Seeing the Daily Journey as Pilgrimage

celtic cross

My wife checked out the book from the library called “Journeys of Simplicity” and it consists of vignettes of poems, prayers, and lists of meaningful possessions of over forty spiritual travelers.  A few quotes in the book gravitated to my attention that I wish to share with you:

We take delight in things; we take delight in being loosed from things. Between these two delights, we must dance our lives.  -Philip Harnden. Quaker author.

The following is a prayer of a Celtic woman over a hundred years ago. It a prayer that transforms ordinary chores into sacraments.  Rising in an earthen hut in the cold morning as the rest of the household is still asleep she begins her daily sacred routine; washing her face and tending to the night banked fire:

Splashing my face with three palmfuls of water

God of Life. Christ of Love. Spirit of Peace.

Triune of Grace

Kindling my fire thrice lift the peat

God, kindle in me a flame of love

To neighbor, foe and friend.

My kindred all. Amen.

Navigating life and faced with choices of what to pour energy into I was refreshed to remember the vital importance of maintaining a simple awareness that God is infused in the details of life. Our invitation is to cultivate this way of seeing and be a pure conduit for love to flow….

Optimism, Reality and a New Us

Here is a quote that I have been coming back to that I read in a obscure little book called ‘Death and Life-an American theology’ by Arthur C. McGill.
“No American child is taught. ‘You will constantly find yourself with needs that cannot be satisfied, with destructive circumstances that cannot be controlled. Therefore, learn courage and endurance to bear needs and in need learn how to receive and how to give. Learn not to be emotionally overthrown by unrelieved pain and unforeseen disaster.’”
I’m convinced that this sort reality thinking is needed in our context to combat our American optimism that preaches a gospel of having. That if we just have the right resources, knowledge, wealth, and opportunity than the worlds ailments will be soothed and cured. I just can’t buy that even though I find myself aligning with this thinking most of the time in my advocating for youth. What is truly liberating is to recognize our need and in our need to giveand receive in interdependent relationships- in seeking to love God and one another. A New Us forming in recognizing the reality of our condition and our need for life beyond ourselves. This is where I think McGill is headed in this book. Any thoughts?