Weekly Pause & Ponder

It is more accurate to say that life “ever is” rather than “ever lasting.”  Life exists in an ever-present state.  It is … never destroyed.  Life continually evolves itself, expressing in various dimensions, forms and conditions. Our view of life is too often limited to the particular expressions that we witness in the world, remaining oblivious to its eternally present nature that supersedes all physical, mental, and material forms. 

Enlightened Consciousness: Entering New Dimensions of Spiritual Awareness, by Griff O’Brian, p. 82.

Weekly Pause & Ponder

In these postmodern times a ‘seismic shift’ in experience of God seems to be taking place, one which ‘supports and strengthens prophetic and contemplative consciousness.’ Wisdom-Sophia, a life giving God-image for many women, gives us the ability to discern the source and terminus of our desires. She invites us to be at home in our bodies and in the body of God which is the created world. She awakens in us the power to speak freely and act boldly to help make God’s dream come true. Women’s spiritual writings of the past decade reveal that, subtly and insistently, God is indeed shaping us into contemplatives and prophets. And we who embody her life ‘cannot keep from speaking about what we have heard.’ (Acts 4:20)

Embodying God’s life: Women and spirituality by Regina Bechtle, SC of New York. www.theway.org.uk

Weekly Pause & Ponder

People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and  enjoy the adventure.

David Steindl-Rast, AZ Quotes.

Weekly Pause & Ponder

To say “I believe in Jesus Christ…who rose from the dead,” is to say I believe that the Resurrection goes on and on and on forever. Every time Jesus rises in our own hearts in new ways, the Resurrection happens again. Every time we see Jesus where we did not recognize him before—in the faces of the poor, in the love of the unloved, in the revelatory moments of life, Jesus rises anew. The real proof of the resurrection lies not in the transformation of Jesus alone but in the transformation awaiting us who accept it. 

Joan Chittister:’Christ is Risen.  We are Risen.’
Rosemarieberger.com/2013/04/02/joan-chittister-christ-is-risen-we-ar…

Weekly Pause & Ponder

We would all agree that evil is to be rejected and overcome; the only question is, how?  How can we stand against evil without becoming a mirror-but denied-image of the same? That is often the heart of the matter, and in my experience is resolved successfully by a very small portion of people, even though it is quite clearly resolved in the life, death and teaching of Jesus. [Jesus gives us] a totally different way of dealing with evil—absorbing it in God (which is the real meaning of the suffering body of Jesus) instead of attacking it outside. It is undoubtedly the most counterintuitive theme of the entire Bible.

Richard Rohr Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 143-145.