Category Archives: Wisdom

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow & Waiting Is Never Easy

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Instead of rushing to a desired new future we must often dwell in a state of unknowing. In between crucifixion and resurrection is a long waiting period and I’ve never been good at waiting. How about you?

Today’s message from the Center for Action and Contemplation comes from Dr. Christine Valters Paintner of the Abbey of the Arts. Highlights below address the liminal space of moving from a painful past to a new future … from letting go “of things, people, identities, or securities” and wondering “what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives.”

Lingering In-Between 

Christine Valters Paintner invites us to the patience necessary to receive the wisdom of Holy Saturday:  

For me, Holy Saturday evokes much about the human condition. It helps us examine the ways we are called to let go of things, people, identities, or securities. We wonder what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives…. 

Instead of rushing to resurrection, we must dwell in the space of unknowing. We must hold death and life in tension. One day, we can help others live through these scary and tense landscapes. The wisdom of the Triduum is that we must be fully present to both the starkness of Friday and the Saturday space between before we can really experience the Resurrection. We must know the terrible experience of loss wrought in our world. This pain can teach us more when the promise of new life dawns, and we will appreciate its light because we know the darkness….  

Much of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday places but we spend so much energy resisting, longing for resolution and closure. Our practice this day is to really enter into the liminal zone, to be present to it with every cell of our being.  

Honor the mystery. 

Reference:   
[1] Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within (Sorin Books, 2015), 122–123.  

The Big Man Can’t Shoot TRICYCLE HIGHLIGHTS

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Sensei John Pulleyn, Co-Director of the Rochester Zen Center, offers a provocative explanation of why and how to let go of what others think about you. Learning to let go of social approval gives us the freedom to be who we are and let other people be who they are.

A couple of highlights from the article, The Big Man Can’t Shoot, are:

  • It isn’t easy and it’s not comfortable to turn our back on the values and conventions all around us, especially when they’re unexamined.
  • …
  • For most of us, the approval or disapproval of others is an overwhelming force. We’re conditioned and accustomed to reading the crowd, to devoting a significant amount of our mental energy to understanding where we stand in the gaze of others. 
  • …
  • (As) Anthony de Mello points out, “Being president of a corporation has nothing to do with being a success in life. Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life. You’re a success in life when you wake up! Then you don’t have to apologize to anyone, you don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about you or what anybody says about you. You have no worries; you’re happy. That’s what I call being a success.” 

To enjoy the whole article, see the link below:

The Big Man Can’t Shoot

The Foundation Is Contemplation – CAC Highlights

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Todays repost reminds us of the importance of healing ourselves as well as others. Two, no make that three, highlights from the article below are:

  • The exterior work of social justice is only as strong as the interior work that births and fuels it.
  • We can’t heal as a community if we do not concern ourselves with healing our inner lives.
  • We help solve our community’s problems when each of us faces our own sorrow, authentically and creatively.

The Foundation Is Contemplation

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Reverend Liz Walker is the founder of the Can We Talk… network, which creates safe spaces for people to connect through sharing their stories. She describes the importance of contemplative, healing practices to support the work of social justice:  

We trust that whatever needs to be healed will be healed by the Spirit of a creative God who works in and through us…. 

Dr. [Barbara] Holmes writes that the civil rights movement was born through the contemplative spirit of the Black church.  

By lovingly joining our neighbors and sharing our painful stories in the interest of finding peace within our own souls, we are taking seriously the interior work necessary for our collective healing. 

The exterior work of social justice is only as strong as the interior work that births and fuels it. We can’t heal as a community if we do not concern ourselves with healing our inner lives. Storytelling, listening, movement, and music all represent the gentle, interior healing necessary to empower the hard work of social change.  

participate as truth seekers, unashamed to process their own pain. They show us that authentic joy is reached through a healing process. We help solve our community’s problems when each of us faces our own sorrow, authentically and creatively.  

References: 
[1] Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, 2nd ed. (Fortress Press, 2017), 113.  

Liz Walker, No One Left Alone: A Story of How Community Helps Us Heal (Broadleaf, 2025), 191, 192–193. Used with permission of publisher.     

