Meditation on sacred bodies: loving our bodies, caring for other bodies & living in the communal body (themes from 1 Corinthians 12 and Luke 4)
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours, no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
Christ’s compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.
― St. Teresa of Avila
I Sing the Body Electric — Walt Whitman(1 – excerpt) …
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
… The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting; Such-like I love … (7 – excerpt)
… This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless
embodiments and enjoyments. How do you know who shall come from the offspring
of his offspring through the centuries? (Who might you find you have come from yourself,
if you could trace back through the centuries?) (8 – excerpt)
A woman’s body … She too is not only herself,
she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow
and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man? Do you not see that these are exactly the same
to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred …
Except for the Body — Mary Oliver
Except for the body of someone you love,
including all its expressions in privacy and in public,
trees, I think, are the most beautiful
forms on the earth.
Though, admittedly, if this were a contest,
the trees would come in an extremely distant second.
I Got Kin — Hafiz
Plant: so that your own heart will grow.
Love: so God will think,
“Ahhhhhh, I got kin in that body!
I should start inviting that soul
over for coffee and rolls.”
Sing: because this is a food our starving world needs.
Laugh: because that is the purest sound.
Solitude — Nancy Wood
Do not be afraid to embrace the arms of loneliness.
Do not be concerned with the thorns of solitude.
Why worry that you will miss something?
Learn to be at home with yourself without a hand to hold.
Learn to endure isolation with only the stars for friends.
Happiness comes from understanding unity.
Love arrives on the footprints of your fears.
Beauty arises from the ashes of despair.
Solitude brings the clarity of still waters.
Wisdom completes the circle of your dreams.
Our Bodies As Sacred
There comes a time when it is vitally important for your spiritual health to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, ‘Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address.” — Barbara Brown Taylor
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul. — John O’Donohue
If you have a body, you are entitled to the full range of feelings. It comes with the package. ― Anne Lamott, Grace (Eventually)
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
choose one’s own way. ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Breath is the gift of life from the one who created us – from the God
who is both our origin and our destination … some Rabbis teach that Yahweh is not even really a word at all. It is literally breath itself. Yah – exhale. Weh – inhale. Yah – exhale. Weh – inhale. Which would make sense – since the closest translation of its [Yahweh’s] meaning is The One Who Causes to Become.
There is just something about being known by God and animated by God’s
breath in our birth and in our death that wouldn’t leave me this week as
I thought about talking to you all here in this room today … This is
the comfort I thought of this week as I bore witness to both birth and
death. That the God whose name is our very breath – who breathed the
words let there be light, who breathed into dust to create humanity, is
present when we breath our first breath and present when we breathe our
last – I believe that our final exhale is Yah – and that God completes God’s name inhaling Weh – and carries us on God’s divine breath into the heart of God from where we came to begin with. … Amen. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
All great spirituality teaches about letting go of what you don’t need
and who you are not. Then, when you can get little enough and naked
enough and poor enough, you’ll find that the little place where you
really are is ironically more than enough and is all that you need. At
that place, you will have nothing to prove to anybody and nothing to
protect. That place is called freedom. It’s the freedom of the children
of God. Such people can connect with everybody. They don’t feel the need
to eliminate anybody … ― Richard Rohr, Healing Our Violence through the Journey of Centering Prayer
Caring for Other Bodies As Sacred: Serving the Communal Body
We sit and talk,
quietly, with long lapses of silence
and I am aware of the stream
that has no language, coursing
beneath the quiet heaven of
your eyes
which has no speech.
