Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Daily Devotion - Words that Shimmer

In an interview with Krista Tippet entitled "Words that Shimmer" poet Elizabeth Alexander says that poetry has always existed in a communal context...poetry tells the story of who I am and who we are.
Listen to the interview at the On Being website or on Elizabeth Alexander's website.  

If poetry tells our story in community and as individuals and if poetry is "Word that Shimmer," then our stories and our lives shimmer as well.

Scripture also always exists in a communal context. Our sacred texts tells the story of who I am and who we are.  Reflect today that you were created to Shimmer.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Daily Devotion

Knowledge by Elizabeth Alexander

It wasn't as if we knew nothing before.
After all, colored girls must know many
things in order to survive.  Not only
could I sew buttons and hems, but I could
make a dress and pantaloons from scratch.
I could milk cows, churn butter, feed chickens,
clean their coops, wring their necks, pluck and cook them.
I cut wood, set fires, and boiled water
to wash the clothes and sheets, then wrung them dry.
And I could read the Bible. Evenings
before the fire, my family tired
from unending work and New England cold,
they'd close their eyes. My favorite was Song of Songs.
They most liked when I read, "In the beginning."





Our relationship to God is not the types, or amounts, of knowledge we accumulate. Worship, as well, as prayer and discipleship, is not how much we know about God, but how much we are alive to God.  How will you be alive to God today?









Friday, January 27, 2012

Daily Devotion - Stress

"Stress is a perverted relationship with time." John O'Donohue

We attribute stress to all sorts of sources outside ourselves.  Reflect on stress as your relationship with time. As we enter Saturday and Sunday the ways we use time and how we perceive time shifts.  It is time off from work but perhaps not time off from stress.  The movement from sunrise to sunset, from nightfall to early dawn is part of creation.  If we have a distorted relationship with time, then we have a distorted relationship with God our creator. How does the sabbath time reshape your relationship with time and with God?

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Daily Devotion

"Love is the only light that can truly reach the secret signature of the other person's individuality and soul."  John O'Donohue

Words that describe love: bright, shimmering, expansive, all encompassing, warm, welcoming, comforting, are also words that describe light and describe Christ.  Where is your light shining from today?  Where is your love beginning today?


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Daily Devotion - Poem for the Day

On Waking
by John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gift of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life.
The waves of possibility
Breaking upon the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Spiritually growing

"Though the human body is born complete in one moment, the birth of the human heart is an ongoing process."  John O'Donohue.

This morning, I took care of my body.  I exercised my heart with cardio, stretched my muscles, and pushing those weakest connectors in my upper body so that the fibers would get stronger.   Now the food I have eaten and the rest from this exercise will also work to care for my body.

Daily life does the same for our spirit, our human heart.  Without the ways we are stretched, strengthened, and pushed, our hearts, our inner being will not grow.  Without the resting in God through prayer as well as the nourishment of scripture, community, and reflection, our spirits will accumulate spiritual fat.

Reflect on the growing times of your heart. What did you need to grow?