O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence… Isaiah 64:1
How are you longing for God’s presence this Advent season?
Advent I
Fermentation
“I always think that that’s the secret of change — that there are huge gestations and fermentations going on in us that we are not even aware of. And then, sometimes, when we come to a threshold, crossing over, which we need to become different, that we’ll be able to be different, because secret work has been done in us, of which we’ve had no inkling.” John O’Donahue in an interview with Krista Tippett
As we stand at the threshold of the Advent season, how will you pay attention to the secret work God is doing within you?
Gratefulness
“The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows, spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests, flowered fields, and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day. What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it.” Michael Josephson
What do you enjoy?
Open hearts
“We must meet each moment as open-heartedly and clear-eyed as possible and listen for what is called for in that moment. Sometimes it means we will fall apart and sometimes it means we will summon our inner sovereign and find our power emerging out of the devastation. It is not that one is better than the other, the response emerges from what is happening.”
— Christine Valters Paintner
How do you stay open to the moment?
Morning mist
“There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor no created thing can touch.” (German mystic Meister Eckhard)
“…what it means is that your identity is not equivalent to your biography and that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.” John O’Donohue
Do you know that place?
Expressions
“Something as earthbound as fabric and clay and paint can speak our most wordless longings, express our delight and grief. Beauty can connect our hearts to the divine heart.” ~ Grünewald Guild founder Richard Caemmerer
How do you express what words cannot?
With the Eyes of the Heart 