― William Carlos Williams
Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes. — Maggie Kuhn
… I see [God] here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital]
corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where
those who have lost God will find [God] — Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the
reflection of ourselves we find in them. — Thomas Merton
You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are. — Fred Rodgers
Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being. — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond. — Gwendolyn Brooks
Saints cannot exist without a community, as they require, like all of
us, nurturance by a people who, while often unfaithful, preserve the
habits necessary to learn the story of God. — Stanley Hauerwas
This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
That
day, for a moment, it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and
could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real,
perhaps the beloved community would not forever remain that dream one
dreamed in agony. — James Baldwin
The lack of material well-being among the poor reflects a lack of spiritual well-being among the rest. — William Sloane Coffin
God does not look at your forms and possessions but he looks at your hearts and your deeds. — Prophet Muhammad
Loving with Body & Soul, Heart & Mind: Holy Acts
Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether
you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put
up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you
believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like
robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or
luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so
doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in
nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your
hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only
and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you
think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without
reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love
regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love
because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you
want it. You can only earn – by practice and careful contemplations –
the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is
to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to
think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may
secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A
diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love
and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated?
You don’t. What you do know is that you are human and therefore
educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore
interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He
is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested
in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who
understand and share the interest … Amen. ― Toni Morrison, Paradise
On Interdependence
When this is, that is.
From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
When this isn’t, that isn’t.
From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.
— Buddha, Assutava Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 12.2
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand,
to be
loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in
pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born
toeternal life. Amen. — St Francis, Prayer
Madhyamika means “middle way,” and it examines the nature of existence. Madhyamika
tells us that nothing has an intrinsic, permanent self-nature. Instead,
all phenomena — including beings, including people — are temporary
confluences of conditions that take identity as individual things from
their relationship to other things. — Barbara O’Brien, Interbeing: The Inter-existence of All Things (essay excerpt)
Clouds In Each Paper — Thich Nhat Hanh
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating
in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without
rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper.
The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here,
the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud
and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the
dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to
be”, we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have
paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.
If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the
sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In
fact nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we
know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and
the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look we can see the logger
who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into
paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist
without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread
is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are
in it too. When we look in this way we see that without all of these
things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.
Reflections on immersion in fire, water and creation; turning in a new and sacred direction
Into what element can you fall, surrender, let go and lose yourself, and thus become connected to something larger? And how are you changed, once immersed?
Barukh ata Elohenu melekh ha’olam asher kideshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha’tevillah. — Jewish Mikveh Blessing in Hebrew
Blessed are You, O Lord, our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us concerning the immersion. — Jewish Mikveh Blessing in English
Like the Water — Wendell Berry
Like the water of a deep stream, love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst, we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore to drink our fill, and sleep, while it flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning to its rich waters thirsty.
We enter, willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.
Beginning with Beloved: A Blessing — Jan Richardson
Begin here:
Beloved.
Is there any other word needs saying,
any other blessing could compare with this name, this knowing?
Beloved.
Comes like a mercy to the ear that has never heard it.
Comes like a river to the body that has never seen such grace.
Beloved.
Comes holy to the heart aching to be new.
Comes healing to the soul wanting to begin again.
Beloved.
Keep saying it and though it may sound strange at first,
watch how it becomes part of you,
how it becomes you, as if you never could have known yourself
anything else, as if you could ever have been other than this:
Beloved.
