Good morning all, Bore da pawb!
There are new additions to the daily exercises which have ** next to them. You may wish to include them in your rhythm but do not feel you have to.
I think that our current situation and the limits and boundaries which this Lockdown has placed on our lives has brought a few things into sharp focus for me.
1) I not only love my family, I also really LIKE them. Praise God! We are cooped up together but we are not at each other’s throats. Though this has lead me to really worry for an pray constantly for those who are not this fortunate, where small grievances are getting magnified and what would have been small skirmishes have turned into all out war.
It reminds my of something which a Benedictine Monk once told me about living simply in close proximity. I had asked him whether life was easier when they had so few personal possessions, when their time was so ordered and they shared everything together.
“Well, yes and no.” he said.
“It is true that you no longer have arguments and get angry about who should take the bins out, who’s turn it is to wash up or what colour the new curtains should be. All this stuff is already decided, we know who does what and when” he continued.
“However, you find that the tiny things get blown out of all proportion and you find you get irrationally angry about ridiculous stuff.”
“For example?” I asked.
“Well, for me I first noticed it a few months after taking my vows. I always sat in the same seat during vespers (evening prayer) and the same brothers always sat to my left and right. During the silence I noticed that my brother on the left had a slight whistle to their exhalation through their nose. The first time I noticed it, it made me smile. After weeks of it though, I could not ignore it any longer, the whistling was ALL I could hear! It was making me so angry that I wanted to hit him over the head with the prayer book!” he finished heatedly.
“So what did you do? Tell him? Move seats? Buy him some sinex?” I said.
“No, nothing like that. I still sit in the same seat. I have never said a word to him about his breathing. What I do is praise God for his breath, praise God for his nose, praise God that I have ears to hear. I praise God and give thanks for my brother!”
2) There are things which I miss which I had not realised were so important to me.
The ministry which God has called me to in St Clears was a missional work, which involved me talking to people I did not know, making friends and listening to their stories. As an introvert, this sort of thing does not come naturally to me. A ten minute conversation with a stranger, while lovely and enjoyable, requires a thirty minute sit down in a quiet space by myself.
What I have realised to my surprise is that I am REALLY missing this. The meeting new people, getting to know them and hearing about their lives. I loved it!
I had been spending time in Mol’s Bistro getting to know folk in there. I had begun baking cakes for them to sell and in return I was going to start a kind of Dinner Church there. Where we would chat about peoples spirituality and the Bible over a homecooked meal. I was having coffee with people and just chatting, bringing together my story, their story and God’s story.
I am really missing this. I am trying to think of ways of replicating this via Facebook, Twitter and ZOOM and I’m sure we will meet together in this way.
It has, however told me something about myself.
If these are the things which I am missing, then they are more important to me than I realised, so much so that I am trying to find ways of replicating them in lockdown. If they are this important, then I need to give them more care and more attention when we can finally meet again.
There are other things which have come up, but I will save those for another morning reflection, but I’ll leave you with a few verses from Paul’s letter to the new Church at Corinth. The Church was struggling, their were arguments and disagreements about what was the most important gifts to have, how they should act, and members were engaged in petty squabbles. Paul wanted to remind them, that LOVE was at the centre of the GOOD NEWS and that love should be what guides their actions.
1 Corinthians 13 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA)
13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Be blessed and stay safe.
(picture credit: A bunch of lovely people who I trained with. Showing love and connectedness. Oh how I will miss holding hands!)
*****
MORNING
Wake, but do not move to begin with. Be aware of yourself, the air going in and out of your lungs, be aware of your senses and what they are telling you, feel the aches and pains of life that were dulled a bit by rest.
Give thanks, because all you feel means you are alive, the world is better for you being in it.
Take a moment to think of ONE positive thing you will try to do today.
1Corinthians 15:55-57 (Read through slowly 3 times)
‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
BREAKFAST
As you make your breakfast, be mindful of each thing you do as you do it. Be fully present.
As you consume your breakfast offer thanks for the producers and distributers of our food, water and power.
**Ask that the food strengthen you for the day ahead, that it be for you like manna, food for the journey**
LUNCH
Pause. Sit. Breathe. You are still here.
Follow the same routine of mindfulness and thanks as at breakfast.
DINNER/TEA
Same as for lunch
**Hold in your mind for a moment before you eat, that last meal Jesus shared with friends before the Cross, while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.**
EVENING BEFORE SLEEP
Be aware of yourself, the air going in and out of your lungs, be aware of your senses and what they are telling you, feel the aches and pains of life that will be dulled a bit by rest.
