Tag Archives: Peace

A Visual Peace

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Do you remember how you FELT the first time you encountered God? Take some time to revisit that experience. What is God revealing to you now? 

Try this, sit back, close your eyes if you want, take a deep breath and let go. Take another breath and relax as you exhale. Now for just a few moments, visualize one of the beautiful Spring flowers you have seen through this last week, perhaps a blooming bush or tree caught your attention. Breath in its fresh scent. Notice the color and texture of the flower in your mind’s eye. Bring as many details as you can remember, the stamen and pistil, the petals and stem. Follow the flower down through the stem to its roots, where this last week’s rain saturated the ground offering this flower nutrients from the soil. Imagine that all this flower needs to create beauty is being provided by our Creator.

Now take a moment to consider your own life. Imagine God caring for your life in the same way the flower is cared for. Consider the things God is nurturing your life with at present. There is nothing you need to schedule or arrange,  nowhere you need to go for the moment, just take some time in the assurance that God is already providing all that you need to bring meaning and purpose to your days. As the flower opens up to reveal the blessing it offers, imagine your life gently opening to reveal something God is using to bless others.

Now look around the garden of your life, at all the other blooms. What attracts or repels you? How is your life connected to the others? Walk right to the center of this garden to the Source of peace and contentment. Inhale that grace deeply. Take a moment to soak up the peace you feel. 

When you are ready, you may return your attention to your surroundings and stretch.

Fasting Is Slowing

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Lent is the season to grow in our relationship with God. Prayer and fasting are good starting places for attending to God’s presence in our lives. Fasting from things other than food can be very helpful in providing us time to focus instead on God. Where do you spend your free time? How you spend your free time reveals where your priorities are. Often, we find ourselves wasting time without realizing it. Television, gossip magazines, Facebook, Twitter, internet games not to mention addictions like alcohol, pornography and gambling steal our time.

Listening in silence is one way to fast. It invites us to let go of our many distractions. Do not try to evacuate your mind, rather listen for the word that continues to surface that reveals the Divine. Use the Simple Prayers on this site to lead you into a time of silence.

Replace the things that steal your time with an intent to notice God in simple activities like  taking a walk, breathing consciously will re-establish the connection between your body and spirit. Practice taking each step gently as an effort to offer peace in our world.

Fasting in these ways can actually produce a slowing. We notice things we otherwise might overlook. Fasting is not very comfortable, because it reminds us how empty we are. I encourage you to empty out, my friends, slow down and fill up on the presence of God.Image

The Open Gate

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Like a Springtime garden, our days often overflow with the wildness of life. Daily new blooms are revealed in brilliantly colored moments when each new encounter brings us into contact with diverse textures. We absorb the wildness of life as long as we can before we perceive a need to move toward stillness and peace. Often times moving toward stillness because of sheer exhaustion.

The landscape of our lives always includes an open gate. A way to move from the ever flowing and changing stream of life, into the stillness and fullness of Presence.

How often do you walk through the open gate that delivers you to Presence?

We don’t have to wait for eternal life to happen, eternal life is available now. Rather than packing each day with movement, schedule time in each day for stillness. Open yourself to Presence. It is a fearful thing at first, taking ten minutes in silence each day. We resist moments that appear empty, rather filling silences with words, thoughts and activities.

Here is how I walk through the open gate to Presence. I have a comfortable chair where I can sit without being interrupted. I keep an empty pad of paper beside me to write the chatter, “wash the dishes in the sink, buy some laundry detergent, call the office, send that birthday card…” You know that kind of chatter. After writing it down, I let it go. I center my thoughts on my breathing, letting my breath rise and fall naturally.  And I simply rest.  Sometimes, I  imagine myself being carried or held in the moment.

Just ten minutes a day helps me to encounter Presence. Because the gate is open, I can return again and again.

Enter into the peace of Presence, now. It is your choice.