Sacred Living; Holy Loving
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love! — Victor Hugo The dog searches until he finds me upstairs … puts his head on my foot. Sometimes the sound of his breathing saves my life—in and out, in and out; a pause, a long sigh …
— Jane Kenyon
The face of all the world is changed, I think / Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul / Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole / Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink / Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, / Was caught up into love, and taught the whole / Of life in a new rhythm …
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese 7
Belonging to God
I just want you to walk in the knowledge that God loves you totally apart from anything you do or don’t do. — Sister Eileen (from story told by Nadia Bolz-Weber)
You are already God’s beloved. I heard a story a few months back on the
radio, about how studies have been done where elementary school teachers
were told at the beginning of the term that certain children in their
classroom were gifted, regardless of the actual capacity of these
children – and the study showed that by the end of the year those kids
were scoring off the charts from their peers. They became what they were
believed to be. God is like that. God is like a teacher who has been
duped into thinking you are “gifted” and then treats you like you are
special and then that’s what you end up being. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. — Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging … the sacrament of baptism … to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God. — Hans Urs von Balthasar
Holy Immersion: Into Water, Fire, and Creation
Life in us is like the water in a river. — Henry David Thoreau
Water is the driving force in nature. — Leonardo da Vinci
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames. ― Rumi
If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. — C.S. Lewis
You cannot feel yourself … Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence; you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature. — John Muir
So whether it is the environment that is inhabited, or the inhabitants, both of them are composed of four or five basic elements. These elements are earth, wind, fire, water and vacuum, that is space. About space, in the Kalachakra tantra there is a mention of what is known as the atom of space, particles of space. So that forms the central force of the entire phenomenon. When the entire system of the universe first evolved, it evolved from this central force which is the particle of space, and also a system of universe and would dissolve eventually into this particle of the space. So it is on the basis of these five basic elements that there is a very close inter-relatedness or interrelation between the habitat that is the natural environment and inhabitants, the sentient beings living within it. — Dalai Lama
Each one of us begins life in the water of the womb. Each child is formed in this seamless water and swims securely in the current of its rhythms. In the womb everything comes to us in wave motion. Thus, our first experiences took place in the water element. Indeed our first recognition of identity happened, not as philosophy would often have us imagine, in the dry air element where a “cogito” might flicker, but rather in the inclusive water element, where there was a yet no separation between inside/outside, or self/otherness … To swim is in a certain sense to reenter this womb-like medium. To do this meditatively is to re-awaken that primal sense of belonging from the time before one’s individuality first broke free. — John O’Donohue
Empty me of the bitterness and disappointment of being nothing but
myself
Immerse me in the mystery of reality
Fill me with love for the truly afflicted
that hopeless love, if need be
make me one of them again —
Awaken me to the reality of this place
and from the longed-for or remembered place
And more than thus, behind each face
induct, oh introduce me in —
to the halting disturbed ungrammatical soundless
words of others’ thoughts
not the drivel coming out of our mouths
Blot me out, fill me with nothing but consciousness
of the holiness, the meaning
of these unseeable, all
these unvisitable worlds which surround me:
others’ actual thoughts — everything
I can’t perceive yet
know
know it is there.
— Franz Wright
Reflections on journeys and the New Year
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.― Matsuo Bashô
Choices— Tess Gallagher
I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain.
But when I look up,
saw in hand,
I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.
On the New Year
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.— Neil Gaiman
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’ — Alfred Lord Tennyson
And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been. — Rainer Maria Rilke
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. — Oprah Winfrey
Seeking God
“Help us to find God,” the seeker begged the Elder. “No one can help you there,” the Elder answered. “But why not?” the seeker insisted. “For the same reason that no one can help a fish to find the ocean.” The answer is clear: There is no one who can help us find what we already have. — Sufi Story (recounted by Sr Joan Chittister with her commentary at the end)
Once upon a time, a seeker ran through the streets shouting over and over again, ‘We must put God into our lives. We must put God into our lives.’ “Ah, poor soul,” an Elder smiled wanly. “If only we realized the truth: God is always in our lives. The spiritual task is simply to recognize that.” — Sufi Story (recounted by Sr Joan Chittister)
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.― Nadia Bolz-Weber
I searched for God … Finally, I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else. ― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi
Blessing of the Magi (excerpt)
— Jan Richardson
… You thought arrival
was everything,
that your entire journey
ended with kneeling
in the place
you had spent all
to find.
When you laid down
your gift,
release came with such ease,
your treasure tumbling
from your hands
in awe and
benediction.
Now the knowledge
of your leaving
comes like a stone laid
over your heart,
the familiar path closed
and not even the solace
of a star
to guide your way.
You will set out in fear.
You will set out in dream….
We cannot show you
the route that will
take you home;
that way is yours
and will be found
in the walking.
But we tell you,
you will wonder
at how the light you thought
you had left behind
goes with you,
spilling from
your empty hands,
shimmering beneath
your homeward feet,
illuminating the road
with every step
you take.
