Month: August 2022

These quotes and practices from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations, are beautiful and germane to all of our hopes for change and provide the tools we need to keep working toward a more sane and equitable world.

“If you listen to the Spirit, you will be drawn toward an opportunity to serve. At first, the thought will frighten or repel you. But when you let the Spirit guide you, it will be a source of great joy—one of the richest blessings of your life.”
—Brian McLaren

“The contemplative life is not, and cannot be, a mere withdrawal, a pure negation, a turning of one’s back on the world with its sufferings, its crises, its confusions, and its errors.”
—Thomas Merton

Practice GRACE

Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax describes a method of collaborative discernment with, and on behalf of, others. 
 
GRACE [is] an active contemplative practice. . . . GRACE is a mnemonic that stands for: Gather attention. Recall our intention. Attune to self and then other. Consider what will serve. Engage and end. . . . 

Gather Attention: The G in GRACE is a reminder for us to pause and give ourselves time to get grounded. On the inhale, we gather our attention. On the exhale, we drop our attention into the body, sensing into a place of stability in the body. . . . 

Recall Intention: The R of GRACE is recalling intention. We recall our commitment to act with integrity and respect the integrity of those whom we encounter. We remember that our intention is to serve others and to open our heart to the world. . . . 

Attune to Self and Other: The A of GRACE refers to the process of attunement. . . . In the self-attunement process, we bring attention to our physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts—all of which can shape our attitudes and behavior toward others. . . . From this base of self-attunement, we attune to others, sensing without judgment into their experience . . . [and] engage our capacity for empathy. . . .  

Consider What Will Serve is the C of GRACE. . . . . We ask ourselves, What is the wise and compassionate path here? What is an appropriate response? We are present for the other as we sense into what might serve them, and we let insights arise, noticing what the other might be offering in this moment. . . . 

Engage and End: The first phase of the E in GRACE is to ethically engage and act, if appropriate. Compassionate Action emerges from the field we have created of openness, connection, and discernment. 

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.   

Joan Halifax, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet (New York: Flatiron Books, 2018), 241–242, 243. 

Grow poetry in the debris left behind by rage.

Plant so there is enough for everyone to eat.

Make sure there is room for everyone at the table.

Let all of us inhabit the story, in peace.

~ Joy Harjo

Dear Amina recently posted this on her blog Love, Harmony & Beauty #99. It is a compelling statement from John O’ Donohue that reminded me of Kim Stanley Robinson’s quote I posted earlier, “…pessimism is a dereliction of duty…”

We can never be reminded enough of how important it is to remember our power and practices that allow us to continue our critical social and earth justice work in these profound and challenging times.

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The world is not decided by action alone. It is decided more by consciousness and spirit; they are the secret sources of all action and behaviour.

The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together.

Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on.

When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it.

When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world.

In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation.

–          John O’Donohue

From Fr. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations

Present Over Perfect

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” —John Steinbeck, East of Eden

After spending many years seeking perfection, popular author Shauna Niequist discovered the freedom and love that can be experienced by being present to life as it is. She writes about the difference between a false perfection and a lived presence: 

Let’s talk for a minute about perfect. . . . Perfect is brittle and unyielding, plastic, distant, more image than flesh. Perfect calls to mind stiffness, silicone, an aggressive and unimaginative relentlessness. Perfect and the hunt for it will ruin our lives—that’s for certain.  

I’ve missed so much of my actual, human, beautiful, not-beautiful life trying to force things into perfect. But these days I’m coming to see that perfect is safe, controlled, managed. I’m finding myself drawn to mess, to darkness, to things that are loved to the point of shabbiness, or just wildly imperfect in their own gorgeous way. . . .  

And so, instead: present. If perfect is plastic, present is rich, loamy soil. . . . 

Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairy tale. Present means we understand that the here and now is sacred, sacramental, threaded through with divinity even in its plainness. Especially in its plainness.  

Present over perfect living is real over image, connecting over comparing, meaning over mania, depth over artifice. Present over perfect living is the risky and revolutionary belief that the world God has created is beautiful and valuable on its own terms, and that it doesn’t need to be zhuzzed up and fancy in order to be wonderful.

Sink deeply into this world as it stands. Breathe in the smell of rain and the scuff of leaves as they scrape across driveways on windy nights. This is where life is, not in some imaginary, photo-shopped dreamland. Here. Now. You, just as you are. Me, just as I am. This world, just as it is. This is the good stuff. This is the best stuff there is. Perfect has nothing on truly, completely, wide-eyed, open-souled present

Shauna Niequest, Present over Perfect: Leaving behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 129, 130.  

The wisdom of Thich Nhat Hahn – with gratitude to sister Tarana who posted this on FB

“Whenever we throw food in the compost, it can smell bad. Rotting organic matter smells especially badly. But it can also become rich compost for fertilizing the garden. The fragrant rose and the stinking garbage are two sides of the same existence. Without one, the other cannot be. Everything is in transformation. The rose that wilts after six days will become a part of the compost. After six months the compost is transformed into a rose.
In the garbage, I see a rose.
In the rose, I see the garbage.
Everything is in transformation.
Even permanence is impermanent.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh