The love of a dog is a pure thing. He gives you a trust which is total. You must not betray it. Michel Houellebecq

Meditation: We just returned from a two week trip to Germany. And for the first time I took our five pound “Porkie” (Poodle/Yorkie mix) “Zoe” with us. Usually she jumps right into our suitcase while we are packing. She has learned that those suitcases mean that she would be left behind for a while. However, this time she was allowed to travel with us. After getting all vaccinations and all paperwork done, a stamp from the agriculture department and a Microchip taken care of, Zoe was eager to jump into her own dog travel bag. That bag would carry her thousands of miles across the ocean. As long as she could see me, she was quiet and content. Even though there were hundreds of people, sounds and smells she had never heard, smelled or seen before, keeping her eyes on me, she trusted that things would be OK. I fed her in her bag. She patiently waited and twice kept quiet 12 full hours of travelling. She seemed to understand that this was the way we could stay together. We all had an amazing trip. Zoe is the best travel dog ever. As long as she could see me, nothing else mattered.

Prayer: God, I wish we humans could be more like Zoe. I wish our fear of the unknown could be calmed if we just kept our eyes on You. I wish by seeing and hearing You, we could be content and approach the future with less anxiety. I pray that we can learn about trust from our four legged companions. God, hear our wishes and prayer, and enable us to trust and love You more than we do. Amen

I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Psalm 16:8

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. Brene Brown

Meditation: Our wellness and sense of life balance depends on setting healthy boundaries. We need to learn to wisely, calmly and firmly say “no”. We need to say “no” to unwanted or inappropriate demands or behaviors. And it does not matter whether the other person is encroaching on our space intentionally or unintentionally. If we find clear words that are self-loving and self-respecting, we will season our speech with salt. We can practice “tough love”, speak our truth with kind yet firm words. Often people will not like it. People will be disappointed with us and will get angry with us. However, those who truly love or want to love us and who are not only in relationship with us to benefit from us, they will learn to appreciate our ability to set healthy and needed boundaries with them and with others.

Prayer: Jesus, You modeled healthy boundary setting. You did not heal everybody who came to You. You prevented life drain and burn out by setting boundaries in taking time out for prayer and solitude and by spending time with relationships that were life giving to You. Help us with the power of Your Spirit to not mistake Christianity for self-sacrifice, self-destruction or life without boundaries. Teach us how to say “no” with love. Protect us from people who shame us with “false guilt” and who try to manipulate us back to unhealthy ways of being in relationships. Amen

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Colossians 4:6

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Eckhart Tolle

Meditation: When I am anxious about the future, I confuse my projected worries with what is actually in front of me. I catapult myself out of the current situation as a way of protecting myself. However, negative predictions also separate me from what is going on in the here and now. I can no longer notice nuances. I can no longer be surprised. I have reduced the current moment to a summary of the past and to a negative prediction of the future. I miss the moment. I miss the opportunity to be intimate, to be vulnerable, to laugh with those who laugh and to cry with those who cry. My anticipatory dread is an understandable way of trying to protect myself. However, it does not work. It actually steals the beauty of the moment. It destroys the potential that the here and now holds. However, being present, fully present… just today… this is a gift of the Spirit of the Living God.

Prayer: Spirit of the Living God, help us to live in the here and now. Help us to boundary in our fears and negative predictions of the future. How do we know what will happen? We are human. We only have today. Fill us with the gift of being fully present with the persons we meet today, including ourselves. Let us not race ahead. Let us not idealize the past. Teach us how to be intimately and fully present, so we can laugh and cry together. Amen

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6: 34

“Can emotional love be reborn in a marriage? You bet. The key is to learn the primary love language of your spouse and choose to speak it.” Gary Chapman

Meditation: As we partners change over the years, so our “love language” evolves. Maybe earlier we needed more words of affirmation or concrete gifts as signs that we are loved. As we get older, we might desire more to be listened to attentively and without interruption or distraction. Touch might also become more important as we get older. As spouses we need to evolve and grow. We need not think that we know exactly what our partner needs. We all change. Do I know what I need today to feel loved? Am I aware what love language my partner prefers? Acts of service might mean more or less to us than when we were younger, yet we might still appreciate words of tenderness. Why not take a moment today to get in touch with our primary love language? Why not share with our significant other the love language we especially cherish in the current phase of our lives?

