FINDING GOD IN EVERYTHING!

AS GOD'S EYES ARE FIXED ON THE SPARROW, GOD IS LOVINGLY WATCHING OVER YOU.

EVEN THE HAIRS ON YOUR HEAD ARE COUNTED.

SO DO NOT BE AFRAID, YOU ARE WORTH MUCH MORE THAN THE SPARROWS!

LUKE 12:7


MAY WE ALWAYS RECOGNIZE 
and TRUST in
GOD'S GREAT LOVE 
FOR US!

Blue Macao's Balancing Act at Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga

HANG IN THERE! 

PROVERBS 3:5

Hope we'd become stronger and wiser 

in whatever struggles and hurdles 

we encounter each day 
and always see God's Grace 
in all of our 
life experiences!

FOR I AM THE LORD, YOUR GOD,, "DO NOT FEAR, FOR I AM WITH YOU,

DO NOT BE AFRAID, FOR I AM YOUR GOD,

I WILL STRENGTHEN YOU, I WILL HELP YOU

I WILL UPHOLD YOU..!" ISAIAH 41: 13

You are in our thoughts and prayers!

DRAW ME TO YOUR HEART

"Wise and Faithful Guide,

keep my spirit entwined with yours.

Teach me about the poor and the pained.

Fill me with your mercy and compassion.

Help me to find your peace in my troubled moments.

Let love be the response I give to those who

oppose me.

Constantly draw me toward all that is good.

Urge me to give my best to those who need it.

Lead me to learn from my discouragement 

and struggles.

Be the light that I need to find my way in darkness.

Fill my hollowness and emptiness with your love.

Most of all, continue to dwell with me

because your gracious presence is all I ever need.

It is enough to bring me through the deepest canyons

and the darkest crevices of my life.

Divinine Companion,

draw me to your heart where wisdom resides

and daily let me choose to follow your way."

Joyce Rupp, from Prayers to Sophia

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY FACEBOOK FRIENDS

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RITUAL OF REMEMBER-ING

"REMEMBERING is the heart's own way of holding our loved ones close and keeping us in constant touch with those who mean the most."

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love becomes a part of us.

-Hellen Keller-

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year! Friends, thank you all for expressing how you have  been a friend to me!

I am sorry that it took me a long time show up in FB and to have the courage to articulate that I am still alive and that my life has been "different" because my life choices have changed.

I was anticipating that it would not make sense to you that I seemed to have thrashed everything that I have worked for, particularly from what had "symbolized" my total life commitment to God, to all others and to the world. That is to say, my embracing  and leaving my Life Commitment to Religious Life.

In fact, my WHOLE idea of vocation and vocation priorities have changed and I did not know whether you would understand or that you would accept me for this drastic life decision. 

  I now just believed that my Vocation is Our Shared Vocation.

Whether religious or secular life, there is always something greater that happens when we embrace a particular life. I have learned to understand better that OUR VOCATION is more of what of Frederick Buechner's articulation, THAT IS, to be at "the meeting place where we address the greatest world needs and where we most satisfy our greatest need."

I am sorry that, maybe, I did not trust you enough or I just presumed that you would understand that I just have to move on in my life. That means, that I had to temporarily cut off from all my present and past connections . But am sorry that my absence and silence has taken me a long time.

However, going back to Facebook last week made me realize that I may have been totally in isolation.  In your communications and messages, you showed me that you can understand my long silence and my seeming uncaring absence. It's either simply because you might have known me as a genuine friend, who just happened to be different and who have process his life events differently or you just believe that somehow anything is possible on line and that we would connect one way or the other.  

I have chosen to believe that you must have known me well and my pattern of relationships and that you are my true friend.  I usually detach and be out of circulation to see things from a better perspective but I always come back.. however and whenever...  as more more enlightened and profoundly individual. And that I never change, I always carry you in my mind and heart.  

 I know that this trust should have been a two way street.  I have to trust you as well as a friend, just as you have trusted me that I always consider you as a friend, no matter what.

 I want to start right now, by saying sorry for not having enough faith in you. I also want to thank you for trusting me and for showing me that you are a genuine friend! 

