Ash Wednesday Sermon; The Crap...

Here's a stimulating Ash Wednesday sermon from Nadia Bolz Weber:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2013/02/ash-wednesday-sermon-the-crap-we-give-our-hearts-to/


Hope you like it !

GOD is a Verb...

GOD is  a Verb called relationship more than a noun called monarch.
Richard Rohr

To Reach satisfaction...Desire...

To reach satisfaction in all
Desire satisfaction in nothing

To come to possess all
Desire the possession of nothing

To arrive at being all
Desire to be nothing

To come to the knowledge of all
Desire the knowledge of nothing

these are the words of a poem by John of the Cross...

Silence is almost to simple

The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.
We don't have the courage to go into the terrifying  place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.

Richard Rohr

Conversations with Jesus of Nazareth

Simon Parke wrote an interesting book called conversations with Jesus of Nazareth in which he simply speaks with Jesus.
here are some quotes from the book:
So you (Jesus) are offering a fresh start...Lot, to save his life, has to leave his hometown Sodom. he knows he must do it but still finds it very hard. It may have been a terrible city, but it was all he knew, and it's hard to leave what we know.
Jesus: "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me".
So like Lot, are we asked to leave our hometown, the town of our conditioning?

Don't go with the flow like dead dogs in a stream!

So good prayer needs trust, a readiness to forgive others, seclusion (alone with God like Jesus often went to be alone with his father), and a stillness of heart.

Previously Zacchaeus had only known what he knew, a sense of lack within himself, which he tried to calm with greed. But Jesus offered a new way of seeing the world.

We need to draw back the shutters of our lives...if your whole body is well lit (light), having no dark part, it will be full of light, as when the glowing lamp shines all around. And it starts with your eyes and how we look at things.

The Kingdom of God is 'homecoming', when like the hungry (prodigal) son, we wake up, or come to ourselves. The Kingdom of God is a state of being.
The Kingdom of God is elusive, like a scent on a breeze, coming and going. It spreads out upon the earth but people do not see it.

We find our value in our relationship to our heavenly father and not in hallucinations of self-importance fueled by popular acclaim.

(Concerning the woman from Tyre)  - You're a failed separatist, teacher (referring to Jesus), or put it more positively, a man large enough to change his mind.

If you don't want the law of Moses from your people, what do you want?
Jesus: It is kindness I want, not animal sacrifices.

Sacred Money

Money's original purpose is simply to connect human gifts with human needs, so that we might all live in greater abundance. How instead money has come to generate scarcity rather than abundance, separation rather than connection? ... Yet despite what it has become, in that original ideal of money as an agent of the gift we can catch a glimpse of what will one day make it sacred again.  
Charles Eisenstein

Katharsis, Fotosis, and Theosis

In  ancient christian  spirituality, taught by monks and mystics, they spoke of a threefold way; the Via Purgativa or Katharsis, the Via Illuminativa or Fotosis and the Via Unitiva or Theosis.

Via Purgativa/Katharsis:
To open the curtains of our soul and discover the power of pride/power, greed/money and lust sex. When we see these festering in our lives it's best to 'fast', to deprive ourselves of these things that reinforce the darkness of the soul.
Positively we can serve rather than seek power and pride, we can be generous and live simply rather than caving in to greed, and we can practice self-control and even a willingness to suffer pain for a good cause rather than lust for pleasure and comfort.
Via Illuminativa/fotosis:
The path of light. The spiritual life is about seeing. Turning to God's light.
We can do this by practicing the study of the Bible, Contemplation, meditation, practicing God's presence in the ordinariness of life, an enlightenment from the Holy Spirit.
Via Unitiva/Theosis:
The way of union with God.
Like a log that catches fire when placed with burning logs - if we are plunged into God's light and heat long enough, if we stay close enough to God for long enough, close enough to breathe God's breath; we'll catch on fire...we'll become one with Him, we'll begin to see as Hs sees, feel as He feels, we'll be infected or consumed by Him.
Another image is the end of the fire place poker that has entered the flame. We glow hot in the light of God, we send heat farther and farther up the length of the iron rod. We don't seek Theosis to the exclusion of other people, but to their benefit...freely we have received freely we give.

The end of Katharsis, fotosis and theosis, is that we join God in seeing, standing with Him, seeing in his light, and on fire with God as we see.

A celtic morning prayer:
As I stir the embers of my daily fire, I ask you, living God, to stir the embers of my heart into flame of love for you, for my family, for my neighbour, for my enemy.

(The above post was inspired from Finding Our Way Again; The Return of the Ancient Practice by Brian McLaren)