Spiritual Bypassing or Contemplation – Another Helpful Richard Rohr Teaching

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I have sought comfort in faith traditions and psychology my entire life; sometimes for healing and sometimes for hiding. Below is a repost of today’s daily meditation from Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation. As he often does, Rohr helps me better understand how to heal myself versus hide behind the fantasy of my own little relationship with an imaginary Lord Protector.

But first, here’s a quick definition of the term spiritual bypassing:

Spiritual bypassing is a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”. The term was introduced in the mid 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist.” (See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_bypass)

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Contemplation: A Path to Compassion

Friday, March 28, 2025

Father Richard reminds us that regular contemplative practice is not an end in and of itself, but for the sake of solidarity with the suffering of the world:   

One of the main works of contemplation is detaching from the ego, from the self, from impure motivations of success or power, money or control. That will never stop, but it isn’t really that meaningful unless that detachment is accompanied by an attachment.  What do we find after all the months and years we’ve been practicing some form of contemplation or meditation? Do we have an increased attachment, sympathy, empathy, and compassion for what I call in The Tears of Things the suffering of the world? For the women of Gaza, the children of Ukraine, the starving people of Africa, the poorest of the poor, and all those marginalized in the United States and around the world? If the emptiness of “letting go” is not pretty soon filled up by “holding on” to some kind of deep solidarity with the suffering of the world, I don’t know that it’s Christian contemplation or even meaningful contemplation at all. It seems we’re simply back into private spirituality again.   

We’ve spent much of our history of contemplation seeking individually pure motivation. That’s a real temptation, but are we really going to spend the years ahead seeking only to be motivated to love Jesus on some private level? What does it even mean to love Jesus? What is the positive act of love? When we are in silent meditation or prayer, that’s what we’re praying is growing inside of us. As we let go of false motivations, and false, ego-based concerns, we’ve got to pray, hope, and desire for an increase in compassion, in caring, in solidarity with human suffering.   

I believe that’s what the cross means. The raised arms of Jesus are an act of solidarity and compassion with the human situation. So, as we sit in silence this morning and every morning, let’s pray that’s what we’re praying for: an increase in compassion by letting go of false purity codes and agendas, which we think make us holy or worthy of God’s love. It doesn’t matter if we have perfect motivation or a perfect practice. What is motivating us? Instead of perfection, let’s look for growth. Ultimately, we only see that growth over time as we grow in communion with those who suffer, grow in solidarity with human and beyond-human pain, and with the tears of things.  cac.org/daily-meditations

store.cac.org

Today’s Inspirational Message from CAC

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The Center for Action and Contemplation offers daily inspirational messages. Today’s is especially helpful to me. I hope it brings good news to you as well.

“O God of Love, Power, and Justice, Surprise us with the discovery of how much power we have to make a difference in our day.”
—Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes 

In this practice, inspired by the words of the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, we are invited to remember the power we have to make change in the world.  

We invite you to slow your breathing and make space to recognize our capacity to make a difference. As we rest in stillness, we observe how even small actions—offering kindness, speaking truth, seeking fairness—can ripple outward in ways we may not yet see.  

Join us to journal or record your responses to the following questions: 

  • What small action can I offer today as a small act of kindness towards another?
  • What small action can I offer today as an act of speaking truth to myself? 
  • What small action can I offer today to bring fairness to a situation where I see it lacking?

See https://cac.org/

NON-HARMING

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Lynn J Kelly provides us with another “pearl of wisdom” with her post below. As she says:

“We want to train ourselves to avoid acting (or speaking) when we are angry or displeased. The mind state comes before the action and can be worked with before any harming occurs. The Buddha put this practice first on his list of guidelines for training laypeople because it may be the primary way we harm ourselves and others.”

May we avoid harming ourselves and others more skillfully today. _/\_

Non-Harming

Small Steps Make a Huge Difference

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“Every action we take with words or body has a component of intention. The smallest ethical action has the power to set us on the path to awakening. Inversely, when we behave in a harmful way, towards ourselves or others, it sets a trajectory in a direction it would be better not to go.”

I’ve seen the truth of the above statement in both directions.

For the full blog written by Lynn J Kelly, see the link below.

Small Steps