Reflections on Advent 4: Love (plus longest night, resistance songs, Blue Christmas)
This
week, Mary’s song, one of four found in the Gospel of Luke, is a song
of praise and resistance, an expectation for justice and change. In
times when we wonder whether to expect transformation, we are reminded
to work for change, and to recall that we are lights in the darkness.
How will you shine in this season and into the coming year?
Les Miserables – Great Crescendo (excerpt)
Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people, Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart, Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start, When tomorrow comes!
Do you hear the people sing, Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people, Who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth, There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end, And the sun will rise.
For those Living with Grief & Loss
I hear
the love of those
who have loved me
echo in me.
All the notes of my song
sing over theirs,
the only kind of beauty.
The song does not die.
May I live
with love and mercy
for it will echo
long after.
— Steve Garnaas-Holmes
AGAPE as LOVE
The essence of agape love is goodwill, benevolence, and willful delight in the object of love. — Got Questions
True transformation is when we unleash the power of agape. We create an environment for positive change. There is still a world of possibility, even when the worst thing happens that could possibly happen. Forgiveness gives me the capacity to contribute something of value—to create a positive outcome to a terrible tragedy. —Desmond Tutu
Our hearts are like diamonds because they have the capacity to express divine light, which is agape; we not only are portals for this agape, but are made of it. — Anne Lamott
I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world. ― Mother Teresa
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. — Thomas Merton
All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. — Leo Tolstoy
Agape is a sobering love to receive, for it says, ‘If I cannot love you for who you are, then I will do so despite who you are.’ It is unique in that it is able to love those whom it cannot like. ― James Castleton, Mending of a Broken Heart
The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform. — Thich Nhat Hahn
LONGEST NIGHT: Of Moons & Stars – Light in Darkness –
We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff. — Carl Sagan
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings. — Wendell Berry
You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe. — Rumi
We go into the darkness, we seek initiation, in order to know directly how the roots of all beings are tied together: how we are related to all things, how this relationship expresses itself in terms of interdependence. — Joan Halifax
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. — Dogen
Is the sweetness of the cane sweeter,
Than the One who made the canefield?
Behind the beauty of the moon is the MoonMaker.
There is Intelligence inside the ocean’s intelligence
Feeding our love like an invisible waterwheel … ― Rumi
The pine tree of Shiogoshi / Trickles all night long / Shiny drops of moonlight. — Basho
… [Sagan’s] statement sums up the fact that the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our bodies, as well as atoms of all other heavy elements, were created in previous generations of stars over 4.5 billion years ago. Because humans and every other animal as well as most of the matter on Earth contain these elements, we are literally made of star stuff, said Chris Impey, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona. “All organic matter containing carbon was produced originally in stars. The universe was originally hydrogen and helium, the carbon was made subsequently, over billions of years.” … In 2002, music artist Moby released “We Are All Made of Stars,” explaining during a press interview that his lyrics were inspired by quantum physics. “On a basic quantum level, all the matter in the universe is essentially made up of stardust,” he said. — Remy Melina, Are We Really All Made of Stars? Live Science (excerpt)
SONGS of RESISTANCE: Commentary
Why,
one might wonder, all these songs? Because singing is an act of
resistance. That’s not to say that all singing is, of course. Sometimes
it’s an act of joy and sometimes of camaraderie, but it’s also an act of
resistance. The slaves knew this. When they sang their spirituals they
were both praising God and protesting the masters who locked them out of
worship but couldn’t keep them out of the promise of deliverance of the
Bible. And the civil rights leaders knew this, too, singing songs like
