Thoughts on money

 

Having Enough

Many of us think about money in terms of scarcity: the fear of losing it, of not having enough, and therefore the need to hold on to it tightly. Behind the veil of scarcity, though, there are more gracious ways to engage with money. What if we understood money as a form of energy that is meant to flow through our lives and through the world, rather than be hoarded and so become stagnant? To see money this way, to be willing to let it flow, requires letting go of fear and trusting instead that there is and will be enough for us and for others. Sufficiency—enoughness—is the middle way between scarcity and exploitative wealth. As Gandhi put it, the world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed. Sufficiency is the way the birds of the air live, and the lilies of the field.

— from the book Making Room: Soul-Deep Satisfaction through Simple Living
by Kyle Kramer, page 54

Thoughts on birthdays

 

Birthdays

Birthdays need to be celebrated. I think it is more important to celebrate a birthday than a successful exam, a promotion, or a victory. Because to celebrate a birthday means to say to someone: “Thank you for being you.” Celebrating a birthday is exalting life and being glad for it. On a birthday we do not say: “Thanks for what you did, or said, or accomplished.” No, we say: “Thank you for being born and being among us.” On birthdays we celebrate the present. We do not complain about what happened or speculate about what will happen, but we lift someone up and let everyone say: “We love you.” Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on materialism

 

Everything Is Holy

To be a materialist is to believe fully in the Incarnation: that God so loved the world that God became the world, dwelling within it from the very beginning of creation, and that God delights in and sustains the cosmos at every moment. When you begin to see the world in this way it’s possible to make the leap from experiencing stuff as mere possessions, which implies zero-sum individual ownership and control, to experiencing stuff as sacramental. In the Catholic imagination, a sacrament is something perceivable to the senses—something material—that is at the same time a spiritual reality, opening a window into the presence of the divine. The Eucharist, for example, is bread and wine: fully material, fully the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, but also shot through with spiritual significance. We know the official sacraments of the Church, but there’s also a broader sense of the sacred. Thomas Merton, the Cistercian spiritual master, captured it well in this simple phrase: “Everything that is, is holy.”

— from the book Making Room: Soul-Deep Satisfaction through Simple Living
by Kyle Kramer

Thoughts on hospitality

 

Hospitality

Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. . . . The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adore the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on the Real Presence

 

Let God Gaze at You

We really are socially contagious human beings, but we settle for “human doings.” It is at the being level that life is most vitally transferred. It’s no surprise that we Catholics speak of Eucharist as the “Real Presence.” It is on that level that life and energy are transferred. That’s what has happened to each of us when we first fall in love—and that’s why falling in love is so exciting. Suddenly, the very eyes of the other receiving me, delighting in me, enjoying me, and looking at me—make me feel like me, and my best me! For believers, that is also what happens when they apprehend the Real Presence in the Eucharist. We move to a deeper level of Being ourselves when we genuinely receive the being and the gaze of the self-giving Jesus. It reminds me of what they told me in some Hindu temples in India: “You come here not to gaze at God, but to let God gaze at you.”

— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM, page 65

Thoughts on surrender and trust

 

Learn the Mystery of Surrender

Stop trying. Stop forcing reality. Learn the mystery of surrender and trust, and then it will be done unto you, through you, with you, in you, and, very often, in spite of you. You could say that God’s only-and-forever pattern is creatio ex nihilo; Yahweh is always “creating something out of nothing.” Christian words for the same eternal pattern are “resurrection” or “grace.” All three concepts point to the same thing—that God “brings the dead to life and calls into being what does not exist” (Romans 4:17). You could call it God’s primary job description.

— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM, page 95

Thoughts on patience

 

God’s Patience

Humans do not have the patience or the humility of God. We want things done as fast as possible to achieve our immediate goals. Spiritual power, however, is the ability to influence events and others through our very being. Evolved people change others interiorly through who they are, and through their sharing of wisdom, rather than through mere external pressure. It is a slower process, but much more long-lasting.

— from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality by Richard Rohr, OFM, page 93

Psalms 139

 Psalm 139

New American Bible (Revised Edition)

Psalm 139[a]

The All-knowing and Ever-present God

1 For the leader. A psalm of David.

I

Lord, you have probed me, you know me:
2     you know when I sit and stand;[b]
    you understand my thoughts from afar.
3 You sift through my travels and my rest;
    with all my ways you are familiar.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    Lord, you know it all.
5 Behind and before you encircle me
    and rest your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    far too lofty for me to reach.

7 Where can I go from your spirit?
    From your presence, where can I flee?
8 If I ascend to the heavens, you are there;
    if I lie down in Sheol, there you are.
9 If I take the wings of dawn[c]
    and dwell beyond the sea,
10 Even there your hand guides me,
    your right hand holds me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me,
    and night shall be my light”[d]—
12 Darkness is not dark for you,
    and night shines as the day.
    Darkness and light are but one.

II

13 You formed my inmost being;
    you knit me in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
    wonderful are your works!
    My very self you know.
15 My bones are not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
    fashioned in the depths of the earth.[e]
16 Your eyes saw me unformed;
    in your book all are written down;
    my days were shaped, before one came to be.

III

17 How precious to me are your designs, O God;
    how vast the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the sands;
    when I complete them, still you are with me.
19 When you would destroy the wicked, O God,
    the bloodthirsty depart from me!
20 Your foes who conspire a plot against you
    are exalted in vain.

IV

21 Do I not hate, Lord, those who hate you?
    Those who rise against you, do I not loathe?
22 With fierce hatred I hate them,
    enemies I count as my own.

23 Probe me, God, know my heart;
    try me, know my thoughts.
24 See if there is a wicked path in me;
    lead me along an ancient path.[f]