the soil of your soul, day 5

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer

Father,

     Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart. Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65

Scripture for the Day: John 12:23-28

Reading for Reflection:

     When it comes to the practice of heart prayer, give up all concerns about success and failure.  What you are doing in these times is planting prayer within yourself so that it will be there through the rest of the day.  It is indeed very much like planting a seed in the ground.  You just put it there and let it take its natural course.  Don’t keep digging it up to see how it is growing.  Don’t try to manipulate or control it; just notice it, appreciate it.  Entrust its care to God. (The Awakened Heart by Gerald G. May)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul

You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness

You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)

I was a hungry child, a dried up river.

I was a burned out forest

And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches
You brought springtime green and a new life
And nothing is impossible for you

Closing Prayer:

Grow your good grace in me O God. Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart. Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care. I love you, O Gardner of my soul. In the tenderness of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

the soil of your soul, day 4

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer

Father,

      Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart. Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65

Scripture for the Day: Matthew 13:24-30

Reading for Reflection:

             I find you there in all these things

            I care for like a brother.

            A seed, you nestle in the smallest of them,

            and in the huge ones spread yourself hugely.

            Such is the amazing play of powers:

            they give themselves so willingly,

            swelling in the roots, thinning as the trunks rise,

            and in the high leaves, resurrection.

            (Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul

You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness

You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)

 

 

I was a hungry child, a dried up river.

I was a burned out forest

And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches
You brought springtime green and a new life
And nothing is impossible for you

Closing Prayer:

Grow your good grace in me O God. Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart. Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care. I love you, O Gardner of my soul. In the tenderness of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

the soil of your soul, day 3

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer

Father,

     Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart. Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65

Scripture for the Day: Mark 4:30-32

Reading for Reflection:

     Living things need an appropriate climate in order to grow and bear fruit.  If they are to develop to completion, they require an environment that allows their potential to be realized.  The seed will not grow unless there is soil that can feed it, light to draw it forth, warmth to nurture and moisture that unlocks its vitality.  Time is also required for its growth to unfold.

     Meditation is the attempt to provide the soul with the proper environment in which to grow and become.  In the lives of people like St. Francis or St. Catherine of Genoa one gets a glimpse of what the soul is able to become.  Often this is seen as the result of heroic action lying beyond the possibility of ordinary people.  The flowering of the human soul, however, is more a matter of the proper spiritual environment than of particular gifts or disposition or heroism.  How seldom we wonder at the growth of the great redwood from a tiny seed dropped at random on the littered floor of the forest.  From one seed is grown enough wood to frame several hundred houses.  The human soul has seed potential like this if it has the right environment.  Remember that only in a few mountain valleys were the conditions right for the Sequoia gigantean, the mighty redwood, to grow.

     For both the seed and the soul, these things all take time.  In both cases there is need for patience.  Most of us know enough not to poke at the seed to see if it is sprouting, or to try to hurry it along with too much water or fertilizer or cultivation.  The same respect must be shown for the soul as its growth starts to take place.  Growth can seldom be forced in nature.  Whether it is producing a tree or a human personality, nature unfolds its growth slowly, silently. (The Other Side of Silence by Morton T. Kelsey)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul

You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness

You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)

I was a hungry child, a dried up river.

I was a burned out forest

And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches
You brought springtime green and a new life
And nothing is impossible for you

Closing Prayer:

Grow your good grace in me O God. Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart. Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care. I love you, O Gardner of my soul. In the tenderness of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

the soil of your soul, day 2

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer

Father,

     Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart. Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65

Scripture for the Day: Mark 4:26-29

Reading for Reflection:

     Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul.  For just as the winds carries thousands of invisible and visible winged seeds, so the stream of time brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.  Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these can not spring up anywhere except in the good soil of liberty and desire.

     The mind that is the prisoner of its own pleasure and the will that is the captive of its own desire cannot accept the seeds of a higher pleasure and a supernatural desire.

     For how can I receive the seeds of freedom if I am in love with slavery and how can I cherish the desire of God if I am filled with another and opposite desire?  God will not plant His liberty in me because I am a prisoner and I do not even desire to be free.  I love my captivity and I lock myself in the desire for things that I hate, and I have hardened my heart against true love. (Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul

You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness

You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)

I was a hungry child, a dried up river.

I was a burned out forest

And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches
You brought springtime green and a new life
And nothing is impossible for you

Closing Prayer:

Grow your good grace in me O God. Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart. Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care. I love you, O Gardner of my soul. In the tenderness of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

the soil of your soul, day 1

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer

Father,

     Allow the soil of my soul to be a place that is fertile and receptive to all that you desire to plant in my heart.  Tend it carefully and nurture all that has sprung up in me that is of you; that I may be a garden of your delight. Through Jesus.  Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 65

Scripture for the Day: Mark 4:1-20

Reading for Reflection:

     When you meditate or abide in your quiet times of communion, you do not charge in and do something, like saying, “I will now be good and move mountains by my act of faith.”  No, you water your garden, knowing that these ideas are growing into a heavenly garden; the indwelling spirit doeth the work, not you: you merely water it.  Do you not see the comfort there is in that?  I can tell you in primer language that a very gentle, calm, unemotional, selfless, and patient attitude toward your spiritual growth is essential—such as all old gardeners know.  They know that patience, hoeing, watering, and certain order, a quiet rhythm, bring a heavenly beauty. (Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood edited by Mary Strong)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: You Have Redeemed My Soul

You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness

You have redeemed my soul from death (Repeat)

I was a hungry child, a dried up river. 

