I am going to an Advent event at the Cathedral in Providence on Saturday (it is an all day event w/lunch). I am really looking forward to it and have never done anything like this before.
This week I am attending a training. This is a new training and I am setting an intention to trust the process and be a learner not a knower. I am grateful for this opportunity and my prayer is to be guided by wisdom as I learn how to craft my God given message.
Learning to sing “More Than Hands Can Hold” (Mat and Savanna Shaw) could be one thing that I would love to try this week. Firstly, for my English improvement and furthermore is for gratefulness cultivation.
An excellent question. Right now I am focusing on re-introducing activities that I had given up because of health issues. I have decided to push myself a little, but I’m not sure yet which activities take priority.
But this question and your responses inspire me to think. Maybe I can also find something else altogether. After a very long number of years on the planet, it’s hard to think of much that I haven’t already tried.
So many different and varied responses to this question! I related to much of what was shared.
Emmaleah: “Acknowledge and honor my limitations”
Journey: “To move from mindlessness to mindfulness.”
Michelle: “I’m not sure? I will wait for the opportunity to present itself.”
Charlie T: “Paying attention to intention”
And I so recognize the tendency for me to push back against consumerism…like Joseph, it gives me a knot in my stomach and I can get very judgey and critical of those who buy into it.
But I’d have to say, as a lifelong “DOER” I am working on, in this my elder years, just BEING. Carol spoke of the old messages that have a tendency to visit…..that I have to perform in order to be loved. My physical limitations can be acknowledged as a blessing because they are forcing me in a way to simply sit in that pocket of peace and joy that resides in my heart assuring me that I am The Beloved. Daily surrender, the grace-filled Cosmic Dance. Love this!
My intention this week is to literally accept this invitation from the Divine to dance….moving my body to sacred music as a prayer of gratefulness.
~Thank you all for your heartfelt responses…they encouraged my spirit. Namaste🙏
And a personal note to my dear friend from long ago in the Gratitude Lounge. Pilgrim…on this our mutual Prayer Tuesday, I send my love.
Thank you, my Friend. I stopped in hours ago for a brief time, but have been attempting to straighten out the house until now. Very snowy here! Blessings to you and your family.
I could try to acknowledge and honor my limitations. I have some newly diagnosed back issues and I keep hurting myself because I’m a bit in denial I think. I need to work on accepting the diagnosis so that I can better care for my body.
I appreciate Carol’s point that this could feel performative. I’m still recovering from the flu so for me, everything old is new again, as the song goes. Restoring my practice of regular walks and bike rides will take effort and I’m not quite ready, but by the end of the week when I need to go in for a meeting I hope to be able to ride my bike there. It won’t be “new new” but I’ll appreciate it all over again as my body returns to its norm of good health that I’m so fortunate to have.
Todays question is indeed a very thoughtful one…some may find their answer right away. This is a question that has my mind running from place to place…so much that I coud try “do” this week. As Journey said she was going to move from “mindlessness to mindfullness”…and I think that is just where I will start. I do so much ….”rote” behavior…habits…and habits that need to be examined and perhaps discarded…a good way to start.
When I read today’s question, I sighed. It struck me as performance instead of process oriented. The old message that ruled my life for years reared its head: I HAVE TO PERFORM TO BE LOVED. Thankfully, that is no longer true for me. I was reminded of the importance of perspective and how no matter how much I grow in self awareness, I can still find my mind knit picking instead of appreciating this day that I have been given. As Charlie T suggested yesterday. Daily surrender is the key to a grace-filled cosmic dance. Eckhart Tolle says it this way, “[When] you realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” Here’s the Merton quote I read this morning while pondering today’s question. I find it very powerful. Just remember it was written many years ago when most theologians expressed the image of God as a male.
“What is serious to men is often trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as “play” is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds of autumn descending on a grow of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of values, the “newness,” the emptiness and purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance. For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does no matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to our not. Yet, the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.