Secondly, I should let you know what you need to hear. In leaving religious life, I did not turn my back from what God had granted me, I am turning toward the direction that God has been daring me to venture on my life's journey.

 I just have known that in my absence, I have missed a lot and this is something that I have to bear and to be sorry for.   I know that I  could not make up for those moments that I missed - like being with my cousin Joel who passed away early this year, being with you on special occasions like our class reunions, and other landmarks in life that I could have shared with you.  I really do apologize for not having to have done better.

The Christmas and the New Year Season is appropriate to invite you to start all over again. Just like how I have been pre-occupied with appreciating the beauty of landscapes and looking at them with fresh lens, I invite you to reframe how we see ourselves, other people, God and the world around us. 

I cannot promise that I would be around always since I have always been a recluse all my life. I am also starting a new phase in my life this year and would move on to relocate somewhere where God leads me.  I just want to touch base and to tell you how grateful I have been for you and for your friendship. I will try be more obvious and would visit FB once in while and would join you in spirits in celebrating our friendships!

Happy New Year to you all! 

FYI, for a long time I cannot read my messages from the Brothers' Intranet Access and had to re-configure my lost internet connections and aquaint myself with the nuances of Facebook and Myspace. Would post every once in a while on my webiste as I would be connecting with my other links soon as time permits. But promise to be around and to check on you as well. Love you all!

I cannot cause light!

"You are the light of the world....
Your light must shine before others
so that they may see your good acts
and give praise to your Abba in heaven."
Matthew 5:14-16

"I cannot cause light.

The most I can do is

to put myself

in the path of its beam."

-Anne Dillard-

MORNING PRAYER

As new light streams out of the darkness.

we open wide our hearts 

to the healing light of your Encircling Presence.

Open our eyes 

to the opportunities this day has to offer.

Surprise us with small joys and pieces of beauty

scattered though the hours ahead.

O Beautiful Presence,

help us this day to taste the joy of  being awake.

May this simple prayer come true

in our lives today!

-Macrina Weiderkher- 

A SPRING TIME PRAYER

Ever-renewing and energizing Creator,

come, stir my dormant spiritual limbs.

Wake up my tired prayer,

Revive my weary efforts of care.

Sing hope into my discouragement.

Wash my dusty, drab attitude

with the cleansing of your vision.

Go deep to my roots and penetrate my faith

with the vibrancy of your grace.

Shake loose the old leftover oak leaves 

of my tenacious ego-centeredness.

Coax joy to sprout from my difficulties.

Warm the buds of my relationships

so they bloom with healthy love.

Clear out my wintered debris

with the wild breeze of your liberating presence.

Nudge me, woo me, entice me, draw me near you.

I give you my trust and my gratitude

as you grace my thawing spirit.

Light-filled being, my Joy and my Hope,

let the greening begin!

-Joyce Rupp-

EASTER PRAYER

PRAYER TO THE RESTORER OF ENTOMBED VITALITY

Awakened One, Source of Inner Power,

Restorer of Tombed Vitality, Giver of Graced Gusto.

You, who have raised from the cold stone of death,

come and resurrect me from my own entombment.

Repair what has weakened in my spiritual endeavors,

revive my mildewed , cobwebbed relationships;

Lift up my waning hope when I wail with the world's pain,

restore my sense of oneness with all of your creation;

Refresh my daily call to embrace the sacred

to find you in every gesture that dances with your heart;

Push  back the stone of self-centeredness

untomb my genrousity, renew my dedication;

Raise up my dilapidated dreams, restore my ancient union,

resuscitate my burning desire, 

re-establish my priorities

So you become the Center 
of all I am and all I do.

-Joyce Rupp-

Easter  Blessings on us all!


The Resurrection is not a single event, 
but a loosening of God's power and light into the earth and into history
that continues to alter things,
infusing them with grace and power of God's own holiness.

It is as if a door was opened,
and what poured out will never be stopped
and the door cannot be closed.

