summer

The ability to live each moment

The hieroglyphy for peace is a simple loaf of bread set on a reed mat. It implies nurturing, simplicity, contentment, and rest, a prayer of thankfulness before a meal, an offering made.

The heart is contented because it receives what it needs and its needs are simple: silence, prayer, nourishment, presence. Simplicity of the heart keeps our aims and purposes in life clear... In peace we contemplate our lives and concentrate our energies on the true desires of the heart aligned with God.

We learn that patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to live each moment, knowing that we will be attended to by God.

~ Normandi Ellis

November 1996 (Vol. IX, No. 10)

May your hearts be open to every gift, dear friends! for, the gift within every gift is always opportunity. Life is a gift to us; every moment is given. The only appropriae response therefore is gratitude. Our lives are surely enhanced as we pause frequently to appreciate and to be thankful.

True prayer

True prayer expresses gratitude for what already is...

~ Anonymous

Better able to carry an equally heavy load of work

If my prayer life is strong and deeply rooted, then I will be better able to carry an equally heavy load of work, to bear the weight of our sisters' and brothers' pain and suffering, because it will not be me carrying the load, but God.

~ Aidan Costello in SOUL-MAKING by Edward Sellner

All of life can be a work of art

Our society has forgotten that all of life can be a work of art, even the most mundane-seeming tasks... There is great beauty in cleanliness and order and bringing it into being. Watering the plants is as necessary as cleaning the stove, and vice versa. All these tasks bespeak care for oneself and others, and appreciation of the opportunity to create a temenos -- a sanctuary, a safe and sacred place.

~ from SEEING THROUGH THE VISIBLE WORLD by June Singer

Our work is to make our way through our situation with faith and courage

Perhaps the important matter is that we are who we are and where we are by a maze of reasons unknown to us. Our work is to make our way through our situation with faith and courage and whatever else it takes... In the end we are not only a mystery to one another but even to ourselves. The task is to live the mystery rather than unravel it.

~ from DIARY OF A CITY PRIEST by John McNamee

Take time to stand back from our work

Let us, like a painter, take time to stand back from our work, to be still, and thus to see what's what... True repose is standing back to survey the activities that fill our days.

~ from THE ART OF BEING HUMAN by William McNamara

The guiding Light you need in your work

Through intuitions received in the silence and holiness of your own inner sanctuary, you will get the guiding Light you need in your work.

~ White Eagle

These obstacles were my life

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

~ Alfred D'Souza

Glorious even to fall

Some goals are so worthy, it is glorious even to fail.
~ Nan Merrill
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