New seeds of Contemplation page 296-297
On Sunday, had coffee with a friend
who has been learning about and
experimenting with fasting, for health
reasons. This is something I am curious
about and will need to do some reading
and consulting, with other experienced
friends.
I did one version of intermittent fasting called 5-2 – “fast” (1/4 of one’s normal calories) two days a week and eat regular for 5. I was able to lose, relatively effortlessly, 45 pounds and keep them off for almost 10 years. Recommended by my primary care doctor, BTW.
My numbers – blood sugar, cholesterol, etc. – also improved significantly.
I recommend it. (There are other versions as well.)
Yesterday’s question was ‘is there an area in your life where you are struggling to move forward?’ and I wrote ‘eating healthy’ and today’s question is ‘what is something new I could try this week?’. I am going to link these 2 questions and find something new I can do this week to help with the question from yesterday. The new thing I can do this week, is to be more conscious and be more mindful with my food choices. To say no to eating after I am full, to choose a different activity instead of mindlessly stuffing my face. To move from mindlessness to mindfulness.
Paying attention to intention 😁
You are off to a good start.
I try to keep in mind that little
steps and small victories are how
I move forward. I try not to focus
too far down the road.
I’m rootin for ya and will join you
in being more conscious about my
food choices today.
I may have mentioned I am a self-taught piano student. My husband’s favorite Christmas carol is Joy to the World. So today, I will find an arrangement and begin working with it in hopes of playing it, at least with enthusiasm😉, come Christmas Eve. I hope he can continue to call it his fav after listening to all my plinks and plonks as I learn something totally new to me!
This question is a good prompt to get out the watercolour pens I bought a while ago. I did have a go with them but just plunged in using them as they are and wasn’t impressed with my efforts. Having watched some Youtube videos I now know how to work with them but haven’t had the time or energy to have another go. I will try again this week 😊
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I am going to an Advent event at the Cathedral in Providence on Saturday (it is an all day event w/lunch). I am really looking forward to it and have never done anything like this before.
This week I am attending a training. This is a new training and I am setting an intention to trust the process and be a learner not a knower. I am grateful for this opportunity and my prayer is to be guided by wisdom as I learn how to craft my God given message.
Learning to sing “More Than Hands Can Hold” (Mat and Savanna Shaw) could be one thing that I would love to try this week. Firstly, for my English improvement and furthermore is for gratefulness cultivation.
An excellent question. Right now I am focusing on re-introducing activities that I had given up because of health issues. I have decided to push myself a little, but I’m not sure yet which activities take priority.
But this question and your responses inspire me to think. Maybe I can also find something else altogether. After a very long number of years on the planet, it’s hard to think of much that I haven’t already tried.
So many different and varied responses to this question! I related to much of what was shared.
Emmaleah: “Acknowledge and honor my limitations”
Journey: “To move from mindlessness to mindfulness.”
Michelle: “I’m not sure? I will wait for the opportunity to present itself.”
Charlie T: “Paying attention to intention”
And I so recognize the tendency for me to push back against consumerism…like Joseph, it gives me a knot in my stomach and I can get very judgey and critical of those who buy into it.
But I’d have to say, as a lifelong “DOER” I am working on, in this my elder years, just BEING. Carol spoke of the old messages that have a tendency to visit…..that I have to perform in order to be loved. My physical limitations can be acknowledged as a blessing because they are forcing me in a way to simply sit in that pocket of peace and joy that resides in my heart assuring me that I am The Beloved. Daily surrender, the grace-filled Cosmic Dance. Love this!
My intention this week is to literally accept this invitation from the Divine to dance….moving my body to sacred music as a prayer of gratefulness.
~Thank you all for your heartfelt responses…they encouraged my spirit. Namaste🙏
And a personal note to my dear friend from long ago in the Gratitude Lounge. Pilgrim…on this our mutual Prayer Tuesday, I send my love.
Thank you, my Friend. I stopped in hours ago for a brief time, but have been attempting to straighten out the house until now. Very snowy here! Blessings to you and your family.
