{"id":16817,"date":"2018-05-29T09:20:43","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T13:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16817"},"modified":"2018-05-29T11:34:36","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T15:34:36","slug":"vocation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16817","title":{"rendered":"Vocation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr<br \/>\n<strong>Finding Our Charism<\/strong><br \/>\nTuesday, May 29, 2018<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rolTdI7I_4M\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nNight is our diocese and silence is our ministry<br \/>\nPoverty our charity and helplessness our tongue-tied sermon.<br \/>\nBeyond the scope of sight or sound we dwell upon the air<br \/>\nSeeking the world\u2019s gain in an unthinkable experience.<br \/>\nWe are exiles in the far end of solitude, living as listeners<br \/>\nWith hearts attending to the skies we cannot understand:<br \/>\nWaiting upon the first far drums of Christ the Conqueror,<br \/>\nPlanted like sentinels upon the world\u2019s frontier.<br \/>\n\u2014Thomas Merton (1915-1968) [1]<br \/>\nWhen I read this passage from Merton\u2019s poem, \u201cThe Quickening of St. John the Baptist,\u201d I think of meditators. I think of what Christian contemplatives have taken upon themselves, \u201cplanted like sentinels upon the world\u2019s frontier,\u201d doing something that, frankly and unfortunately, will never fill stadiums. To meditate daily is to have chosen, accepted, and surrendered to a vocation. We must think of it that way. It is a vocation that places us at the center of history and yet also at its very edge, because most people will see us as innocuous, pious, or maybe even self-centered. That poverty might well be our deepest charity, Merton seems to say. We are the miniscule moment that somehow hears, re-creates, allows, and passes on \u201cthe first far drums of Christ the Conqueror.\u201d<br \/>\nArchimedes (c. 287\u2014c. 212 BC), a Greek philosopher and mathematician, inspired the familiar aphorism, \u201cGive me a place to stand on, and I will move the whole earth with a lever.\u201d [2] Our fixed point\u2014the place upon which we stand as our True Self\u2014is steady, centered, poised, and rooted. To be contemplative, we have to have a slight distance from the world, to allow time for withdrawal from business as usual, for going into what Jesus calls \u201cour private room\u201d (Matthew 6:6). However, in order for this not to become escapism, we have to remain quite close to the world at the same time, loving it, feeling its pain and its joy as our pain and our joy. So the fulcrum, the balancing point for our lever, must be in the real world.<br \/>\nAnd what is our lever? I have talked and written a great deal about contemplation and True Self, but not as much about the lever, perhaps because there are so many delivery systems! As Paul so beautifully says, \u201cNow there are varieties of spiritual gifts (charismaton), but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of ministries (diakonon), but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities (energematon), but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone\u201d (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).<br \/>\nIt seems to me that much of the proper work of the church and spirituality should be discerning and empowering people\u2019s actual gifts. There doesn\u2019t seem to be much discernment of gifts, even in seminaries, as to whether one really has a gift for Christian leadership, reconciling, healing, preaching, or counseling. (Most priests and pastors were ordained without ever having led a single person to love, to God, or to faith; and many do not seem to have a natural gift for this.) We seem to ordain people who want to be ordained! We can be educated or trained in offices and roles, but true spiritual gifts (charismata) are recognized, affirmed, and \u201ccalled forth.\u201d We do not create such people; we affirm and support what they are already doing on some level.<\/p>\n<p>__________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: #333333; cursor: text; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman','Bitstream Charter',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\">Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling<\/span><\/p>\n<p>May 29, 2018<\/p>\n<p>I AM WITH YOU, watching over you constantly. I am Immanuel (God with you); My Presence enfolds you in radiant Love. Nothing, including the brightest blessings and the darkest trials, can separate you from Me. Some of My children find Me more readily during dark times, when difficulties force them to depend on Me. Others feel closer to Me when their lives are filled with good things. They respond with thanksgiving and praise, thus opening wide the door to My Presence. I know precisely what you need to draw nearer to Me. Go through each day looking for what I have prepared for you. Accept every event as My hand-tailored provision for your needs. When you view your life this way, the most reasonable response is to be thankful. Do not reject any of My gifts; find Me in every situation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MATTHEW 1:23<\/strong>; \u201cLook! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means \u2018God is with us.\u2019<sup class=\"footnote\" data-fn=\"#fen-NIV-23168a\" data-link=\"[&lt;a href=&quot;#fen-NIV-23168a&quot; title=&quot;See footnote a&quot;&gt;a&lt;\/a&gt;]\">[<a title=\"See footnote a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+1%3A23&amp;version=NIV#fen-NIV-23168a\">a<\/a>]<\/sup><\/p>\n<p><strong>PSALM 34:5<\/strong>;Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.<\/p>\n<p><strong>COLOSSIANS 2:6\u20137<\/strong>;\u00a0<span class=\"text Col-2-6\">And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him.<\/span> <span id=\"en-NLT-29462\" class=\"text Col-2-7\"><sup class=\"versenum\">7\u00a0<\/sup>Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>_______________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>May 29, 2018<\/p>\n<p>Journal for Today-JDV<\/p>\n<p>David and I agreed as we reviewed this devotional, that even as we were targeting areas of our lives for evaluation, self analysis, and hopefully; change, we are once again confronted by the question, HOW?<\/p>\n<p>Most of what we call &#8220;improvement&#8221; seems to come from looking in our &#8220;rear view mirrors&#8221; observing how Jesus has made the changes in us even as we thought we were (or are) working on self improvement or &#8220;sin management&#8221;. (You know the big four&#8230;&#8221;We want to look good, feel good, be right and be in control&#8221;). We know we need to make a change, but do not know how.<\/p>\n<p>And try as we might, we never seem to make progress working on our own stuff. Progress occurred when we were\/are surrendered, connected and engaged, often through contemplative prayer and meditation. We become aware of the change later on as we glance backward. And we understand for a very brief moment, that we had nothing to do with the change, all that was really required was our surrender.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr Finding Our Charism Tuesday, May 29, 2018 Night is our diocese and silence is our ministry Poverty our charity and helplessness our tongue-tied sermon. Beyond the scope of sight or sound we dwell upon the air Seeking the world\u2019s gain in an unthinkable experience. We are exiles in the far end of solitude, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16817"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16817"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16828,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16817\/revisions\/16828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}