Advent Daily Devotional: Day 6
Fri, Dec 4 – DAY 6
Hope often involves learning from our experiences. Gaining insight from our past, the hard parts and the good ones, and putting them to use.
Hope is controlling the one thing we’re able to affect: our own response to whatever has already happened and what is happening now. How will we react? What will we do with what is going on? How will we make meaning from it, and transform it into something that gives us energy, power, and motivation?
Hope comes from finding the most healing, sustainable, productive, purpose-driven way to name and acknowledge current circumstances. Then to adapt to them as needed. And change them if that is desirable and possible.
And what if we cannot change circumstances, even if its preferable to do so? Sometimes bearing witness is what we can do. By seeing, listening, recognizing a reality, we are remaining present to ourselves and others. That is a form of response, and also a way of cultivating hope. — Rev Gail
Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. — Psalm 130:7
Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord. — Psalm 31:24
We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming – well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate. — Amy Tan
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. — Victor Frankl
It’s the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee. — Nicholas Sparks
Advent Daily Devotional: Day 5
Thurs, Dec 3 – DAY 5
Hope fosters comfort with stillness and silence, as aspects of not-knowing. In these times, we’re enduring personal pressures and communal, national and global stresses.
Hope supports resilience in a culture that offers round-the-clock data feeds. We give ourselves permission to unplug and turn down the noise. We need this capacity in any era, but certainly in these times, when our culture promotes 24/7 access to information and each other, with exaggerated extremes of emotion and perspective.
What if we slow it all down? Sometimes the constant stimulation provides a false sense of certainty. It also mimics intimacy.
Hope invites us into a time that can be quiet. It allows us to cope with lack of information. It enables us to wait to find out what comes next. It assures us that we will manage, when even when we do not or cannot know the answer.
Hope allows us to stay centered and become comfortable with our own company. We learn to trust ourselves and each other, without external stimulation. We learn to catch our breath, and listen actively to the stillness rather than yearning for noise. And find out that in the stillness, we may come to learn and know more than we expected. — Rev Gail
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found … Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. — Neil Gaiman
If you re-channel those energies into being aware of what is going on in the present moment, you will be able to make a breakthrough and discover joy and peace right in the present moment, inside of yourself and all around you. — Thich Nhat Hahn
The spiritual task of life is to feed hope. Hope is not something to be found outside of us. It lies in the spiritual life we cultivate within. — Joan Chittister
Dum spiro, spero: While I breath, I hope. — Latin proverb
Advent Day 3: Daily Devotional
The first Advent candle has melted slightly. Been put to use. It stands upright as it reaches toward heaven, yet remains rooted in its secure place. Between its certainty of position and its daring rise, it fulfills its purpose.
Hope grows out of a sense of purpose. Any human, at any age, may make a difference in the world. See something that needs to be changed or accomplished. Name it. Approach it. Address it. Find others who are also passionate about a similar cause. Build relationships so that more can happen by learning and working together.
Consider your passions and how they lead you to a calling in your life. If you remain uncertain about the ‘why’ in your life, this season offers a wonderful time to pray and listen, to invite awareness about your particular passions and purpose. Celebrate how passion and purpose manifests as the light of hope that burns within you. — Rev Gail
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. —Jeremiah 29:11
They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. – Tom Bodett
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances,
but only by lack of meaning and purpose. ― Viktor Frankl
Nov 29 Service: Advent 1 Hope
Worship Service with Candle-lighting by Roberts family, flute by Jeantte Heidmann, Q&A with Maeve Weeder and Clare Long re fighting forest fires, faith & hope and reprise of choral music ‘I Believe’
Advent Hope Message: Q&A by Maeve Weeder with Clare Long
Meditations on tangible love during Advent 4: holy, messy, stubborn love that moves among us here on earth.
I believe God loves the world through us—through you and me. — Mother Teresa
The three grand essentials of happiness are: Something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for.― George Washington Burnap
The great struggle of … life is to take God’s name for us, to believe we are beloved and to believe that is enough. ― Rachel Held Evans
The roots of a lasting relationship are mindfulness, deep listening and loving speech, and a strong community to support you. — Thich Nhat Hanh
You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.
― William W. Purkey
Prayer
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
— St. Teresa of Ávila
Questions to consider:
- When did you have an experience of holy, stubborn love this week?
- When has love insisted on showing up, despite whatever should have turned it away, in your life?
- What or who has been transformed by love, in your life?
- When have you served as tangible love in someone else’s life?
- What is your ‘language’ of love? How do you express love to others? Read an article on this concept.
- In what ways are you willing to receive or accept love? When and how is it hard to allow yourself to be loved?
- What songs make your playlist as great love songs? Are they romantic or do they describe a different kind of love?
- Here are a few love songs to get a shared playlist started:
- One Love as performed by Bob Marley and One Love performed as world music by Playing for Change
- What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
- Lean On Me by Bill Withers
- Everybody Needs Somebody as performed by The Blues Brothers
- Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah performed by Pentatonix
- You Raise Me Up by Secret Garden with Brian Kennedy or You Raise Me Up as performed by Josh Groban
- Here are a few love songs to get a shared playlist started:
HOLY, STUBBORN LOVE: Incarnate, Embodied, Among-Us
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ― Rumi
Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love. ― Mahatma Gandhi
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ― Martin Luther King Jr.
Every one of us is trying to find our true home. Some of us are still searching. Our true home is inside, but it’s also in our loved ones around us. When you’re in a loving relationship, you and the other person can be a true home for each other. ― Thich Nhat Hanh
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close. ― Pablo Neruda
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. ― Elie Wiesel
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always. ― Mahatma Gandhi
I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough … ― Nicholas Sparks
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. — Mother Teresa
You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not. ― Jodi Picoult
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. ― Louise Erdrich
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater. ― J.R.R. Tolkien
Spiritual Commentary on Love
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. ― Dalai Lama
I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us. ― Anne Lamott
Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In
fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what
makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that
inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change. ― Richard Rohr
Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another
person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you
can’t love. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh
What I love about the ministry of Jesus is that he identified the poor
as blessed and the rich as needy…and then he went and ministered to
them both. This, I think, is the difference between charity and justice.
Justice means moving beyond the dichotomy between those who need and
those who supply and confronting the frightening and beautiful reality
that we desperately need one another. ― Rachel Held Evans
God’s grace is a gift that is freely given to us. We don’t earn a thing
when it comes to God’s love, and we only try to live in response to the
gift. No one is climbing the spiritual ladder. We don’t continually
improve until we are so spiritual we no longer need God. We die and are
made new, but that’s different from spiritual self-improvement. We are
simultaneously sinner and saint, 100 percent of both, all the time. The
Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ.
Anything in the Bible that does not hold up to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ simply does not have the same authority. The movement in our
relationship to God is always from God to us. Always. We can’t, through
our piety or goodness, move closer to God. God is always coming near to
us. Most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.
― Nadia Bolz-Weber
When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like
the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now
there is intimacy; where before there was fear, now there is courage;
where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm
of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you
are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your
life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning. ― John O’Donohue