I was a burned out forest

And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches
You brought springtime green and a new life
And nothing is impossible for you

Closing Prayer:

     Grow your good grace in me O God.  Make me receptive to the ways that you water and tend this garden of my heart.  Prune me where I need pruning, nurture me where I need nurturing, weed me where I need weeding, and care for me tenderly where I need your tender care.  I love you, O Gardner of my soul.  In the tenderness of Jesus.  Amen.  (JLB)

 

time, day 7

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
Lord,

      Help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it. Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment. Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities. In the Name of Jesus I pray. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 90

Scripture for the Day: Hebrews 3:7-19

Reading for Reflection:

When I imagine my own life simple and uncomplicated, I picture my room and desk tidy, everything in its place.  I myself am moving gracefully and graciously from one task to the next with precision, on schedule but with no strain or pressure.  The schedule and the tasks are perfectly synchronized.  It could all be so simple, I say to myself, if everything were only in its place.

     But it isn’t.  It’s complicated.  It’s complicated because people don’t stay in place.  They aren’t predictable, they foul up my schedule, they interfere with my agenda, they make demands I hadn’t programmed.  It’s complicated because there is too much to do, too many tasks, too many needs, too much going on.  I can’t keep up with it all; I’m always at least a step or two behind.  I can’t do everything that needs to be done; I feel burdened, sometimes even guilty, for being so limited.  And I think maybe I’m doing it wrong, and if I could just figure out how to do it right I’d be able to meet everyone’s needs.  It’s complicated because there’s never enough time.  In my anxiety to conquer time by controlling its dispensation, I feel myself victimized by it.  I am unable to find time, take time, get time: all control words.

     Mostly what I find is frustration.  My life is out of control.  I feel a need to be in control of my life and all the factors, situations, and people that complicate it.  I set myself over-against them and need to dominate them, to subject them to my agenda, fit them into my program.  I do have an agenda, and I don’t want it interrupted.  I set up my day and I offer it to God.

     But there’s something wrong in the picture.  When I imagine—or when I experience—the simple way, everything moves in a rhythm.  There is an Agenda, and I’m in tune with it, but it’s not my creation.  I don’t need to worry about controlling; I don’t need to be anxious that it won’t all work out.  I’m not in command and don’t need to be….  The interruptions are as integral to the scene as anything I had planned.  I only receive the day and the program that comes to me during the day from God.  And that’s what makes the difference. (Reflections on Simplicity by Elaine M. Prevallet)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Come, Now is the Time to Worship

Come, now is the time to worship

Come, now is the time to give your heart

Come, just as you are to worship

Come, just as you are before your God

Come

One day every tongue will confess you are God

One day every knee will bow

Still the greatest treasure remains for those

Who gladly choose you now

Closing Prayer:

O Christ, when I look at you I see that you were never in a hurry, never ran, but always had time for the pressing necessities of the day. Give me that disciplined, poised life with time always for the thing that matters. For then I would be a disciplined person. Amen. (The Way by E. Stanley Jones)

time, day 6

Come to Stillness:
Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
Lord,

      Help me walk slowly and deeply with you through the hours and minutes of this day—that I might find all of you that is to be found within it. Allow me not to miss you because of hurry or busyness, but let me sense the fullness of your presence in each moment. Slow down both my feet and my heart that I might be more present to you as I go about my normal activities. In the Name of Jesus I pray. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 90

Scripture for the Day: Luke 12:35-48

Reading for Reflection:

     Not long after moving to Chicago, I called a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction.  I described the pace at which things tend to move in my current setting.  I told him about the rhythms of our family life and about the present condition of my heart, as best I could discern it.  What did I need to do, I asked him, to be spiritually healthy?

     Long pause.

     “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,” he said at last.  Another long pause.

     “Okay, I’ve written that one down,” I told him, a little impatiently.  “That’s a good one.  Now what else is there?”  I had many things to do, and this was a long-distance conversation, so I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible.

     Another long pause.

     “There is nothing else,” he said.

     He was the wisest spiritual mentor I have known.  And while he doesn’t know every detail about every grain of sin in my life, he knows quite a bit.  And from an immense quiver of spiritual sagacity, he drew only one arrow.  “There is nothing else,” he said, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

     Imagine for a moment that someone gave you this prescription, with the warning that your life depends on it.  Consider the possibility that perhaps your life does depend on it.  Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.  Hurry can destroy our souls.  Hurry can keep us from living well.  As Carl Jung wrote, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”

     Again and again, as we pursue spiritual life, we must do battle with hurry.  For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith.  It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.  We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them. (The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Come, Now is the Time to Worship

Come, now is the time to worship

Come, now is the time to give your heart

Come, just as you are to worship

Come, just as you are before your God

Come

One day every tongue will confess you are God

One day every knee will bow

Still the greatest treasure remains for those

Who gladly choose you now

Closing Prayer:

O Christ, when I look at you I see that you were never in a hurry, never ran, but always had time for the pressing necessities of the day. Give me that disciplined, poised life with time always for the thing that matters. For then I would be a disciplined person. Amen. (The Way by E. Stanley Jones)