{"id":19038,"date":"2020-07-06T09:12:37","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T13:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19038"},"modified":"2020-07-06T09:12:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T13:12:37","slug":"sustained-in-gods-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19038","title":{"rendered":"Sustained in God&#8217;s Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Sustained in God&#8217;s Love<\/strong><br> Monday, \u202fJuly 6, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wisdom in Times of Crisis<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YzlCNh7d1v8\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>In\nthe light of eternity, we\u2019re here for a very short time, really. We\u2019re here for\none thing, ultimately: to learn how to love, because God is love. Love is our\norigin, love is our ground, and love is our destiny.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014James Finley<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>CAC faculty\nmember James Finley offers a contemplative practice to help us experience the\nlove of God even in the midst of chaos. Living out of that love transforms both\nourselves and the world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\nis the practice that matters now? A practice is any act habitually entered into\nwith our whole heart that takes us to the deeper place. Some of these\npractices, we might not think of as prayer and meditation: tending the roses, a\nlong, slow walk to no place in particular, a quiet moment at day&#8217;s end, being\nvulnerable in the presence of that person in whose presence we&#8217;re taken to the\ndeeper place, the pause between two lines of a poem. There are these acts that\nreground us in the depth dimensions of our life that matter most; so if we&#8217;re\nfaithful to our practice, our practice will be faithful to us. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nthis contemplative practice, sit and renew your awareness that you&#8217;re sitting\nin the presence of God all about you and within you. As you inhale, inhale\nGod&#8217;s silent &#8220;<em>I love you<\/em>,&#8221; in which God is\nbeing poured out and utterly given away to you as the miracle of your very\nlife. Then when you exhale, exhale yourself in love: \u201cI love you.\u201d And so, we\nare breathing [along with God], &#8220;<em>I\nlove you.<\/em>&nbsp;I love you. <em>I love you.<\/em>&nbsp;I love you.&#8221;\nFrom the reciprocity of love, destiny is fulfilled, and the foundations of\nsuffering are healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\nwe sit this way, suffering arises. The suffering then might be our anxiety and\nconcerns today, for ourselves, for our loved ones, for the world. As we sit in\nthe midst of the arising of the anxiety, when we inhale, we inhale this love of\nGod loving us through and through, anxiety and all, finding no hindrance in our\nanxiety, loving us so unexplainably forever. Then when we exhale, we exhale\nourselves in love, anxiety and all, to the love that loves us. This requires gentle\nperseverance, because anxiety arises again. It doesn&#8217;t automatically go away.\nWe sit with it, we lean into it again, and we hold fast to this love that\nsustains us in the midst of things. It is in this way, little by little, that\nwe come to understand the unsubstantiality of everything but love. Love and\nlove alone has the authority to name who we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This practice,\nthen, experientially grounds us in this love wisdom. This love wisdom\u2014grounded\nin practice\u2014empowers us to go out and share this with other people in the\ncircumstances in which we find ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wisdom in Times of Crisis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Change\nIs Inevitable<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fJuly 5, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The word <em>change<\/em>&nbsp;normally refers to new beginnings. But the\nmystery of transformation more often <em>happens\nnot when something new begins, but when something old falls apart<\/em>. The pain of something old\nfalling apart\u2014chaos\u2014invites the soul to listen at a deeper level, and sometimes\nforces the soul to go to a new place. Most of us would never go to new places\nin any other way. The mystics use many words to describe this chaos: fire, dark\nnight, death, emptiness, abandonment, trial, the Evil One. Whatever it is, it\ndoes not feel good and it does not feel like God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\nwill normally do <em>anything<\/em>&nbsp;to keep the old thing from falling apart, yet\nthis is when we need patience and guidance, and the <em>freedom to let go<\/em>&nbsp;instead of\ntightening our controls and certitudes. Perhaps Jesus is describing just this\nphenomenon when he says, \u201cIt is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to\nlife, and only a few find it\u201d (Matthew 7:14). Not accidentally, he mentions\nthis narrow road right after teaching the Golden Rule. He knows how much\nletting go it takes to \u201ctreat others as you would like them to treat you\u201d\n(Matthew 7:12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While\nchange can force a transformation, spiritual transformation always includes a\ndisconcerting reorientation. It can either help people to find new meaning or\nit can force people to close down and slowly turn bitter. The difference is\ndetermined precisely by the quality of our inner life, our practices, and our\nspirituality. Change happens, but transformation is always a process of letting\ngo, living in the confusing, shadowy space for a while. Eventually, we are spit\nup on a new and unexpected shore. You can see why Jonah in the belly of the\nwhale is such an important symbol for many Jews and Christians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\nmoments of insecurity and crisis, <em>shoulds<\/em>&nbsp;and <em>oughts<\/em>&nbsp;don\u2019t really help. They just increase the\nshame, guilt, pressure, and likelihood of backsliding into unhealthy patterns.\nIt\u2019s the deep <em>yeses<\/em>&nbsp;that carry us through to the other side. It\u2019s\nthat deeper something we are strongly <em>for\u2014such\nas equality and dignity for all\u2014<\/em>that allows us to wait it out. It\u2019s someone in whom we\nabsolutely believe and to whom we commit. In plain language, love wins out over\nguilt any day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the Center\nfor Action and Contemplation, we are blessed with a core faculty that comes\nfrom a variety of backgrounds and life experiences. We are from northern and\nsouthern States, the Midwest and the coasts, celibate and married, male and\nfemale, Black and white, Protestant and Catholic. Each of us speaks out of our\ncommitment to practices of spiritual transformation drawn from the Christian\ncontemplative tradition. This week I want to share some wisdom for times of\ncrisis from these friends and teaching colleagues: Cynthia Bourgeault, James Finley,\nBarbara Holmes, and Brian McLaren. I hope they can serve as guides to your own\ninternal <em>yes<\/em>&nbsp;to love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustained in God&#8217;s Love Monday, \u202fJuly 6, 2020 Wisdom in Times of Crisis In the light of eternity, we\u2019re here for a very short time, really. We\u2019re here for one thing, ultimately: to learn how to love, because God is love. Love is our origin, love is our ground, and love is our destiny.&nbsp;\u2014James Finley [&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\/19038"}],"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=19038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19039,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19038\/revisions\/19039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}