Daily Compass

Inspiration: 

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
― Walt Whitman

 

Pictures of Journeys

Do people show slides of their vacations anymore? I suppose now we just post our photos to Facebook or Tumblr, but I’m sure there are plenty of people of my generation who vividly recall the post-vacation ritual of bringing friends or extended family over to view the slide show of where we had been. Pictures were carefully selected and arranged in carousels, and then, in the darkened room, they appeared, not quite as large as life, on the projection screen. One by one, the cathedrals of Europe or the waterfalls of Canada would file past, with or without family members in the foreground.

We travel to collect memories, to gather up those pictures and experiences that can somehow change us, give us a new perspective on the world. We want to bring those experiences home to those we care about. We want to offer up the treasures that we’ve gleaned across the miles. But all our friends and neighbors can see are the projections, not the treasures themselves. The best we can hope for is that others will see the pictures of our journeys and be persuaded to set off for themselves.

Inspiration: 

 

What calls to you? What does it call you to?

 

 

The Call

Moses

It would have been
an ordinary day. One we might,
with the eyes of our
frantic world, call peaceful.
Just the light ringing of the
belled herd, a hawk’s cry
sharp through the dry air,
just another bead in the long
string of days. Except. There.
A blaze that neither spreads
nor diminishes, a desert shrub
transformed into pure passion.
What would you say when
that absolute intensity called
your name? Your language
might be different from that
long-ago shepherd, but there
is only one possible response.
When that voice calls,
you will say what Moses
so simply declared.
“Hineni” “Here I am.”

by Lynn Ungar
 

Inspiration: 

 

Is it beyond thee to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm? To be tossed and lost and broken in the whirl of this fearful joy? – Rabindranath Tagore

 

Too Much Wonderful

Truthfully, yes. Some days it is beyond me to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm. Some times the abundance is too much, and there are more good options than I can choose amongst, more wonderful opportunities than I can embrace. Sometimes the possibilities of life come in a torrent, and however grateful I may be for the blessings and the privileges, I do, nonetheless, feel tossed and lost and broken in the whirl, and wish that I could drink from a slower-moving stream. Sometimes I feel like the child who, confronted with having to make a choice between one friend’s pool party and another friend’s outing to the skating rink, breaks into tears. Sometimes it is necessary to move out of that swift-moving current and let opportunities, however wonderful, go by—to merely dangle my feet at the edge of the stream of life, and take a moment to breathe.

 

Inspiration: 

 

Where does the homesick snail belong? – Ric Masten

 

 

 

Finding Your Tribe

Where do you feel at home? Where do you feel lost and detached from who you are and where you belong? Often, the answers to these questions have little to do with geography. At one point or another, most of us have felt lost and alone in our own homes, when it seemed like our family didn’t recognize or value us, or when it seemed like a spouse or dear friend willfully denied our true self. And, if we are lucky, many of us have experienced walking into a crowd of strangers and feeling perfectly at home, welcomed into a place where we instantly belonged.

It’s always hard to open a door, to meet a new set of people, never quite knowing whether this time we will find our people, the tribe we have been searching for, or whether we will feel even more like strangers once we cross the threshold. It’s easy to assume that the people who look or sound or dress the most like us will provide the key to where we will feel most at home. But the moments when we can transcend those assumptions and look for deeper connections of heart, mind and purpose are the places where magic can happen, where we can find home in a place that is totally new.

Inspiration: 

 

Where do you look for traces of the Holy?

Transcendence and the Holy

Transcendence does not mean that the holy exists separately from the beauty and heartbreak of life on earth, which pulses in our bodies and daily lives (immanence). Rather, divine mystery is woven throughout every moment of time, every cell of our aging and imperfect bodies, every interaction and choice. Our spiritual practice is to remember to see it!

I don’t know a God who is a big abstract perfect God…a being in the sky, removed from life on the earth. Sky and earth are as inseparable from one another as breath and body. This is not some remote abstract principle. Try holding your breath and see how long you make it!

I have always felt that worshipping the remote God of abstraction is similar to being devoted to a parent who is never present, lavishing the absent one with longing and adoration, while not recognizing the worth of the one who is there day after day, preparing meals, caring for us. We can, instead, commit our lives to seeing holiness as what is right here, rather than something that we long for in some other time and place.

BY MEG RILEY SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP TO READ MORE