Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty-one

Jane Hirshfield, “Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World” from The Lives of the Heart. New York: HarperPerennial, 1997, p. 71.

If the gods bring to you

a strange and frightening creature,

accept the gift

as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,

oil the hooves well,

caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver

embedded with jewels.

Spare no expense, pay what is asked,

when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself

would be treated,

brought speechless and naked

into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,

do not hesitate even an instant --

Stroke the white throat,

the heavy, trembling dewlaps

you’d come to believe were yours,

and plunge in the knife.

Not once

did you enter the pasture

without pause,

without yourself trembling.

That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and Thirty

Ram Dass, “Promises and Pitfalls of the Spiritual Path,” in Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis, ed. Stanislav Grof and Christina Grof, New York: Tarcher, 1989, p. 184.

One of our expectations was that the spiritual path would get us healthy psychologically. I was trained as a psychologist. I was in analysis for many years. I taught Freudian theory. I was a therapist. I took psychedelic drugs for six years intensively. I have a guru. I have meditated since 1970 regularly. I have taught Yoga and studied Sufism, plus many kinds of Buddhism. In all that time I have not gotten rid of one neurosis--not one. The only thing that has changed is that, whereas previously my neuroses were huge monsters, now they are like these little shmoos. “Oh, sexual perversity, I haven’t seen you in days, come and have some tea.” To me the product of the spiritual path is that I now have another contextual framework that makes me much less identified with my known neurosis, and with my own desires. If I do not get what I want, that is as interesting as when I get it. When you begin to recognize that suffering is grace, you cannot believe it. You think you are cheating.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and twenty-nine

Richard Rohr, adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, pp. 17-19.

How do we find what is supposedly already there? How do we awaken our deepest and most profound selves? By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes to all of the above, but the most important way is to live and fully accept our reality. This solution sounds so simple and innocuous that most of us fabricate all kinds of religious trappings to avoid taking up our own inglorious, mundane, and ever-present cross.

Living and accepting our own reality will not feel very spiritual. It will feel like we are on the edges rather than dealing with the essence. Thus most run toward more esoteric and dramatic postures instead of bearing the mystery of God’s suffering and joy inside themselves. But the edges of our lives—fully experienced, suffered, and enjoyed—lead us back to the center and the essence.

Sign up for daily reflections from Richard Rohr

Lectio Divina - One hundred and twenty-eight

Lal Ded, translated by Coleman Barks in Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, ed. Jane Hirshfield, Harper Perennial, 1995, p.121.

The soul, like the moon,

is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean

continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mind

and my body, I too, Lalla,

am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing,

Live in the soul.

When that was so,

I began to go naked,

and dance.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and twenty-seven

Lal Ded, translated by Coleman Barks in Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, ed. Jane Hirshfield, Harper Perennial, 1995, p.126.

On the way to God the difficulties

feel like being ground by a millstone,

like night coming at noon, like

lightning through the clouds.

But don’t worry!

What must come, comes.

Face everything with love,

as your mind dissolves in God.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and twenty-six

Thomas Keating and Contemplative Outreach, Intentions for the Coming Year

Led by Thomas Keating, we have set forth intentions for the coming year. These are the measures that we aspire to and will return to . . .

• To heed the call to be transformed and then to rely on God to enable us to pass on the mercy, forgiveness, compassion and love to all humanity that we have received.
• To create a context in which the transformation of humanity can take place.
• To make the practice of Centering Prayer and the conceptual background readily available.
• To see Christ as present in everything and everyone.
• To acknowledge that any good accomplished is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Lectio Divina - One hundred and twenty-five

Richard Rohr, Adapted from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr, pp. 31, 11-12.

We tend to manage life more than just live it. We are all overstimulated and drowning in options. We are trained to be managers, to organize life, to make things happen. That is what built our First World culture. It is not all bad, but if you transfer it to the spiritual life, it is pure heresy. It is wrong. It doesn’t work. It is not gospel.

If Mary was trustfully carrying Jesus during this time, it is because she knew how to receive spiritual gifts, in fact the spiritual gift. She is probably the perfect example of how fertility and fruitfulness break into this world.

There is a great banquet that utterly relativizes and situates all our daily emotions, hurts, addictions, and plans. When you abide in your true Godself, as Mary did, the small self is always seen as limited, insecure, and surely good—but still passing away. We must eat from this big table to know who we really and finally are.

Sign up for daily reflections from Richard Rohr