Isn’t it interesting how sometimes a single line, five or ten words, can echo through days?
I’m sharing a few sentences that stood out to me in my reading, listening, and scrolling this week. Smaller and deeper in practice; collecting small collections of words and letting them go deeper and deeper still.
These sentences felt like invitations for deeper reflection or an invitation to view life through a different lens. They kept rolling around in my head after I read them and called me back to the source to jot it down. They are lines from poems, sentences from books, and posts on Instagram!
The invitation is to notice if one of these sentences has something for you this week. The first two sentences start with a command to listen. The comma, an invitation/command to pause, feels important and shifts the energy of each invitation to listen, see what you think.
Listen for the sound of grace inhabiting the map of your path.
-Celeste Snowber
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
-Mary Oliver
(This is a line from Mary Oliver’s poem, “Have you Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches”)
Emotions can be described as energy in motion, and when we block off the experience, that energy becomes trapped in our bodies.
-Christine Valters Paintner
Whenever there is a lack of clarity or ambiguous circumstances, it is time to wait. Active waiting is essential to the spiritual life.
-Henri Nouwen
Well, you and I don’t have to dissipate and divide ourselves.
-Henri Nouwen
Thresholds are sacred.
-Christine Valters Paintner
Breath is taking in life-giving essence from the world around us, and the release, in turn, of life-giving essence.
-Susan Manker-Seale
Blessing:
May you be slowed long enough to collect the nourishing words, sights, sounds, insights, and joys in your days-everyday. May your hands, heart, soul, and eyes open to what grace offers you. As you collect, soak, accept, process and receive, may you share and magnify grace and love that will echo into the world.
Choose one of the lines or notice what sentences of grace and invitation sparkle for you this week as you read, listen, walk and scroll. Jot it down on a sticky note or in your journal, and carry it throughout the week.
What are you invited to?
Where is your growing edge?
Thank you for all the supportive and kind, messages last week when I shared about smaller & deeper spiritual direction! I opened up a few more session on Sunday afternoons, to accomodate busy schedules. Don’t forget to use the code sdlaunch40. I appreciate your support and sharing, if you know someone looking for a spiritual director!
The art of spiritual direction lies in our uncovering the obvious in our lives and in realizing that everyday events are the means by which God tries to reach us. (Alan Jones)
I’m sharing a few of my favorite quotes about autumn from the book The Circle of Life: The Heart’s Journey Through the Seasons by Joyce Rubb and Macrina Wiederkehr. Read slowly, may these words be an invitation to live into the season and shortened days.
“Autumn is a wondrous metaphor for the transformation that takes place in the human heart each season. When we notice a subtle change of light outside our windows, we know the dark season is near. Everything is being prepared for winter. Autumn calls us in from summer’s playground and ask significant questions about our own harvest: What do we need to gather into our spiritual barns? What in our lives need to fall away like autumn leaves so another life waiting in the wings can have its turn to live?
-Joyce Rupp in The Circle of Life
…walk me among the dying leaves, let them tell me about their power to energize Earth’s soil by their decomposition and their formation of enriching humus
…turn my face to the brilliant colors of autumn trees, open my spirit to the mellow resonance of autumns sunsets and the beauty of the changing land.
…wrap me in the darknening days of autumn and encourage me to wait patiently for clarity and vision as I live with uncertainty and insecurity.
…give me courage to slow down as I see how Earth slows down and allows her soul to rest in silent, fallow space.
…place me on the wings of traveling birds flying south, willing to leave their nests of comfort as they journey to another destination.
-Joyce Rubb and Macrina Wiederkehr