Food for the Soul | July 29th, 2020
7/29/2020
Dear Friends,
From time to time our bodies, our minds, and our lives need a rest from the quotidian things we engage in. We need a clean cut from the daily chores, the daily work, the daily repetitive moves. We need to rest. God gave us this as a commandment, not a mere suggestion. Most cultures have celebrated the Sabbath for thousands of years. But sometimes our preoccupations get in the way and we forget. Let’s call it back and give it new life. The Sabbath can be a single day, or an extended period of time. It is a special time to restore us, a time for us to delight in being alive, to savor the gifts of creation, and to give thanks for all the blessings received.
I hope you all have an opportunity to celebrate a Sabbath, or Sabbatical. I, for my part, will be doing this over the next two weeks. But I will not leave you hungry. I have cooked in advance and frozen the results. You will continue to receive weekly messages – slightly changed format – over the next two weeks. You will be in my heart. I leave you my blessings.
A PRAYER - A PRACTICE - A POEM
A PRAYER
Centering Prayer
There are times when I am with you
When there is no beginning or ending of time:
When the day is dateless
And the rhythm of time
Has ceased to record the hours
And the calendar, the days;
When no birds sing, but rest;
And no winds blow, but breathe.
And the air is drenched
With the white silence of love
And my fingers trace
The lineaments of Your Face.
Brother Thomas Moore
A PRACTICE
Last week we celebrated the feast of Mary Magdalene. Throughout the week Richard Rohr offered beautiful daily meditations about her and her role as the apostle of apostles. Today’s practice is taken from his Saturday offering and is inspired by Mary Magdalene as an archetype for the full partnership of women in the divine – but the practice is not only for women.
Psychotherapist Joan Norton offers a meditation in which we can all participate.
I’m grateful for the stories of Mary Magdalene because she fully lived a woman’s life of love and relationship, while also being a source of special spiritual knowledge. In her we find guidance for both the inner life of the spirit and the outer life of love. That has always been the role of the feminine face of God. I’m grateful for the pathways to self-knowledge that Mary Magdalene’s stories provide. . . .Forever we have been told to seek the Kingdom within. Now . . . we seek to understand the feminine energy of God, which we can call the “Queendom within.” Together they are a whole known as the Divine. . . .
She Brings Goodness upon the Land
Close your eyes and feel your feet on the floor. Breathe a simple breath . . . and another breath even slower than the first one . . . and now another breath . . . still so slowly.
You are safe here in this room, with your feet on the floor and the floor upon Mother Earth . . . your feet are feeling the warmth of the earth, so secure and so safe . . .
Breathe again deeply and slowly . . . your feet are heavy now and comfortable on the floor . . .
Once upon a time it was foretold that the Bridegroom would have a Bride and that goodness would be upon the land and healing would come from their union . . .
Breathe . . .
It was foretold that the two halves of God would be together as One . . .
Wholeness is our birthright . . . Breathe deeply and remember your whole and sacred self . . .
There was a time when we women knew ourselves to be in sacred partnership, knew ourselves to be the Sacred Complement to the Bridegroom . . . knew that masculine and feminine God meet within each human being . . .
Breathe again slowly . . .
Breathe into a place within your heart, a place of knowing yourself as Sacred Partner . . . as soul partner . . . as Bride and Beloved . . .
It was foretold . . . and let that time be now . . . and let that sacred vessel be me . . .
Sit in silence for a while and let images or feelings surface within you.
(Allow 5 or 10 minutes.)
Open your eyes and come back into the room, as you are ready.
What were your experiences during this meditation?
A POEM
The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone –
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance –
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love –
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed –
or have you too
turned from this world –
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
Mary Oliver