GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 13
Cultivate gratitude each day this month.
Day 13: Grateful for Ancestors
- Scripture: Deuteronomy 32:7 — Remember the days of old; consider the years long past; ask … your elders, and they will tell you.
- Meditation: Remembering from where we come grounds us in our identity. Our ancestors’ stories help shape who we are today. Some of those legacies are difficult and challenging, others are positive and strengthening.
- Spiritual Practice: Spend time reflecting on your family history. Perhaps reach out to a family member to learn more about your roots. Alternately, write down and/or share with someone a particular family story that is meaningful to you.
SONGS:
- We Are Family by Sister Sledge: https://youtu.be/uyGY2NfYpeE?si=JBrl6PTU3KGUqy7k
A Map to the Next World
BY JOY HARJO
for Desiray Kierra Chee
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for those who would climb through the hole in the sky.
My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.
For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.
The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.
In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.
Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.
Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our children while we sleep.
Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born there of nuclear anger.
Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to disappear.
We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to them by their personal names.
Once we knew everything in this lush promise.
What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leaving a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.
An imperfect map will have to do, little one.
The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s small death as he longs to know himself in another.
There is no exit.
The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a spiral on the road of knowledge.
You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.
They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.
And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.
You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song she is singing.
Fresh courage glimmers from planets.
And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.
When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.
You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.
A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the destruction.
Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our tribal grounds.
We were never perfect.
Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.
We might make them again, she said.
Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.
GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 12
Cultivate gratitude each day this month.
Day 12: Thankful for Opportunities to Focus on What’s Good
- Scripture: Ephesians 2:10 — For we are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
- Reflection: According to sacred text, humans are created with the capacity for goodness in their choices and actions. In times which too often feel heavy and heartbreaking, we need to focus on what is good in the world. We also seek to notice the good in each other. And we ought to start by akcnolwedging what is good about ourselves, and the ways we can affect the people and the community around us. Each day offers new opportunities to make a positive impact in the world.
- Spiritual Practuce: What is one ‘good work’ (which could also be phrased as the ‘next right thing’) you can ‘catch’ someone else doing this week? Take time to appreciate when someone ELSE is doing something good in the world. Make sure they know that you notice. How do you feel when you focus on the goodness around you? How do others feel when you reflect on their good works?
SONGS:
- Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys: https://youtu.be/apBWI6xrbLY?si=ZcDnbQ2diziplcJC
- Good Day Sunshine by The Beatles: https://youtu.be/R9ncBUcInTM?si=XzhQroqWz0MyYIWF
GRATITUDE Daily Devotional: Nov 11
Cultivate gratitude each day this month.
Day 9: Acts of Kindness
Scripture: Hebrews 13:16 — And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
Reflection: Acts of kindness are both an expression of gratitude and a means of sharing that gratitude with the world.
Prompt: Perform an act of kindness today and recognize the happiness it brings to both you and the recipient.
SONGS:
- Kindness by School Kids: https://youtu.be/7OlGY7vBTjM?si=DNzsONfp___gpTSr
Your acts of kindness
are iridescent wings
of divine love
which linger and continue
to uplift others
long after your sharing
—Rumi
Sat, Mar 5: OPEN BODY
My steps have held fast to your paths;
my feet have not slipped. — Psalm 17:5
In this season, we renew our walk along the Way. We journey through the world with our human bodies. Though we also nurture healthy thoughts and emotions, it is our body that communicates the incarnate journey to our mind and heart. Our bodies are wired, by nerves attached to receptor cells, to transmit signals that conduct information to our brain. In this way, our body teaches and guides us.
We know that throughout life, our bodies change. That the signals alter. We may have challenged eyesight or difficult hearing. Even how our bodies move may change. At different ages, we may move confidently and quickly or more intentionally and carefully. Our bodies change, and so does our experience of the world.
What does the world say to you, when you pay attention as you move through it? Do you pause and listen, hearing bird song or river rush or traffic rumble? Do you look up and around and notice new things, such as the sunlight falling through the branches, or the satellite passing through the starry night sky, or the roll of clouds over the peaks? Do you walk steady on your feet, because the earth is bare and safe, or step gingerly, striving for balance after thaw-and-freeze cycles that lay down treacherous ice? Do you sometimes tiptoe or dance, instead of walking? Do you walk backwards or whirl in a circle? Do you change the way you move in the world, surprising yourself and others as you do? Do you, if you’re able, lay down on the ground and look up at the sky?
