Dear Jesus,
Help me to defer judgment to God and to love. Help em turn my own insecurities into faith and my own comparisons into acts of solidarity and empathy. Enable me to love people as you loved them - unconditionally and without reservation or fear.
Amen
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Luke 12:22-34
"There is no need to be afraid, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom."
"Sell your possessions and give to those in need."
Again, there is a reassurance that fear is useless, what we need is faith. This sense is coupled with a call to live frugally, to give our material riches away for the betterment of others, to uplift others.
I already have so much. I am trying to live as lean a life as possible and prioritize what truly matters most - actively loving the people in my life.
"Sell your possessions and give to those in need."
Again, there is a reassurance that fear is useless, what we need is faith. This sense is coupled with a call to live frugally, to give our material riches away for the betterment of others, to uplift others.
I already have so much. I am trying to live as lean a life as possible and prioritize what truly matters most - actively loving the people in my life.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
God's Grace
"My only desire and my one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God's deepening life for me." (Principle and Foundation)
God's grace (unearned gifts) is always present and available for me to take. I just need to take it through love. When I love others, I access God's grace and I allow it to fill me and guide me. The love of God is real and powerful and guides my daily life, it guides the tone and content of my every conversation. I am blessed when I am mindful of what I say and how I say it, of what I do and how I do it. If everything I say and do is guided by real love and an awareness of glorifying God, then I know I am truly living and I am truly alive in the fullest sense.
God's grace (unearned gifts) is always present and available for me to take. I just need to take it through love. When I love others, I access God's grace and I allow it to fill me and guide me. The love of God is real and powerful and guides my daily life, it guides the tone and content of my every conversation. I am blessed when I am mindful of what I say and how I say it, of what I do and how I do it. If everything I say and do is guided by real love and an awareness of glorifying God, then I know I am truly living and I am truly alive in the fullest sense.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
I shall listen to you
"When you call to me and come and pray to me I shall listen to you." Je 29:11-12
"I remember that God continues making me and has hopes for me and desires that I keep growing in love until I love as completely as God loves." Loved by God
"God who loves us creates us" Principle and Foundation
These passages resonate with me today. The notion that God listens to me is of great comfort in that I know that my prayers are heard and that I am guided to those prayers by the same God who hears them. If I listen carefully, I can discern the kind of prayer that makes sense for me. This gives new meaning to the words and thoughts I pray, because I am reminded that God is truly listening and that I need to choose my prayers carefully, and always be of right mind (or at least aspire to be.)
The second quote reminds em that I can never love too much, that I can always grow in my love of self and others. I think about Paul's letter to the Corinthians in defining what love is, and I am reminded of how incredibly challenging it can be to love myself and others. The first descriptor Paul offers is "patience." One thing this last week and a half has taught me how to do is to slow down. I tend to want to speed up and go go go. The fact is that I am developing a new appreciation for the expression "Go slow to go fast." When I sit with the same prayers or bits of scriptures and seek the deeper meaning, I am truly reaching levels of valuable insight. Depth over breadth is at work. I understand the power of this truth.
The third quote is extremely powerful because it speaks to the ongoing nature of my creation. I am in the process of creation. I am being created every day. I am reborn and renewed on a daily basis, and that process is ongoing. I have the power of newness and possibility within me. This gives me tremendous personal power, to know that God is creating me every day. I can change, I can learn new things, I can grow, I can do anything. I am blessed in knowing this - it is incredibly edifying. I can stand up and say, "I count! I matter! I'm relevant - always! I'm here!"
"I remember that God continues making me and has hopes for me and desires that I keep growing in love until I love as completely as God loves." Loved by God
"God who loves us creates us" Principle and Foundation
These passages resonate with me today. The notion that God listens to me is of great comfort in that I know that my prayers are heard and that I am guided to those prayers by the same God who hears them. If I listen carefully, I can discern the kind of prayer that makes sense for me. This gives new meaning to the words and thoughts I pray, because I am reminded that God is truly listening and that I need to choose my prayers carefully, and always be of right mind (or at least aspire to be.)
The second quote reminds em that I can never love too much, that I can always grow in my love of self and others. I think about Paul's letter to the Corinthians in defining what love is, and I am reminded of how incredibly challenging it can be to love myself and others. The first descriptor Paul offers is "patience." One thing this last week and a half has taught me how to do is to slow down. I tend to want to speed up and go go go. The fact is that I am developing a new appreciation for the expression "Go slow to go fast." When I sit with the same prayers or bits of scriptures and seek the deeper meaning, I am truly reaching levels of valuable insight. Depth over breadth is at work. I understand the power of this truth.