“We Shall Overcome,” when so many in the society didn’t give them a
chance to advance their cause of justice, let alone triumph. — David Lose, Singing as an Act of Resistance (excerpt)
I wonder whether we would dare to sing the Magnificat today. What would it mean? — Richard Ascough
It’s easy to sing the song, but to pray the lyrics from deep within … that’s worship! — Gangai Victor
Who can resist … the story of Mary’s elegantly exuberant prayer, the
Magnificat? Her spontaneous outburst in song echoes Hannah’s praise for
God’s marvelous deeds in the lives of all who are marginalized or
downtrodden (1 Samuel 2). Like Hannah, Mary sings out of her own
experience, her own hope, but out of the experience and hope of her
people as well. The Magnificat is a lovely expression of joy at God’s
promises kept, a celebration of the tables being turned, or overturned:
the lowly are lifted up, the proud are brought down, and the hungry are
fed. God remembers the people of Israel, and the promises God has made
to them. What a powerful text for every heart hungry … Kathryn Matthews (excerpt, UCC Sermon Seeds Dec 23 Reflection)
One thing we do know: music in the United States has led directly to
environmental action, the equality of our citizens, a movement against
war and violence, and it has raised the voices of the working American
… Powerful songs have always been the engine behind the greatest
social movements — it is the marching soundtrack that unites the people
and gives them focus and resolve, and it’s not limited to the U.S. In
1970s Nigeria, Fela Kuti invented Afro Beat music as a way to protest
the oil company regime of Nigeria. His song “Zombie” became a global hit
that railed against Nigeria’s military dictators. In South Africa, the
indigenous Mbatanga music helped bring about the end of apartheid and it
spread a message of peace and reconciliation in that nation. In Chile,
Victor Jara wrote songs about his country’s struggles, sparking the
Nueva Cancion (New Songs) movement that caused South Americans to rise
up against their military dictatorships and replace them with
democracies. In Brazil, the Tropicalia movement was created by
songwriters like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Rita Lee as a form of
protest against the Brazilian military junta, which eventually fell
from its own corruption and incompetence. In Australia and New Zealand,
popular songs written by indigenous and non-ingenious songwriters
sparked an indigenous land reclamation movement that is still active
today. — Barrett Martin, Huffington Post (excerpt)
Throughout the ages, God’s people have faced oppression. And in the face of that oppression, God’s people have sung God’s songs of resistance. But God’s people have also been oppressors. We have enslaved others — and each other. We have stolen from, oppressed, and slain others — and each other. And when we have done so, the oppressed, the enslaved, the persecuted have sung God’s songs of resistance against us. — Rolf Jacobson
Reflection on Advent 3: Joy
Joy is the serious business of Heaven. — C. S. Lewis
Song: Joy to the World by Pentatonix
Song: Joy by Jonny Diaz
Song: Joy by For King & Country
Song: Joy Joy Joy Down In My Heart by Little Richard
House of Joy — Rumi
If you knew yourself for even one moment,
if you could just glimpse
your most beautiful face,
maybe you wouldn’t slumber so deeply
in that house of clay.
Why not move into your house of joy
and shine into every crevice!
For you are the secret
Treasure-bearer, and always have been.
Didn’t you know?
3 Ways to Access Joy (excerpt) — Margarita Tartakovsky, Psychology Today
Being in a state of joy isn’t something you’re born with. It’s a learned skill …
- Revise your inner language: How we talk to ourselves can influence our mood and outlook on life. For instance, “shoulds” can easily sap our joy. If you’re constantly telling yourself all the different things you should be doing, you’re likely residing in a negative or unsatisfied space. … To stop “shoulding” all over yourself, first assess the situation. … replacing “should” with “could.” This seemingly small change is actually very powerful because “it’s all about choice.” It promotes self-kindness, flexibility and forgiveness. It promotes exploration rather than rigidity.
- Seek out laughter … make laughter part of your day, Altman suggests the following: Set an intention to have at least one laughter memory a day. He defines this as “any humorous event, thought or observation that stimulates positive mood states that are joyful, uplifting, heartwarming, energizing or euphoric.” Use a journal to jot down your laughter memories. Read it at the end of every week …
- Focusing your attention on your natural surroundings can instantly help you access joy.
