ECUMENICUS

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

~ Rumi

At the heart of who you are is the ground that is no ground, the place that is no place, the endless source and boundless center where God dwells—not in some manner or another, but without any manner, in the naked and divine nature which is the ground of God's oneness—and yours.

~Meister Eckhart in Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light, Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows

When we love, the depth in us
Trusts itself forward until
The empty space between
Becomes gradually woven
Into an embrace where longing
Can close it weary eyes.

~John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

To be calm is the greatest asset in the world.

~Robert Adams

Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come. Our breath is a part of life's breath, the ocean of air that envelopes the earth.

~David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature

_/\_Peggy @ ECUMENICUS

“What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing which is inspired by love. "Without love there would be no contemplation." Contemplation is a loving attainment of awareness. It is intuition of the beloved object.”

~ Josef Pieper, Happiness and Contemplation
Art: Yasin Mortas

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“An enormous force bends all lines into circles.”

~ Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality
Photo: Joyce Tenneson

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We are beginning to evolve beyond the worldview that has been predominant for many decades—the rational-individualistic-materialistic paradigm. We are evolving a more integrated view of systems, a more inclusive philosophy, and a more compassionate global understanding. These emerging values ultimately support a sacred worldview in which we all find common ground. A sacred worldview is built on reverence and respect for all.

~Stephen Dinan, Sacred America, Sacred World: Fulfilling Our MIssion in Service to All

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“operate within a new form of science that asks not just what is possible, but what is appropriate—appropriate to the well-being of self and Earth. Such a question does not originate in the mental realm but the spiritual, and is felt bodily, once our senses and heart are attuned. So the central part of our being that simply must be allowed to function and be attended is the heart.”

― Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Heart-Mind Matrix: How the Heart Can Teach the Mind New Ways to Think

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Becoming the Staircase

Keeping an open mind allows one to grow into new ways of seeing things. Awareness is like a staircase. If we stay open to the possibility of the next stair, we dont discount the stairs we've already ascended, but we fold them into the ever increasing perspective of the entire staircase. Peggy

Stay awake! There is something new for you today!

If you're in the right frame of mind, you'll find that God is radiant in everything, above all in what is dark or seems far from God. Because nothing is far from God; everything is always in God. I'd even say that everything is God. Coming to know this takes practice, and you will never finish learning what this means in your life—because this is your life.

~Meister Eckhart, in Meister Eckharts Book of Darkness and Light. Jon Sweeney and Mark Burrows

It’s a gift to joyfully recognize and accept our own smallness and ordinariness. Then you are free with nothing to live up to, nothing to prove, and nothing to protect. Such freedom is my best description of Christian maturity, because once you know that your “I” is great and one with God, you can ironically be quite content with a small and ordinary “I.” No grandstanding is necessary. Any question of your own importance or dignity has already been resolved once and for all and forever.

~Richard Rohr

Here is, in truth, the whole secret of Yoga, the science of the soul. The active turnings, the strident vibrations, of selfishness, lust and hate are to be stilled by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal love, and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of true being.

~Patanjali, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

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All people are children when they sleep.
there's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard and a haze veils the sky, a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees would drift in.
God, teach me the language of sleep.

~Rolf Jacobsen

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Once you have been shown how to enjoy this castle you will find rest in everything, even in the things that challenge you most. You will hold in your heart the hope of returning to the castle, and no one can take that from you.

~Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, Mirabai Starr trans.
Art: Senaka Senanayake

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Every positive thought is a silent prayer that will change your life.

~Bryant McGill
Art: Karla Bardan

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Too often in the past our approach to truth has been to assume that we have it and others do not. Consequently, we have thought that our role is to tell people what to believe. We are being invited instead into a new humility, to serve the holy wisdom that is already stirring in the hearts of people everywhere, the growing awareness of earth’s interrelatedness and sacredness.

~John Philip Newell
Art: Kay Kemp

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

— John Fox, When Someone Deeply Listens To You
Artwork: Simon Glucklich

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Prayer goes deep at night. Images dissolve. There's only God, and silence, kindness, and grace.

~Coleman Barks

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If we want there to be peace in the world,
we have to be brave enough to soften
what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot
and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage
and take that kind of responsibility.
That's the true practice of peace.

~Pema Chödrön

There is something formed in obscurity
Born before heaven and earth.
Silent and void,
It stands alone and does not change,
Goes around and does not weary.
It is capable of being the Mother of the world.
I do not know its name
So I nickname it, “The Way.”

~Chapter 25, Book of Venerable Masters, Laozi

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"The whole universe is based on rhythms. Everything happens in circles, in spirals." ~ John Hartford

1
Somewhere, out at the edges, the night
Is turning and the waves of darkness
Beging to brighten the shore of dawn.

The heavy dark falls back to earth
And the freed air goes wild with light,
The heart fills with fresh, bright breath
And thoughts stir to give birth to colour.

2
I arise today

In the name of Silence,
Womb of the Word,
In the name of Stillness,
Home of Belonging,
In the name of the Solitude
Of the Soul and the Earth.

I arise today

Blessed by all things,
Wings of breath,
Delight of eyes,
Wonder of whisper,
Intimacy of touch,
Eternity of soul,
Urgency of thought,
Miracle of health,
Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.

~John O'Donohue, Matins
Photo: Stock photo

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“When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently.”

― Pema Chödrön, Practicing Peace in Times of War

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“Prayer and theology are inseparable. True theology is the adoration offered by the intellect. The intellect clarifies the movement of prayer, but only prayer can give it the fervor of the Spirit. Theology is light, prayer is fire. Their union expresses the union of the intellect and the heart. But it is the intellect that must ‘repose’ in the heart and theology must transcend it in love.”

~Olivier Clement, the Roots of Christian Mysticism
Art: Vrindaji Bowman

_/\_Peggy @ ECUMENICUS

“Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new forest.”
― Mike Norton, White Mountain