#Blesstival on Love

My friend Jamie of Sophia’s Children has begun a blessing wave for 2016. It is called a Blessing Sadhana or Blesstival and this post is my contribution to the wave.  Everyone is invited to join in! You can read more about it here:  http://sophias-children.com/2015/12/23/blog-blesstival-add-your-blessing-to-start-the-new-year/

The blessing that I would like to share is Love.

Love with a capital L encompasses all that we love but extends beyond those we know to those we don’t know, to those who came before and those who will come after us, to all creatures, to the earth itself, to the universe.

From my religious tradition, I name this Love “Divine Love” or “God” but other cultures and traditions name Love in other ways, such as Great Spirit or the Universal. Secularists or scientists may speak of the Unified Field or Energy or simply the Universe.

Fans of Douglas Adams may know Love as the real answer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Forty-two was just shorthand.

It is a profound sense of connection and unity that has been expressed by religious thinkers, philosophers, and scientists over the centuries.

One of the spiritual authors I have read in recent years is Richard Rohr. He writes an online series of daily meditations and his theme for 2016 is Love.  Here is an example of a recent daily meditation by Richard Rohr on Love.

As I have been contemplating writing this blessing post, I have been noticing Love everywhere, including this piece from Ilia Delio, another favorite spiritual writer.

I have been thinking about the universality of Love more often since attending a conference on Interspirituality, where I was privileged to meet Jamie in person. Whether one comes to it from a spiritual, philosophical, scientific, or secular viewpoint, our connection to one another and to Creation as a whole is profound.

I wish everyone the blessing of Love for 2016 and beyond.

Signing off with Jamie’s usual closing,

Big Love,
Joanne
*****
I want to spread the Blesstival as far as possible, so this post is also part of Linda’s Just Jot It January. You can find out more here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/26/just-jot-it-january-26th-oneness/

One-Liner Wednesday: criticism

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.
— Richard Rohr

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/06/one-liner-wednesday-enough-said/

This post is also part of #JusJoJan. http://lindaghill.com/2016/01/06/just-jot-it-january-6th-cloud/  I know that the majority of JusJoJan participants this year are doing the daily prompts, but I have been opting to do my own thing, which is the general operating procedure at Top of JC’s Mind, so I decided to follow the original plan which was to count One-Liner Wednesday as my daily JusJoJan post.

 

Richard Rohr on myth, art, and poetry

I love this meditation so much, I had to share it. A must-read for anyone who is interested in art, poetry, words, myth, and being!
– JC

Source: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation–Mythos-and-Logos.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=uaYHY87XmII

One-Liner Wednesday: truth

“If it is true, then science, psychology, poetry, and philosophy will also be seeing the same thing, but from different angles, at different levels, and with different vocabularies.”
– Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond, p. 132

Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/20/one-liner-wednesday-love-is/

a new wrinkle

Besides joining in with Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays, my other Wednesday staple is facilitating a spirituality study group at my church. For the last decade at least, this group has been all women  – with me, at 54, the youngest in attendance.

Today, a young man joined us.

He is about the age of my daughters, in his twenties, which makes him the age of some of the grandchildren of the other women.

It’s going to be an adjustment.  Part of it is the gender difference. Part of it is the age difference. The biggest adjustment, though, is that most of the women in this class have been studying and pondering spiritual topics for decades and have a lot of background and experience with different authors’ perspective. Even for us, Richard Rohr, whose book Immortal Diamond we are currently studying, is sometimes difficult to grasp at first hearing, as the concepts are so deep and rich. It must be daunting to be thrown into the midst of the book with no preparation.

I will have to contemplate how best to offer background and explanations.

If the poor man is brave enough to return next week…

One-Liner Wednesday: living

“We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking.” – Richard Rohr

This is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us!  http://lindaghill.com/2015/03/11/one-liner-wednesday-just-call-him-willy/

Interview with Richard Rohr

This link:   http://cac.org/tv  goes to a page with a wonderful interview with Richard Rohr, OSF. It is an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s “Super Soul Sunday” series.  It is also available on demand on Oprah.com through Feb. 21, but I’m hoping it will be archived on the link above for a longer time period.

I am sorry that I have been away from posting for so many days. A combination of personal and family illness and complications have kept me from writing, but I’m hoping to get a new post up later today or tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.
JC

One-Liner Wednesday: Suffering

“If you don’t transform your suffering, you will transmit it.”
– Richard Rohr, OSF

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/04/01/one-liner-wednesday-the-way-a-writers-mind-works/

Susan Cushman on Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward

My spirituality group at church studied Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward two years ago and is currently studying the follow-on book Immortal Diamond. They are both rich repositories of wisdom that I highly recommend. Today, I am pleased to share a wonderful reflection by Susan Cushman on Falling Upward.

http://susancushman.com/faith-on-friday-embracing-the-second-half-of-life-a-bright-sadness/

doing and being

Among the things I have done so far this week:
* cooked healthy meals and a not-quite-as-healthy gingerbread bundt cake that smells and tastes amazing
* tackled the backlog of physical mail – the email/social media backlog, not so much
* gone to the doctor’s office for diagnosis of an MCL strain in my knee and started daily exercises to address it
* made a series of phone calls to help arrange for occupational therapy for my mother-in-law in her home, as she continues to recover from her collapsed vertebra
* visited in person and/or by phone/skype with her, with my parents, and with both daughters
* run errands for our house and for my mother-in-law
* facilitated the spirituality group at my church, which is studying Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond
* raked leaves
* wrote comments about fracking
* did laundry
* attended poetry workshop
* talked with B. about his work, the news, his mom, etc.

But, as Richard Rohr and so many other spiritual teachers tell us, we are human be-ings, not human do-ings.

We are loved and valued for who we are. I am fortunate right now that I am able to be active and to do things, but the do-ings are important only because they are expressions of love and care – love for family expressed through caretaking but to an even greater degree by spending time with them, caring for my own body, caring for creation, honoring artistic expression of myself and others, connecting with God and reflecting on spiritual matters in community.  This is expressing who I am. This is what is important.