Joy Vs Happiness (excerpt) — Sandra Brown, Psychology Today
Happiness is … dependent on outside situations, people, or events to
align with your expectations so that the end result is your happiness
… But happiness is not joy because joy is not external, it can’t be
bought and it is not conditional on someone else’s behavior. In fact,
joy is not contingent on anything in order to exist … When stuff,
people, and the problems they bring fall away there is a stillness. Only
in that stillness can we ever find the joy that resides inside of us,
dependent on nothing external in order to exist. During this holiday
season, this is a great concept to contemplate
… Joy comes when you make peace with who you are, where you are, why
you are, and who you are not with. When you need nothing more than your
truth and the love of a good God to bring peace, then you have settled
into the abiding joy that is not rocked by relationships. It’s not
rocked by anything.
Ordinary Joy (excerpt) — Alison Bonds Shapiro, Psychology Today
… How do we cultivate joy? Do we work very hard and compete at the greatest intensity that we can manage to win the grand prize? Will that bring us joy? We think that joy comes if we win the lottery or are chosen for a great honor. We think we have to wait to be famous to have joy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Great honors may bring us excitement, satisfaction and sometimes even happiness for a while. But joy comes from somewhere else. Joy arises in the ordinary moments of our lives. That’s where we experience joy and that is where we can cultivate it.
We can cultivate that joy by welcoming the small things. We can find the joy that lives and waits for us in our ordinary actions. When we slow down and allow our bodies to find some sense of ease and pay attention to each dish, we invite joy. We are not in the running for a grand prize and national recognition for our amazing capacity to wash forks. We are just washing this one fork.
When we do this we see, maybe for the first time in a long time, like a child might see, with wonder and delight …
Joy: Rooted in Gratitude and Other Perspectives
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life,
for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. — Tecumseh
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and
hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing
horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. — Christopher McCandless
Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine
jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. — William Arthur Ward
I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in
hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy
in your life. And when you trust God, you’re able to be more patient.
Patience is not just about waiting for something… it’s about how you
wait, or your attitude while waiting. — Joyce Meyer
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. — Leo Buscaglia
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. — Richard Bach
Joy: State of Mind & Heart
Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others,
feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous
value for the human soul. — Maria Montessori
If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass
springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things
of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is
alive. — Eleonora Duse
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. — Buddha
Joy: Arising Amidst Challenge
The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of
rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour
would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to
traverse. — Helen Keller
When you’re in the day-to-day grind, it just seems like it’s another
step along the way. But I find joy in the actual process, the journey,
the work. It’s not the end. It’s not the end event. — Cal Ripken, Jr.
I spent a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by
making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. My
inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the
fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with
uncertainty: Love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity to name a few. — Brene Brown
Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or
feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s
surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new
place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and
celebrate more fully our shared humanity. — Henri Nouwen
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your
house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow
leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can
grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots
hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your
heart, far better things will take their place.— Rumi
For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. — Joseph Campbell
I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with
failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write
about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost
lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption.
I write about gratitude because I am thankful – for all of it. — Kristin Armstrong
Joy: Sharing & Serving Others
Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy: true fulfillment. — Tony Robbins
If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it’s not good
cooking for yourself; the joy is in cooking for others – it’s the same
with music. — will.i.am
Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the
served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness
before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy. — Mahatma Gandhi
My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The
light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil’s mind, and
behold, all things are changed! — Anne Sullivan
Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a
good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. — Eleanor Roosevelt
Joy (excerpt) — Carl Sandburg
Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by …
Joy— Maurine Smith
Joy, joy, run over me
Like water over a shining stone;
And I beneath your sweet shall be
No longer hungry and alone.
The light at my heart’s gate is lit —
My love, my love is tending it!
Prayer for Joy
— Stuart Kestenbaum
What was it we wanted
to say anyhow, like today
when there were all the letters
in my alphabet soup and suddenly
the ‘j’ rises to the surface.
The ‘j’, a letter that might be
great for Scrabble, but not really
used for much else, unless
we need to jump for joy,
and then all of a sudden
it’s there and ready to
help us soar and to open up
our hearts at the same time,
this simple line with a curved bottom,
an upside down cane that helps
us walk in a new way into this
forest of language, where all the letters
are beginning to speak,
finding each other in just
the right combination
to be understood.