//Clergy Coaching Network//
The Work of Christmas
Dear Church . . .
//Clergy Coaching Network//
Practice the Pause
//Bob Holmes – Contemplative Monk//
Daily Reflection – We Crave More Because We Were Made for More
The Rhythm of Life – 21 Questions that will Change Your Life – Question #13: Do You Need a Break?
“Welcome back to 21 questions that will change your life.
Question #13 is about your body and how it talks to you. Our bodies talk to us all the time. They say, “I’m hungry” “I’m thirsty” “I’m tired.” “I need a shower.” “Pass the salt.” The body is constantly talking to us, and very often ordering us around. But the body is like money, a great servant and a horrible master.
Question #13 is… If your body could talk to you, what do you think it would say? Would it tell you to slow down? Would it say you need a break? Maybe it would tell you that you need to visit your doctor.
Today’s question is… If your body could talk to you, what do you think it would say?”
Daily Reflection – We are Hungry for Something
Resisting Happiness with Matthew Kelly – #24 of 30 Hungry
Minute Meditation – Be Kind!
“If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech, if you bestow your bread on the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted, then light shall rise for you in the darkness,…and God will guide you always, and give you relief in desert places” (Isaiah 58:9–11).
Isaiah tries to describe what a just people and country would look like if they fasted from the right things. He uses lovely words like light, guidance, abundance, renewed strength, watered gardens, repairers and restorers, nurturance, and delight, “a spring that never fails,” and even “riding on the heights of the earth.” But it all depends on fasting from unkindness and choosing justice. It is this very passage speaking of “repair and restoration” (tikkun) that our Jewish brothers and sisters use today as their call to social justice.
—from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent
by Richard Rohr, OFM
//Franciscan Media//
Minute Meditation – The Fasting God Wants
“Tell the people their actual wickedness, let the people know their real sins…. ‘Is this the kind of fasting I wish? Do you call this a fast day acceptable to God?’” (Isaiah 58:1, 5).
Isaiah says explicitly that God prefers another kind of fasting which changes our actual lifestyle and not just punishes our body. (The poor body is always the available scapegoat to avoid touching our purse, our calendar, or our prejudices.) Isaiah makes a very upfront demand for social justice, non-aggression, taking our feet off the necks of the oppressed, sharing our bread with the hungry, clothing the naked, letting go of our sense of entitlement, malicious speech, and sheltering the homeless. He says very clearly this is the real fast God wants! It is amazing that we could ever miss the point. It is likely that what we later called the corporal works of mercy came from this passage.
—from the book Wondrous Encounters: Scriptures for Lent
by Richard Rohr, OFM
//Franciscan Media//