More Thomas Merton -

Meditation is sometimes quite difficult. If we bear with hardship in prayer and wait patiently for the time of grace, we may well discover that meditation and prayer are very joyful experiences. We should not, however, judge the value of our meditation by "how we feel." A hard and apparently fruitless meditation may in fact be much more valuable than one that is easy, happy, enlightened, and apparently a big success. - From Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton

Worship is, I would offer, similar in that we do not attend as consumers but as disciples. If we judge the worth of a sermon or worship service by "how we feel," we are completely missing a basic understanding of what it means to make a committment to Christ.

Marinated pork loin tonight and a discussion about whether or not we are becoming more uncivil in our conversations with one another.

See you tonight!

The contemplative tradition (the Prayer-filled life) gives special attention to loving God. "True, whole prayer is nothing but love," says St. Augustine.

Born in Prades, France, Thomas Merton had a trying and painful childhood - his mother died when he was six, and his father died when he was fifteen.

In his mid-twenties Merton experienced a profound conversion while attending Columbia University, and he joined the Roman Catholic church. At the age of twenty-six he entered Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky where he would live the rest of his life as a Trappist monk.

One of his more famous works was a book called, "Contemplative Prayer." Yesterday we spoke of the difference between learning how to praise and developing a full time attitude of praise. Merton uses similar language.

"In meditation we should not look for a 'method' or a 'system,' but cultivate an 'attitude,' and 'outlook': faith, openness, attention, reverence, expectation, supplication, trust, joy. All these gfinally permeate our being with love in so far as our living faith tells us we are in the presence of God, that we live in Christ, that in the Spirit of God we "see' God our Father without 'seeing.' We know him in 'unknowing.' Faith is the bond that unites us to him in the Spirit who gives us light and love." - From Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton

We have spoken of this before. It is the difference between attending church and being church.

Marinated pork loin for dinner on Wednesday night and pot-luck dishes being gathered on Sunday morning for lunch after worship at Delano Park.

See you on Wednesday night!

Short, but powerful:

Thus, one who makes it a rule to be content in every part and accident of life because it comes from God praises God in a much higher manner than one who has some set time for the singing of psalms. - From A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law

Pray unceasingly! Don't just learn how to praise, develop an attitude of constant praise!

We are meeting at the park on Sunday for worship and a pot luck meal afterwards. Join Central United Methodist in worship at Delano Park on Sunday, October 4 at 10:30.

See you on Sunday!

I was preparing a lesson for our older adults for their regular Wednesday afternoon Bible study when I came across this passage from Henri J. M. Nouwen.

A Letter to My Father

The death of husband, wife, child, or friend can cause people to stop living toward the unknown future and make withdraw into the familiar past. They keep holding on to a few precious memories and customs and see their lives as having come to a standstill. They start to live as if they were thinking, "For me it is all over. There is nothing more to expect from life." As you can see, here the opposite of detachment is taking place; here is a re-attachment that makes life stale and takes all vitality out of existence. It is a life in which hope no longer exists....

I think there is a much more human option. It is the option to re-evaluate the past as a continuing challenge to surrender ourselves to an unknown future. It is the option to understand our experience of powerlessness as an experience of being guided, even when we do not know exactly where. Remember what jesus said to Peter when he appeared to him after his resurrection: "When you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go." Jesus said this immediately after he had told Peter three times to look after his sheep. Here we can see that a growing surrender to the unknown is a sign of spiritual maturity and does not take away autonomy. Mother's death is indeed an invitation to surrender ourselves more freely to the future, in the conviction that one of the most important parts of our lives may still be ahead of us and that mother's life and death were meant to make this possible. Do not forget that only after Jesus' death could his disciples fulfill their vocation. - From A Letter of Consolation by Henri J. M. Nouwen

God Supplies Our Every Need

Norman Harrison in His in a Life of Prayer tells how Charles Inglis, while making the voyage to America a number of years ago, learned from the devout and godly captain of an experience which he had had but recently with George Muller of bristol. It seems that they had encountered a very dense fog. Because of it the captain had remained on the bridge continuously for twenty-four hours, when Mr. Muller came to him and said, "Captain, I have come to tell you that I must be in Quebec on Saturday afternoon." When informed that it was impossible, he replied: "Very well. If the ship canno0t take me, God will find some other way. I have never broken an engagement for fifty-seven years. Let us go down into the chart room and pray."

