Mid-Life Contemplative
blog posts
God in the Silence
In our prayer lives, God often speaks most clearly to us in moments when we can quiet our own minds and voices. Words can sometimes be more reflective of our own anxieties and concerns than of God’s action. While prayerful words can be a beautiful mode of communication, they can also be distractions from fully…
From “God On Mute” by Pete Greig
I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when he is silent. (Graffiti found on a wall of a basement in Koln, Germany, where a Jewish believer is thought to have been hiding from the Gestapo.)
Radical, Modern Day Beatitudes
Here’s a selection of beatitudes by the astonishingly different Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber: Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Those who aren’t sure, who can still be surprised.Blessed are they who are spiritually impoverished and therefore not so certain about everything that they no longer take in new information.Blessed are those who…
Compassionate Solidarity
When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not advice givers, warners, or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to…
A Prayer for the Time of Covid-19 (from The Atlantic)
Dear Lord, In this our hour of doorknobs and droplets, when masks have canceled our personalities; in this our hour of prickling perimeters, sinister surfaces, defeated bodies, and victorious abstractions, when some of us are stepping into rooms humid with contagion, and some of us are standing in the pasta aisle; in this our hour…
Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story
While we are sheltering in place, treat yourself by watching this PBS special readily available on the internet. Howard Thurman was born at the beginning of the twentieth century and became the spiritual mentor to the modern Civil Rights movement. Thurman became a contemplative and found God in nature and in meditation and silence as…
Week 6 – Prayer & Reconciliation
This last week of our Lenten series on Prayer, Forgiveness and Reconciliation offers an exercise and meditation, cites some helpful quotations on the importance of forgiveness, and outlines the rite of the Reconciliation of the Penitent to be considered, especially as we near Easter. If you want a copy of the exercise and meditation, please…
Mockingcast Episode182: Deployed
We would like to recommend this week’s podcast by three professional ministers who discuss where to find God in this particular time of pandemic and where to find Him in our modern American culture. <https://themockingcast.fireside.fm/episodes> (Copy and paste into your browser, if needed)
Week 5: Sacramental Prayer
This week, we are continuing our work in our Lenten Class with Prayer, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. We are examining preparing for forgiveness through the lens of sacramental prayer. Our PowerPoint describes sacramental prayer and the rite of Reconciliation of a Penitent. Also, there is a short video of a powerful story about forgiveness. The spiritual…
Thoughtful thought
“I experienced the miracle that the highest potential of God’s love and power is available to us in the trivial things of everyday life.” Corrie ten Boom reflecting on working in her father’s workshop
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