Tag Archives: Christianity

Easter People in a Good Friday World

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Once again, the Center for Action and Contemplation, helps us reconcile our aspirations with reality. Yes, we can persevere even though we are confronted with “with the forces of death, hopelessness, fear, discouragement, or lack of will.” Yes, we can continue to believe even though we are surrounded by non-believers.

Big inhale, slow exhale. Yes, we can.

Check out the provocative message below and go to CAC’s website for continued encouragement here: cac.org/daily-meditations/easter-people-in-a-good-friday-world/

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 Spirit Is for All

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The Center for Action and Contemplation provides another message of diversity and inclusion. Check out the excerpts from their message below and the two contributing authors as well.

The Spirit Is for All

Thursday, May 23, 2024 at cac.org/daily-meditations/the-spirit-is-for-all/

Author Lisa Sharon Harper describes the diversity of the early church: 

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit rushed in and caused all those present to speak in languages that were not their own. Each person understood the others…. God established the confusion between languages at the Tower of Babel (see Genesis 11). At Pentecost, God brought the languages together, but not in the way we would imagine. God did not unite the world under one imperial language. Rather, the power of God made it possible to have unity in the midst of diversity. God made it possible for people to speak languages that were not their own and to understand one another.    

In other words, all the cultural, economic, and gender barriers between them were broken down. [1]   

Theologian Luke Powery names how the Holy Spirit’s presence is given for all, not just some:  

No human voice or body is denied the presence and fire of God. Humans, regardless of ethnicity or race, speak a multiplicity of languages to reveal the diversity of God from the beginning, which is the vision of the end….  

Pentecost… creates a new world. It is a new creation ignited by the Spirit. The Spirit may be “unsought” or “unwanted” but is “intent on making all things new.” [3] This includes new flesh, a new body for the people of God. [4] 

References:  
[1] Lisa Sharon Harper, The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right (New York: Waterbrook, 2016), 183–184.   

[2] Zora Neale Hurston, The Sanctified Church (Berkeley, CA: Turtle Island, 1981), 91. 

[3] Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, The Holy Spirit (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2015), 35.  

[4] Luke A. Powery, Becoming Human: The Holy Spirit and the Rhetoric of Race (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2022), 70–71, 73, 75. 

lisasharonharper.com/about-lisa/

chapel.duke.edu/staff/rev-dr-luke-powery

An Integrated Life

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Doctor (and Sister) Joan Chittister shares her weekly Vision and Viewpoint newsletter today with her comments below on the importance of “living an integrated life.” You can learn more about her and the Benedictine religious community in Erie, Pennsylvania at this website: joanchittister.org/~joanchit/

“Do not lie, even to yourself

Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Gandhi could have been a Benedictine. Humility is about living an integrated life, a life in which each part is in harmony with every other dimension.
 
The person who lives a lie, for instance, no matter how effective otherwise, is in tension every moment of the day.
 
The truth is that we are meant to be transparent.

Be what you say you are. Do not lie, even to yourself. Don’t live two lives

At the end, three things measure both our integrity and the harmony of our own lives: self-control, respect, and freedom from self-deception.

a process of slow and self-emptying transformation
 
enjoy the rest of the adventure called life, learning, becoming, growing as we go.

                  —from Radical Spirit (Random House), by Joan Chittister 

joanchittister.org/books-page/radical-spirit-12-ways-live-free-and-authentic-life

High Coo – Dec 24 – Christmas Eve

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Christmas has been embraced by religious and secular groups in a very big way. Here’s two statistics for consideration:

“Christianity is the largest religion in the world. Approximately 2.38 billion people practice some form of Christianity globally. This means that about one-third of the world’s total population is Christian.” https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-christian-countries

“Holiday shopping can account for up to 30% of all retail sales.” https://financesonline.com/christmas-shopping-statistics/

Whatever your reason for celebrating Christmas Eve, I wish you peaceful, safe and warm conditions. May you be well.

Today’s senryu: Christmas Eve

only one more day

until Christmas – wishing you

a happy morrow