Tha captain continues the story thus:
I looked at that man of God and thought to myself, What lunatic asylum could that man have come from. I never heard such a thing as this. "Mr. Muller," I said, "do you know how dense this fog is?" "No," he replied, "my eye is not on the density of the fog, but on the living God, who controls every circumstance of my life." He knelt down and prayed one of those simple prayers, and when he had finished I was going to pray; but he put his hand on myu shoulder and told me not to pray. "Firstly," he said,, "because you do not believe God will, and secondly, I believe God has, and there is no need whatever for you to pray about it." I looked at him, and George Muller said, "Captain, I have known my Lord for fifty-seven years, and there has never been a single day that I have failed to get an audience with the King. Get up and open the door, and you will find that the fog has gone." I got up and the fog was indeed gone. George Muller was in Quebec Saturday afternoon for his engagement."

- From I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes by Glenn Clark

Most of us fear community because we think it will call us away from ourselves... What a curious conception of self we have! We have forgotten that self is a moving intersection of many other selves. We are formed by the lives which intersect with ours. - From The Promise of Paradox by Parker Palmer


We are who we are PRECISELY because of our relationships with all others. Give thanks for the similarities but truly value the differences.

Grace and Peace,

See you on Sunday!

James 4:1 These conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?

Remember that the very people who upset you most, are in all likelilhood the people you will be spending eternity with. These are the very people Jesus came to save. So conflict resolution is not just a good idea for helping us feel good today...it is about the necessary preparation for eternal life with people who are vastly different than us.

See you on Sunday!

James 3:13 - Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

Why do we do the things we do? Do we do them with a gentleness born of wisdom? Something to think about...

Thanks for the many birthday wishes sent my way! Dinner at Chili's to celebrate. I am still a burger and fries kind of guy. Tonight we are blessed with Chicken Pot Pie for our Wednesday NIght Supper. There is a marriage enrichment class in the library and we will be discussing a Christian response to the President giving a speech to school children in room 208. Have a great day! We are halfway through the week!

Therefore, be attentive to time and the way you spend it. Nothing is more precious. This is evident when you recall that in one tiny moment heaven may be gained or lost. God, the master of time, never gives the future. He gives only the present, moment by moment, for this is the law of the created order, and God will not contradict himself in his creation. - From The Cloud of Unknowing

Are we able to sit down and really recognize that which is important and that which is merely in front of us?

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible. - From Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis


Everything we say and everything we do does in fact matter greatly in the long run.

See you on Sunday!

When one gives up self, his past sins will no longer oppress him. It is enough for the good life that God lives, that the All-perfect exists, and that we can behold him. - From Creation in Christ by George MacDonald.

Why let the past bring us down when we have already been set free for the future?

Fried chicken tonight in the Fellowship Hall at 5:00!

See you there!

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy.

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life. - St. Francis of Assisi

Being in a community isn't an option and God calls us to always be in reconciliation with our neighbor. After all, we will be them forever......

Fried chicken for dinner tomorrow night at Wednesday Night Supper!

Wow! This from Henri J. M. Nouwen..

Here we have come back to the compassion that must be formed in one's heart, a compassion that comes out of a deep experiencem of solidarity, in which one recognizes that the evil, sin and violence which one sees in the world and in the other, are deeply rooted in one's own heart. Only when you want to confess this and want to rely on the merciful God who can bring good out of evil are you in a position to receive forgiveness and also to give it to other men and women who threaten you with violence. Precisely because Merton had discovered this nonviolent compassion in his solitude could he in a real sense be a monk, that is to say, one who unmasks through his criticism the illusions of a violent society and who wants to change the world in spirit and truth. - From Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic by Henri J. M. Nouwen

See you on Sunday!

Only by a stronger passion can evil passions be expelled, and...a soul unoccupied by a positive devotion is sure to be occupied by spiritual demons. From The Manhood of the Master by Harry Emerson Fosdick

We've had this lesson before.... if we don't fill ourselves as much as possible with the Will of our Lord, we allow other temptations and priorities and desires and interests.... to lead us away from an eternity in paradise.

Read the Bible daily! Pray continuously!

Meatloaf for dinner on Wednesday night and a beginning of classes including a look at the Christian response to the life and death of Ted Kennedy and a five week look at how to enrich our marriages.