This has been a challenging and difficult summer, filled with painful news from around the world.
We can talk face to face with people on the other side of the earth, but cannot resolve long term problems. It has been a summer in which war, hunger, disease, and hopelessness have shown themselves again and again.
What does spiritual life have to offer us this summer other than easy platitudes and unfulfilled promises?
It is not as if living spiritual life provides a list of workable action steps to address intractable worldwide plagues.
Spiritual life is much deeper, much more than that.
It can be easy for us to forget, as we face such heart wrenchingly painful times, that spiritual life gives us courage.
Courage is more than being brave or persisting in the face of hard times. Courage is not about facing an adversary or a situation. Courage is our willingness to look directly into our own hearts, our deepest fears.
Courage is meeting our own conflict, hunger, sickness, and hopelessness directly.
Spiritual life fills our hearts and sets them on fire. We explore the Sacred in the world around us, even in the challenging parts. We discover the Sacred in ourselves.
Spiritual life is not a blueprint for social change with answers to all our questions. Spiritual life raises questions in us, questions on which we need to reflect to appreciate our world.
Our questions help us listen and see more clearly. We become more open to the life that fills our hearts and the world around us. We experience new life.
We take heart, and share our lives in creative ways. Spiritual life encourages us to act.
How will you find the Sacred in your heart today?
Where can you go to find the time you need to reflect?
[Image by le vent le cri]
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