I have been wanting to start a Dojo/Tribe of women for life improvement and to take this activity to my church. I think I should get this kicked off.
I could try to acknowledge and honor my limitations. I have some newly diagnosed back issues and I keep hurting myself because I’m a bit in denial I think. I need to work on accepting the diagnosis so that I can better care for my body.
As someone who has been there, I encourage you to be careful. It is easy to overdo when we start to feel a little better.
I appreciate Carol’s point that this could feel performative. I’m still recovering from the flu so for me, everything old is new again, as the song goes. Restoring my practice of regular walks and bike rides will take effort and I’m not quite ready, but by the end of the week when I need to go in for a meeting I hope to be able to ride my bike there. It won’t be “new new” but I’ll appreciate it all over again as my body returns to its norm of good health that I’m so fortunate to have.
Todays question is indeed a very thoughtful one…some may find their answer right away. This is a question that has my mind running from place to place…so much that I coud try “do” this week. As Journey said she was going to move from “mindlessness to mindfullness”…and I think that is just where I will start. I do so much ….”rote” behavior…habits…and habits that need to be examined and perhaps discarded…a good way to start.
When I read today’s question, I sighed. It struck me as performance instead of process oriented. The old message that ruled my life for years reared its head: I HAVE TO PERFORM TO BE LOVED. Thankfully, that is no longer true for me. I was reminded of the importance of perspective and how no matter how much I grow in self awareness, I can still find my mind knit picking instead of appreciating this day that I have been given. As Charlie T suggested yesterday. Daily surrender is the key to a grace-filled cosmic dance. Eckhart Tolle says it this way, “[When] you realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” Here’s the Merton quote I read this morning while pondering today’s question. I find it very powerful. Just remember it was written many years ago when most theologians expressed the image of God as a male.
“What is serious to men is often trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as “play” is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds of autumn descending on a grow of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of values, the “newness,” the emptiness and purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance. For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does no matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to our not. Yet, the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.
New seeds of Contemplation page 296-297
I actually did this yesterday! I made biscotti for a bake sale. I also want to make a new paper ornament.
ooh, I love biscotti, I would have bought for sure 🙂
On Sunday, had coffee with a friend
who has been learning about and
experimenting with fasting, for health
reasons. This is something I am curious
about and will need to do some reading
and consulting, with other experienced
friends.
I did one version of intermittent fasting called 5-2 – “fast” (1/4 of one’s normal calories) two days a week and eat regular for 5. I was able to lose, relatively effortlessly, 45 pounds and keep them off for almost 10 years. Recommended by my primary care doctor, BTW.
My numbers – blood sugar, cholesterol, etc. – also improved significantly.
I recommend it. (There are other versions as well.)
Yesterday’s question was ‘is there an area in your life where you are struggling to move forward?’ and I wrote ‘eating healthy’ and today’s question is ‘what is something new I could try this week?’. I am going to link these 2 questions and find something new I can do this week to help with the question from yesterday. The new thing I can do this week, is to be more conscious and be more mindful with my food choices. To say no to eating after I am full, to choose a different activity instead of mindlessly stuffing my face. To move from mindlessness to mindfulness.
Paying attention to intention 😁
You are off to a good start.
I try to keep in mind that little
steps and small victories are how
I move forward. I try not to focus
too far down the road.
I’m rootin for ya and will join you
in being more conscious about my
food choices today.
A great step forward!
I may have mentioned I am a self-taught piano student. My husband’s favorite Christmas carol is Joy to the World. So today, I will find an arrangement and begin working with it in hopes of playing it, at least with enthusiasm😉, come Christmas Eve. I hope he can continue to call it his fav after listening to all my plinks and plonks as I learn something totally new to me!
This question is a good prompt to get out the watercolour pens I bought a while ago. I did have a go with them but just plunged in using them as they are and wasn’t impressed with my efforts. Having watched some Youtube videos I now know how to work with them but haven’t had the time or energy to have another go. I will try again this week 😊