. We have seen more than we let on, even to ourselves… Buechner

Years ago, I worked as a chaplain in a Trenton, New Jersey, hospital. Part of the work: pick an encounter with a patient or staff member and write it up, word for word. These verbatims were designed to raise awareness of how our own assumptions and histories influenced how we interacted with others. Generally, most of us chose encounters that were particularly difficult or meaningful.

One week, my supervisor changed the rules. Pick an ordinary interaction – a quick hello in an elevator, a brief conversation at the nurses’ station. Something forgettable. And so I did. I doubt there were more than fifty words altogether, and none of them remarkable. But there was a holiness to it that I could only see because I took a second look at it.

A mystic is someone who sees that holiness at first glance – or at least knows it’s there, seen or unseen. And a mystic is willing to admit it.

[Frederick Buechner; Listening to Your Life; San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992, p. 168]

Putting it in Words

[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.

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.]