Prayer: Gracious God, Your love relationship with us evolves as well over time. We need different ways of being loved by You as we age. Maybe earlier we were worried about our relationship with You and needed much explicit affirmation. Nowadays, we might have a less “wordy” relationship with You and enjoy more non-verbal ways of being in Your presence. Whatever we prefer, however we live our love for You and have need for Your love in our life, You know us. You adjust Your ways of loving us. And we are grateful. Amen

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1. John 4:12

Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love. Saint Teresa of Avila

Meditation: We often think of prayer as concrete words that we formulate at certain times. We understand prayer as something like a ritual, a practice, a habit or even a work or a chore. However, when we open ourselves to a broader understanding of prayer, we see prayer as more than a verbal expression of our mind or as a conscious seeking of words. We begin to see prayer as deeply connected with an attitude and acts of loving. When we begin to think about prayer like this, then praying reaches a whole new dimension. Then we realize that not only able bodied, certain religious or intellectual people pray, but that anybody prays who reaches out with a loving willingness or with an act of love. Prayer then becomes an embodiment and a mirroring of God’s all-encompassing love. And if this is so, then words are often not needed…

Prayer: God, You hear us when we pray with words. And as You are much bigger than our words and much greater than our minds, You hear also our non-verbal prayers. You see and delight in us humans when we pray without words. You know when we pray non-verbally by mirroring You and Your love. You are present when we engage You, ourselves, our neighbors near and far and our world with loving intentions and with acts of kindness. All of those are considered prayers by You as well. And we are grateful. Amen

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1. John 4:16b

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today? Mary Manin Morrissey

Meditation: Holding onto resentment costs a lot of energy. Hurt, fear, painful memories often hunt us. Letting go is easier said than done. Letting go is often not a one-time act, it is a long journey. Many use friends or therapists as confidants on this journey of releasing those old things that hold us back from a new life. And yet, as we let go of the brake, as we no longer allow our resentment to hold us down, then we feel the relief of forgiveness…and new life springs forth…

Prayer: God of Serenity and of New Beginnings, help us search for the sprouts of new life in the present instead of remaining entangled in the poisonous wilderness of our past. Help us release what is not ours. Help us forgive were injustice was done to us or to those we love. Make a way out of the old. Let us feel the relief as we let go of those persons and those things we cannot change. Give us the Grace to forgive and accept our life as it was and is. Fill us with new energy, freed from old burdens. Empower us to create our life as it can be. And we are grateful. Amen

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19

I am just a human being trying to make it in a world that is rapidly losing its understanding of being human. John Trudell
Meditation: In Hamburg, Germany last weekend, 150,000 demonstrators from all over Europe gathered to protest the G 20 gathering.  Gathered were several world leaders whose political systems and decision making are increasingly oppressive and exploiting of humanity. Angry violence erupted, outrage aimlessly began to direct itself against store fronts, cars, police… “I am just a human being trying to make it in a world that is rapidly losing its understanding of being human”. In theological terms we might describe what we see as “humanity losing its soul”. The soul of humanity dies when few based on their position of power and privilege exclude and oppress the many others without having any empathy or compassion. The soul of humanity dies when those in power lose touch with their own humanity and vulnerability. This is when the bodies and souls of other humans become random objects that are being manipulated, exploited, gotten rid or taken advantage of. This is what the erupting rage in Hamburg last weekend was about. Yes, we humans can and need to find more constructive ways of expressing our sadness and rage than smashing windows and burning cars. However, sometimes quiet tears are not enough to get the attention of the rest of humanity that something is terribly wrong.
Prayer: God of humanity, You are weeping. You are touched and deeply moved seeing us humans lose our understanding of what it means to be human. When we elect, tolerate or support world leaders who have lost their souls, You weep. We cry out: “Come and see”. Free us from the bondage of those who oppress, kill and don’t care. God, something is terribly wrong. Have mercy on us. Amen
Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. “Where have you buried him?” he asked them. “Come and see, Lord,” they answered. Jesus wept. John 11:33-35