Megan McKenna

CARRYING OUR CROSS
by Joyce Rupp

RESPONSE:  JESUS, GRANT US STRENGTH TO CARRY  YOUR CROSS

• On those days when life seems too demanding with all its cares, burdens and concerns...
•   When we experience great loneliness deep inside and the pain of separation fills our spirits...
• When we feel the pain of our world and unite in compassion with the Earth's suffering people...
• When we struggle with decision-making and the time comes to make good choices about our lives...
• When we are with others in their physical pain or when we vigil with one who has terminal illness...
• When we are asked to go the extra mile, to be generous with our time and our presence...
• When we feel weary and worn out, when it seems like all of our energy has been drained away...
• When we are challenged to risk our security and to accept new growth in our relationship with you...
• When we experience the effects of aging or extended illness on our bodies or our minds...
• When we feel discouraged, desolate, depressed and want to withdraw from others...
• When worries and concerns choke our peacefulness and leave us with anxieties and fear...
• When we harbor old wounds and are called to offer or to receive forgiveness...

TOGETHER: 

Crucified Jesus, help us to take up our cross day by day.  Through these crosses we can grow closer to you. Help us to lean on you and to learn from you. May we not give in to self-pity or self-doubt. Rather, let us trust in your presence which strengthens us. Encourage us on our tomb-like days. Remind us of your Resurrection. Help us to keep our vision focused on life and growth. Amen.

BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO TRUSTS IN THE LORD...

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water 

that brings forth its fruit in due season;

his leaf shall not wither;

and whatever he does shall prosper!

PSALM 1: 1-5

 WHO IS OUR GENUINE FRIEND?

Have been reflecting about friends and friendship lately.  I guess, I have come to the point of my developmental years that I am so concerned about what Erick Erickson called "Intimacy Stage," which may be a stage close to late adulthood?  Wow, may be not that far yet, although getting close.  But surely, I have been around and have been to many places and have met some many people that have befriended me and that i have befriended. 

Whether the friendship has been mutually recognized and lived out, I could not tell for sure.  What I know well, is that there is always something pure and powerful about friendship that I have desired to appropriate or write about, much more, that I have longed to embrace, even though I have found, been awed, humbled and transformed by these number of personal friendships. 

I thought, I would like to mention and share the special quotations that have deeply resonated with me and that have come very close to my ideal notion of friendship.  Hopefully, in writing them down, I would have the imagination and the inspiration to express this reality closer to what some theologians have already articulated about and what the mystics have deeply experienced in their lives. That is, God has continually been inviting us to be closer and has always been drawing us to that ultimate level of Intimacy and Oneness with God and with the whole of creation.  

PROFOUND QUOTATIONS ON FRIENDSHIP

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... 

It has no survival value; 
rather it is one of those things 
that give value to survival. 

~ C.S. Lewis

A friend is one of the nicest things you can have,

and one of the best things you can be. 
Douglas Pagels

I went out to find a friend,
But could not find one there,
Then I went out to be a friend,
And there were friends everywhere!

Anonymous

DEEPER PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP PERSPECTIVES  

'Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. 

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. 

Walk beside me and be my friend.' 

Albert Camus

  'A real friend is one who walks in 

when the rest of the world walks out.' 

Charles Colton 

 "A friend 

is someone who can take both the chaff and the wheat; 

and 

with the breath of kindness remove the chaff."

G. Campbell Morgan 

" If one falls down, his friend can help him up. 

But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

 Many people today know the painful loneliness of having no truly best friends". 

Eccl. 4:10

"Greater love has no one than this, 

that he lay down his life for his friends" 

John 15:13

"I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. 

Instead, I have called you friends, 

for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you" 

John 15:15.

             "The friend who can be silent with us 

in a moment of despair or confusion,

who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement,

who can tolerate not knowing...not healing...not curing

...that is the friend who cares."

 - Henri Nouwen -

A Friend is a Present you give Yourself!

 - Anonymous -

It is my prayer that we may all deeply experience this Loving Mystery that always draw us closer to God in our daily lives.  May God, who continually mold us in his image and likeness, always leave us in awe and wonder as we show more transparency in our relationships with God and with one another!