The third quote is extremely powerful because it speaks to the ongoing nature of my creation. I am in the process of creation. I am being created every day. I am reborn and renewed on a daily basis, and that process is ongoing. I have the power of newness and possibility within me. This gives me tremendous personal power, to know that God is creating me every day. I can change, I can learn new things, I can grow, I can do anything. I am blessed in knowing this - it is incredibly edifying. I can stand up and say, "I count! I matter! I'm relevant - always! I'm here!"
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Jeremiah 29:11-14
God's plans for me are peace, welcoming, a return to the fold. I know that I must act in accordance with these plans. I know that God's plans are clear and laid out plain for me. I have to come to those plans, come to the love, return to the fold. Wherever I have exiled myself, to places of fear, anxiety, impatience, intolerance, anger, self-loathing - these are the real exiles of the spirit where I allow myself to reside - and they are manifest in my relationship to self and others. When I remember God's plans for me - peace, hope, love - then I can do away with these places of exile and be fully human and more in God's image as I was created. This is how God intended me to be.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Hope
"Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to hope." Upland Hill Connections Winter 2010
"In hope we already have salvation; in hope, not visibly present, or we should not be hoping-nobody goes on hoping for something which he can already see." Romans 8:24-25
The universality of hope is a powerful reality that drives sour daily reason for being. I get up every day with hope in my heart. A spiritual restlessness, yes, coupled with strong hope and a belief that we are moving, as the Baha'i believe, to an ever evolving planet towards the divine.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" R8:31
The ability to feel the power of the spirit without moral certitude or judgment is the balance i seek every day. I know the spirit lives in me, radiates through me and fills em up every day. I seek to spread this light, this spirit, this gift to all those I encounter and to uplift all people. This is God's mandate for me. I must fulfill my destiny as a Christian to realize my gifts and put them to use., They do not come from me , they do not belong to me . I am merely an agent. I have been bequeathed gifts and talents that have been in my family for generations., I am merely a conduit, a vessel, an agent of God's will. Everything I do is for the greater honor and glory of God because I come from God. I am of God and all I am and all I do is dedicated to advancing love. Faith, hope, and love. The more, the better.
"In hope we already have salvation; in hope, not visibly present, or we should not be hoping-nobody goes on hoping for something which he can already see." Romans 8:24-25
The universality of hope is a powerful reality that drives sour daily reason for being. I get up every day with hope in my heart. A spiritual restlessness, yes, coupled with strong hope and a belief that we are moving, as the Baha'i believe, to an ever evolving planet towards the divine.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" R8:31
The ability to feel the power of the spirit without moral certitude or judgment is the balance i seek every day. I know the spirit lives in me, radiates through me and fills em up every day. I seek to spread this light, this spirit, this gift to all those I encounter and to uplift all people. This is God's mandate for me. I must fulfill my destiny as a Christian to realize my gifts and put them to use., They do not come from me , they do not belong to me . I am merely an agent. I have been bequeathed gifts and talents that have been in my family for generations., I am merely a conduit, a vessel, an agent of God's will. Everything I do is for the greater honor and glory of God because I come from God. I am of God and all I am and all I do is dedicated to advancing love. Faith, hope, and love. The more, the better.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Reflection on Psalm 23
Yahweh I know you are near
Standing always at my side
You guard me from the fall
And you lead me in ways everlasting
Where shall I run from your love?
For you know where I sit and where I stand.
Protecting me from death
Keeping me from harm
God as protector is a powerful image that reminds me of how to live. The key for me is the absence of fear. I have been beholden to fear for a considerable part of my life. As someone who live with bipolar disorder, half of the disorder is anxiety, which is, fundamentally, fear. Only through reflection in the spirit have I learned to dispel fear from my life, to turn fear into faith.
"Fear is useless, what you need is faith."
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=33432
When I flip my fear into faith I am more content and more calm. I can faith any hardship, any issue with peace. I can live, truly live as God intended me to live. What a blessing that is, indeed!
Standing always at my side
You guard me from the fall
And you lead me in ways everlasting
Where shall I run from your love?
For you know where I sit and where I stand.
Protecting me from death
Keeping me from harm
God as protector is a powerful image that reminds me of how to live. The key for me is the absence of fear. I have been beholden to fear for a considerable part of my life. As someone who live with bipolar disorder, half of the disorder is anxiety, which is, fundamentally, fear. Only through reflection in the spirit have I learned to dispel fear from my life, to turn fear into faith.
"Fear is useless, what you need is faith."
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=33432
When I flip my fear into faith I am more content and more calm. I can faith any hardship, any issue with peace. I can live, truly live as God intended me to live. What a blessing that is, indeed!
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