Give thanks, because all you feel means you are alive and have lived, the world is better for you being in it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
There are new additions to the daily exercises which have ** next to them. You may wish to include them in your rhythm but do not feel you have to.
I think that our current situation and the limits and boundaries which this Lockdown has placed on our lives has brought a few things into sharp focus for me.
1) I not only love my family, I also really LIKE them. Praise God! We are cooped up together but we are not at each other’s throats. Though this has lead me to really worry for an pray constantly for those who are not this fortunate, where small grievances are getting magnified and what would have been small skirmishes have turned into all out war.
It reminds my of something which a Benedictine Monk once told me about living simply in close proximity. I had asked him whether life was easier when they had so few personal possessions, when their time was so ordered and they shared everything together.
“Well, yes and no.” he said.
“It is true that you no longer have arguments and get angry about who should take the bins out, who’s turn it is to wash up or what colour the new curtains should be. All this stuff is already decided, we know who does what and when” he continued.
“However, you find that the tiny things get blown out of all proportion and you find you get irrationally angry about ridiculous stuff.”
“For example?” I asked.
“Well, for me I first noticed it a few months after taking my vows. I always sat in the same seat during vespers (evening prayer) and the same brothers always sat to my left and right. During the silence I noticed that my brother on the left had a slight whistle to their exhalation through their nose. The first time I noticed it, it made me smile. After weeks of it though, I could not ignore it any longer, the whistling was ALL I could hear! It was making me so angry that I wanted to hit him over the head with the prayer book!” he finished heatedly.
“So what did you do? Tell him? Move seats? Buy him some sinex?” I said.
“No, nothing like that. I still sit in the same seat. I have never said a word to him about his breathing. What I do is praise God for his breath, praise God for his nose, praise God that I have ears to hear. I praise God and give thanks for my brother!”
2) There are things which I miss which I had not realised were so important to me.
The ministry which God has called me to in St Clears was a missional work, which involved me talking to people I did not know, making friends and listening to their stories. As an introvert, this sort of thing does not come naturally to me. A ten minute conversation with a stranger, while lovely and enjoyable, requires a thirty minute sit down in a quiet space by myself.
What I have realised to my surprise is that I am REALLY missing this. The meeting new people, getting to know them and hearing about their lives. I loved it!
I had been spending time in Mol’s Bistro getting to know folk in there. I had begun baking cakes for them to sell and in return I was going to start a kind of Dinner Church there. Where we would chat about peoples spirituality and the Bible over a homecooked meal. I was having coffee with people and just chatting, bringing together my story, their story and God’s story.
I am really missing this. I am trying to think of ways of replicating this via Facebook, Twitter and ZOOM and I’m sure we will meet together in this way.
It has, however told me something about myself.
If these are the things which I am missing, then they are more important to me than I realised, so much so that I am trying to find ways of replicating them in lockdown. If they are this important, then I need to give them more care and more attention when we can finally meet again.
There are other things which have come up, but I will save those for another morning reflection, but I’ll leave you with a few verses from Paul’s letter to the new Church at Corinth. The Church was struggling, their were arguments and disagreements about what was the most important gifts to have, how they should act, and members were engaged in petty squabbles. Paul wanted to remind them, that LOVE was at the centre of the GOOD NEWS and that love should be what guides their actions.
1 Corinthians 13 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA)
13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Be blessed and stay safe.
(picture credit: A bunch of lovely people who I trained with. Showing love and connectedness. Oh how I will miss holding hands!)
*****
MORNING
Wake, but do not move to begin with. Be aware of yourself, the air going in and out of your lungs, be aware of your senses and what they are telling you, feel the aches and pains of life that were dulled a bit by rest.
Give thanks, because all you feel means you are alive, the world is better for you being in it.
Take a moment to think of ONE positive thing you will try to do today.
1Corinthians 15:55-57 (Read through slowly 3 times)
‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
BREAKFAST
As you make your breakfast, be mindful of each thing you do as you do it. Be fully present.
As you consume your breakfast offer thanks for the producers and distributers of our food, water and power.
**Ask that the food strengthen you for the day ahead, that it be for you like manna, food for the journey**
LUNCH
Pause. Sit. Breathe. You are still here.
Follow the same routine of mindfulness and thanks as at breakfast.
DINNER/TEA
Same as for lunch
**Hold in your mind for a moment before you eat, that last meal Jesus shared with friends before the Cross, while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.**
EVENING BEFORE SLEEP
Be aware of yourself, the air going in and out of your lungs, be aware of your senses and what they are telling you, feel the aches and pains of life that will be dulled a bit by rest.
Give thanks, because all you feel means you are alive and have lived, the world is better for you being in it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
Comments
Post a Comment