If You’re A Mom or Love One- You’ve Got to Read This
21 hours ago
The ReaderHow often, as a child did I find myself lost in book, preferring the world encountered on the page to that which we called real life? How many times did I choose to ignore my brothers to read and play with my favorite characters in a book? And when there was no book to read, how often did I pick up pen and paper, writing my own stories, creating my own worlds to dance and play in?
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who has not known a child like this,
who sinks into a deeper level of his being,
undisturbed by the swift turning
of each brimming page?
Even his own mother might wonder
if it is really he who sits there
saturated with his shadow.
And we, can we know
how much of him
disappears, as he reluctantly looks up
with eyes that yield
to the ready-made world without complaint?
—New Poems
Grant to me, Lord. I pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that I, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ my Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen....I, who cannot exist without you...
He (the formerly blind man) answered, "Whether [Jesus] is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." {John 9:25}When he woke up that morning, of all the things that this man, blind from birth, thought that the day might hold, I am pretty sure that looking into the angry faces of Pharises defending the circumstances of his healing was not at all one of them.
Unafraid of What Is Difficult
Don't be confused by the nature of solitude, when something inside you wants to break free from your loneliness. This very wish, when you use it as a tool for understanding, can illumine your solitude and expand it to include all that it is. Bound by conventions, people tend to reach for what is easy. It is clear, however, that here we must be unafraid of what is difficult. For all living things in nature must unfold in their particular way and become themselves at any cost and despite all opposition.—Rainier Maria RilkeRome, May 14, 1904
Letters To A Young Poet
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. {Psalm 62:1}Waiting and silence.
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. {Psalm 62:5}
But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. {2 Peter 3:8,9}It doesn't look like we humans have changed all that much since Peter wrote those words shortly after Jesus' death. We still want what we want, when we want it. And if we have to wait longer then we deem necessary, things begin to fall apart.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. {Isaiah 55:8,9}It's not my job to understand and to know the full timing of God's plan in my life or in the world. My job is to trust. To be faithful. To love justice and mercy and to show them to the world. To believe that regardless what my eyes see, God is still in charge, will keep His promises, and has a plan that isn't for me to worry about.
And how perfectly delightful that the show doesn't begin until after I get home from Paris!?How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. {Rainer Maria Rilke}
"So today I sit and rest and be still and know that He is God."As I read it, I simultaneously started to laugh and cry. Suddenly, I knew that this one was for Loralie, not me.
For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.' {Isaiah 41:13}There are times, when looking at certain situations in my life, that the overwhelming emotion is one of hopelessness.
He {Hezekiah} trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him. {2 Kings 18:5}In a sea of kings of Israel and Judah whose primary descriptor was, 'he did evil in the eyes of the Lord', Hezekiah stands gloriously out. Not only did he do 'right in the eyes of the Lord', but he also trusted God, and according to the verse above, that trust made him great.
They went after false idols and became false... {2 Kings 17:15}
But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. {James 3:17}So, the question of the day is, who or what are you chasing after?
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. —Hebrews 12:28If there is anything I have learned in this life, it is that nothing is secure. Things shake and wobble and fall down and break.
May we all find God's peace in our brokenness...Being BrokenJesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs but a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds, or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships.
—Henri Nouwen
How can we live in our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus, our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.
"In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy one of Israel, in truth." —Isaiah 10:20As I read this verse this morning, the thing that struck me is that the people of Israel, in the good days to come, are not standing on their own two feet. There is no expectation for them to stand, but instead to lean. To me, I would assume that their standing would be the goal. But no... it is the destiny of God's people is not to stand, but instead to lean. And not just lean, but lean on the right thing—God and His truth.
Well, there you have it. This is my plan to survive summer. What about you? Do you have any summer plans/goals/to-do lists?
The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. —Ralph Waldo EmersonEmerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now. (Author: Mary Jaksch)
"What's in a name? That which we call a roseBy the same token, calling fear anything else, does not change what it actually is.
By any other name would smell as sweet."
There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. –Ralph Waldo EmersonWhat would you say to the person you were five years ago?
"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." —G.K. ChestertonThere are weeks when the gratitude—the seeing and naming of the gifts of God—seems to flow like a swollen spring stream. Then, there are others when I must force my eyes to see what is right in front of me.
Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. —Proverbs 12:25
"In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load." —Brian Tracy
"Christ... is always there at the door of our souls, wanting to enter in, though he does not force our consent. If we agree to his entry, he enters; directly we cease to want him, he is gone. We cannot bind our will today for tomorrow; we cannot make a pact with him that tomorrow he will be with us, even in spite of ourselves. Our consent to his presence is the same as his presence. Consent is an act. It can only be actual, that is to say in the present. We have not been given a will that can be applied to the future." —Simone Weil
"Let these words of mine, which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that he may maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires, the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day." {vs. 59-61, italics mine}As each day requires. Solomon, in all his wisdom, understood what Simone Weil also got, that all we have is today.
A hunger drives us.
We want to contain it all in our naked hands,
our brimming senses, our speechless hearts.
We want to become it, or offer it—but to whom?
We could hold it forever—but, after all,
what can we keep? Not the beholding,
so slow to learn. Not anything that has happened here.
Nothing. There are the hurts. And, always, the hardships.
And there's the long knowing of love—all of it
unsayable. Later, amidst the stars, we will see:
these are better unsaid.—Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Ninth Duino Elegy
Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,
Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
And without any feet can go to you;
And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
And if you set this brain of mine afire,
Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you.—Rainer Maria Rilke
Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum.
(I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am.)—Rene Descartes
I believe; help my unbelief! {vs. 24}Too often, I forget that we humans are bundles of paradoxes. That we are capable of multiple and contrary things simultaneously. This father's desperate words on behalf of his son reminds me that the mixture of emotions that runs through me is perfectly normal. And this prayer has become one of my most frequent.
“We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us;But even in the midst of all that is, and all that could be, there are bright spots. Gifts from God that shine through all the stuff that I would rather forget, illuminating them in a way that I don't believe I would have ever seen them.
we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”—C.S. Lewis