The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
John 1:5
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Food for Thought from Peter Gomes
In our fractious religious and political world, some words of wisdom from Peter Gomes:
“…we should be reminded with a painful poignancy that we too can, and often do, get it wrong. That is why the most profound of all religious sentiments should not be certainty, which inevitably leads to arrogance, but modesty, which, because of a generous God, leads to mercy and forgiveness.”
Food for Thought
“…nothing wondrous can come in this world unless it rests on the shoulders of kindness.”
Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
Food for Thought
Enough is a feast.
(Buddhist proverb)
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Food for Thought from Julian of Norwich
As we approach All Saints Day, I want to pass along some wisdom from Julian of Norwich, an anchoress* who lived in 14th century England. Julian is most known for these powerful words of assurance that have echoed through the centuries:
All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
Here are some further thoughts from this saint (not officially canonized, but nonetheless a saint), taken from her only known writing, Showings:
“And in this he showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and I thought: What can this be? And I was given this general answer: It is everything which is made. I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that it was so little that it could suddenly fall into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God.”
“And this is what [God] means when [God] says: Every kind of thing will be well. For [God] wants us to know that the smallest thing will not be forgotten.”
***
*An anchoress was a woman who withdrew herself from the world for a life of prayer and meditation. An anchoress lived in an enclosure that was attached to a church. She received the sacrament through a window to the church, and parishioners could ask for her help and prayers through another window that opened to the world.
Food for Thought
“You must believe it is not only you who looks at things;
try to believe that things look at you.
God looks at you…from all the clouds that pass like
flocks of sheep over your head.”
Carlo Carretto
The Desert in the City
food for thought
tiny flower along the Pacific Crest Trail
(picture taken by daughter Karla as she hiked the PCT)
***
I have come to realize that the radiance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the fragrance of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. Perfection consists in being what God wants us to be.
(Therese of Lisieux 1873-1897)
Crowded with God
(moon over our neighborhood last week)
“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded
with him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to
penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more,
to remain awake.”
C.S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer
Waiting for God
To pray means to wait for the God who comes.
[God’s] coming is bound to his promise, not to our works or virtue.
God is thrust onward by his love, not attracted by our beauty.
[God] comes in moments when we have done everything wrong, when we have done nothing…when we have sinned.
(Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes)
Faith and Doubt
from the slow lane 