Take Time to Pray

. . . Prayer is a way of connecting with our source. It is about being centered, grounded, mindful of the holy, the presence of the sacred and the precious. . . . Prayer can help us to connect with the poor with open eyes and hearts. It is prayer that can allow us to educate with patience, love and understanding. It is prayer that can enable us to move to a simpler lifestyle. And it is prayer that will allow us to do this with conviction and joy.

And whether or not we pray is as obvious as whether or not we have put our clothes on. For example, the compulsive, frantic, angry, cynical, unintegrated rambling from project to project—even from peace project to peace project—may speak of good intentions, but also of an uneasy and untended inner life. It is possible . . . to do much harm because we have not taken the time to pray. . . .”

-Jack Jezreel
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation

time

The radiance of the red bird is undeniable
The universe is still unfinished after 13.8 billion years
I have time for my season to grow corn

Prayer

To see you climbing the stairs
the ordinary can join the divine
thoughts ascending with the spirit
I pray while driving in the rain
not to alter suddenly the conditions of the landscape
and to give us time
to accommodate the change.

Celebration

The whole tribe (minus one who couldn’t arrive on time) came to celebrate my birthday

bringing offerings and affection.

Happy & enjoyable time to be together.

Time is lengthening and shortening. Every moment is precious and treasured.

story telling

Don’t be frightened

You can’t stitch fractured thoughts together

Gather them in a basket

From time to time

Pick bits and pieces

And tell your story.

Past, present, future

Birds do not cry.
Though sometimes they look helpless.
Like when they are sunning on the beach
And high tide is coming
Why should sadness be inevitable?
You can look out to the sea
Imagine the sailboats racing
Or simply sailing leisurely.
Have patience with the past
In the midst of absurdities
There is time to differentiate
Optimism from hope.
Do not cry.

Extraordinary

“The extraordinary is what art is about.”
-Mary Oliver

note: the quotation is from Of Power and Time , a chapter in Upstream, Selected Essays by Mary Oliver

What do I do with my time?

What do you do with time? Some divide, fill, spend,save, enrich, and squander time.The monks have their Hours that divide the day. Homeschoolers have the Rule of Six to compose their study. I adopted their Rule of Six and modified it for my daily activities-BI PIES:
Books (read a book),
Ideas (create new ideas and ponder),
Philanthropy (give your time and hands to others),
Imaginative play (or walk outdoors),
Encounter with beauty (art, music, and nature),and
Silence (prayer, meditation, contemplation).

I wrote this blog on December 20, 2011:
http://simpleimages4752.blogspot.com

I’m rewriting this Rule of Six to remind myself on what I should do every day.

tracing the origin

Villages built from pebbles
waves gathered on the shore
you picked up from your daily walk
limestones, flint, quartz
broken pieces from stellar space
passing through extreme temperatures
holding the beginning of time

you peopled them with stories
of elementary particles,
the quarks, muons, bosons
dust, ice, and rocks, hydrogen and helium
objects living in orbits, parabolic and elliptical
formed with “rudeness and grace”
almost infinite stretch of time.

You wanted the villages to be beautiful
harmony and mystery,
vast and simple,
a touch of God.

a single moment

“…the confines of a single moment can hold all the dimensions and potentialities of time, and the crucial decisions and opportunities are always before us, no less now than in the past, no less in the future than now.” – Time and The Art of Living, Robert Grudin

 

photo: Rhodes, Port of (2011)