Are you able to move independently through the world, or do you use assistance, from a hiking pole or cane to a walker or chair? How does this different way of moving alter your perception? How does it change the way others perceive the world, because they know you and care about your experience?
What do you say to the physical world, by how you are present as you live within its environs? Do you put on skis, snowshoes, spikes, or boots, and immerse yourself in the elements? Do you pick up litter or clear the trail when you’re out walking, hiking, skiing, or snowshoeing, to make it better for the next traveler? If you’re driving, do you minimize errands or bring along a friend to conserve fuel and steward energy and resources? Do you take a detour to visit a new neighborhood or appreciate and explore a different scene? Do you shovel or plow snow for your neighbor as well as yourself, to reinforce communal care and connections? Or does someone do these things for you?
Let us consider how we move through the world. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk who developed the practice of engaged Buddhism, often taught, “When we walk like (we are rushing), we print anxiety and sorrow on the earth. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the earth… Be aware of the contact between your feet and the earth. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.” In other words, create a tender relationship between yourself and the environment.— Rev Gail
————————————————————————————
Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.
― Mary Oliver
PRAYER for WALKING
— Thich Nhat Hanh Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
Lenten Devotional – THURS, Mar 18: SEE (revisited)
Who has seen Godself? How do we see God? Do we see Godself in human form, as described here, or as something else?
In scripture, few people could come directly into the presence of Godself. The great prophet Moses did so. Others could not look upon the radiance of his face afterward. A few other Biblical prophets also reported meeting God in person.
Famously, in Hebrew Scriptures, Jacob wrestled with a stranger at night on his way to Canaan. Though dawn was approaching, neither person could prevail. Jacob refused to give up the struggle, so the stranger touched his hip, and hi joint came out of place. Afterward Jacob limped. By remaining stubbi=orn and continuing to wrestle, he won for himself a blessing and the new name Israel. Jacob named the place by the river where he had wrestled with Godself Peniel or Penuel. (פְּנוּאֵל) Trabnslated, this means “face of God” or “facing God”.
Later, in a tender passage, Jacob then says to his brother Esau, “For I have, after all, seen your face, as one sees the face of God…” He sees Godself in his sibling’s face. It is a fleeting experience. The connection doesn’t endure, perhaps because humans cannot sustain such awareness in each other’s company. Theologian Steve Watson writes, “He has just had this profound spiritual experience – he knows a thing or two about seeing the face of God. And he looks at his brother, face to face, and thinks that is what is happening. To see you accepting me, for us to be at peace – without walls, without fear, person to person, is for me to see in your face the face of God. … this proves to be too much. The intimacy of full personhood, brother to brother, is somehow so unfamiliar, so threatening, that within a day, he’s moved on… But for a moment, he had that connection, that peace to see the face of God in his brother.”
Yet for a brief time, they both experienced a profound sense of once more being in God’s company. They found God in each other.
Of course, the followers of Jesus walked in the embodied presence of the child of God. Most Christians recognize him as part of the holy trinity: Godself.
Jesus also, powerfully, reminded people that when they attended to the needs of others, they attended to the needs of God. They met Jesus in the form of other people to whome they offered compassion. How often, then, might you have been meeting the needs of Godself, even sat or kept vigil in the presence of Godself, by responding to human needs?
In our times, how do we see Godself in the world around us?
Has any person ever brought you into the presence of God? Perhaps at thesholds, such as birth or death, or life moments such as making promises to each other?
Or have you, like Moses, find Godself out in nature? On top of a mountain? Inside the the branches of a bush? At the ocean’s edge? In a quiet woodland? A spring meadow? A winter storm? A summer rainfall? In the midst of birdsong? Surrounded by wild creatures? In the presence of your own pet?
Remember that Godself saw your face first. And loved you, even if you didn’t recognize Godself. — Rev Gail
MEDITATIONS
Trust and value your own divinity as well as your connection to nature. Seeing God’s work everywhere will be your reward. — Wayne Dyer
Love is seeing God in the person next to us, and meditation is seeing God within us. Votes: — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Seeing God face to face is to feel that He is enthroned in our hearts even as a child feels a mother’s affection without needing any demonstration. — Mahatma Gandhi
Challenge or Question: Where do you experience God’s self-revelation in the world?