King David, You, Me and Idleness It isn’t as if King David opened his eyes that morning to ask, “What are the 3 most effective ways I can take this blessed God-Given-Life and invoke the worst conceivable miseries upon me and my beloved nation?” Or “How can I best take the sacred anointing I was […]
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Making an oratory of the heart… The phrase “oratory of the heart” is not common parlance. I first encountered it in Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God,. and had to stop and think about the word oratory: Oratory is defined first as eloquence in public speaking and second as a place of prayer.
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Words of Blessing: Peace and Shalom On the day whenthe weight deadenson your shouldersand you stumble,may the clay danceto balance you.And when your eyesfreeze behindthe grey windowand the ghost of lossgets in to you,may a flock of colours,indigo, red, green,and azure bluecome to awaken in youa meadow of delight. When the canvas fraysin the currach
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Faces of the human heart This image magnifies two faces of the human heart in Lucas Cranach’s painting, Christ and the Adulteress, found in Bishop Erik Varden’s piece, 5 Sunday of Lent. Front and center we see one face with a terrible, smug smile and a large sharp rock at the ready in his right
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It’s not about sin “The prodigal son gospel reading is the perfect ‘laetare‘ for the fourth Sunday in Lent…laetare means joyous…we are happy because we’re now halfway through Lent,” the new Pastor, Fr. Jose Alberto Vasquez at St. Patrick’s Church in Arroyo Grande, California, claimed. Then he exclaimed that reconciliation is not about sin but
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Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham- Mathis Stom Forbidden fruit and its consequences This painting, Sarah Leading Abraham to Hagar by seventeenth century painter Matthias Stom hangs in the Gimaldegalerie in Berlin. Even a quick look at the figures portrayed by the artist conveys something unseemly, even odious. All too evident is the purpose of the
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Mitigating the Tyranny of Time “When were you the happiest?” “High school.” My husband, a therapist, declares his patients invariably answered his question , “What’s the happiest time in your life?” with those two words. For over twenty years, he counseled former combat veterans. That’s a lot of people whose happiest years were decades earler.
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Rediscovering the greatest human strength: willpower In their book, Willpower: Redisovering the Greatest Human Strength, authors Roy Baumeister and John Tierney claim that success, however defined, materially, financially or psychologically, relates to self-control. They confess their original belief that the religious teachings about character, morality and will, were restrictive and punitive. But when their own
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The object of a New Year The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make
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New Year’s resolve: increase in humility. Huh? “New Year’s resolve: increase in humility.” What does that even mean? Indeed. It was just that suggestion during an Episcopalian priest’s homily that made me walk away from God at the tender age of seventeen. I can recall clearly my thoughts as I left the church for the
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