I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language. Pierre Omidyar
Meditation: Sitting at the table with a majority people who look different and who speak a different language than oneself is a strange experience. Suddenly what seemed “normal” is no longer “the norm”. From one moment to the next one becomes the minority and easily feels inadequate, unable to understand or communicate in the same language as the majority speaks. The ears that are usually our guides, suddenly seem irrelevant. Eyes and intuition become new guides, unfamiliar as they might feel. My children who numerous times sat around the table with their white German family members had this experience for the past days. Now teenagers, they experienced this language and culture shock more consciously than before and in new ways. I noticed that after an initial shock and frustration, a deeper motivation became birthed inside of them, namely the desire of wanting to learn the German language. They want to know the meaning behind the others’ laughter. They feel a deeper desire of wanting to learn the language, the culture and therefore belong. Culture shock can wake us up in a good way!
Prayer: God of many languages, thank You for the richness of cultures and the meanings hidden in them. Thank You for culture shock that wakes us up and opens our horizons. Help us to tolerate the initial discomfort that happens when we feel “shocked” and out of place. Strengthen our curiosity and intuition when we experience ourselves as the minority or as helpless as our ears won’t be able to help us anymore with meaning making. Broaden our horizon and our knowledge of cultures and languages. Amen
Undoubtedly there are many languages in the world, and none of them is without meaning. 1. Corinthians 14:10

 

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. Helen Keller

Meditation: Helen Keller was born in 1880. At 19 months old she became deaf and blind. First she felt much frustration and anger due to her isolating experience. Later she overcame her isolation by taking every opportunity to communicate that opened up to her. At a time when there were not yet many resources for deaf and blind persons, she paved a way for herself and for many others who struggled with not being able to hear or see. She was a role model for many who live with special needs, as she did not allow her blindness and deafness to define her, but pressed on and through it to learn and communicate as much as possible. She was an example of a woman who gained an amazingly rich emotional and spiritual life through her experience with suffering. Many men and women were encouraged by her role modeling and encouraging Spirit.

Prayer: God of hope, we thank You for Your presence in the life of Helen Keller. She did many things that the people of her time never thought a blind and deaf person could do. She believed that You had her best in mind and that her future was bright, even though many cards were stacked against her. Inspire us by her example. Help us to tackle and overcome those obstacles in our own lives that seem insurmountable. You are the one who helps us first accept and then also overcome suffering. And we are grateful. Amen

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29: 11

When you recognize the festive and the still moments as moments of prayer, then you gradually realize that to pray is to live. Henri Nouwen

Meditation: This week my three siblings, my daughters, two nieces, my mother and I are reunited. This happens about every five years or so, as we live far apart. Having breakfast together, playing a game or just being in the same room together are festive moments. We also have quiet moments of resting in between those together times. And there are also moments of tension, which means that we are still connected and care enough to assert our different opinions. All these moments look ordinary. If I don’t pay attention I might not recognize them as special moments of fulfilled prayer. Whenever we miss each other from afar or when we are together, those are those still and festive moments that itself are prayer. To pray is to live. To mindfully live, is to pray.
Prayer: Creator of festive and of still moments, let us not miss this simple truth that life becomes prayer and prayer becomes life. Thank You for being able to sit at the same table as my siblings. To experience our bond, our differences and our similarities. Thank You for the laughter and even for the moments of annoyance with each other that show that we are still familiar with each other’s idiosyncrasies. I am grateful for these days of living and of having my family around. Amen

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15