“God comes to you disguised as your life.” – Paula D’Arcy
He’s There Somewhere
June 27, 2012
I Am Too Serious
June 23, 2012
I think when we are always busy trying to be “contemplative” and get to a deeper level of prayer, we miss something. I think one of the truest forms of prayer is my daughter running through the grass at full speed, saying, “Look at me, Daddy!” She marvels at what her legs can do and is truly abandoned to the moment and the speed at which she carries her little body.
We can do a lot for our hearts by just being what we are. There is a gamut of emotions that I feel like I ...
The Never-Ending Shed
June 20, 2012
Life is a continual series of surrenderings. Once you think you have died enough, life and God are back to prune some more. There is more to shed. If you are wise, you will continue to be open and ready for these little deaths. Do not build up your shields against them because then they will just fall harder and faster – it will take more to undo the cozy shelter you have built for yourself. The shelter is that which you have built to protect yourself from what – more abundant life? ...
Truth vs. Fact
June 18, 2012
Truth is far different than fact. Facts are something you can learn and to which you can attach yourself. The truth is something you experience and which you assimilate into your being. Once you have experienced real Truth, you cannot go back. It will change your life. You will not be able to just replace it with some new information. On the other hand, facts are replaceable. Once you learn something new which opposes the understanding you held previously, you can discard the old like waste.
The ...
Survival
June 17, 2012
The greatest incongruity the Christ’s teaching has with Darwinian Theory is not about the origins of the universe. It is with this idea of “survival of the fittest.” Now, Darwin probably did not endorse this survival of the fittest idea as one by which to live your life (I don’t know if he did), but it stands in stark opposition to what the Christ teaches about how to get “life.” This idea of survival of the fittest would say that the members of a species who ...
Everything is Prayer
May 12, 2012
Everything is prayer – not just what we normally think of as prayer. Everything we do is a transaction between us and God: every interaction between ourselves and another person – every member of our family, every coworker, every poor person. We make some prayer in every task, every job, every minute of the day, not just the ones we like or enjoy. This is how we can pray continually.
But we, as humans, tend to divide the world into good and evil. This thing is God and this thing ...
The Great Fear
April 25, 2012
Fear is the great human problem. Every problem in relationship is a problem caused by fear. Our ego defenses go up because we fear that we will not be loved, wanted, valued. We constantly see threat – in our family, our friends and our enemies. That’s why the solution to our problems as humans are love, hope and faith. They are the opposite of fear.
Sublimation
April 8, 2012
Sublimation of anger, difficulty, stress, and threat is really the goal. When Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, love our enemies, not repay evil for evil, and then shows us how on the cross, he is really saying that we need to sublimate anger and the impulse to retaliate. To sublimate it does not mean that you ignore the threat, but instead it means that you take it in or absorb it, and transform it into something else. And in that way, you take all its power away. On the cross, Jesus took ...