Spiritual Practices in a Time of Turmoil: Thursday's Reflection

How often these days I want to hide out in my garret, specifically, in my comfortable chair tucked in a corner. I want to extend my morning meditation time into mid morning and beyond. Then when I finally take a shower I am reluctant to turn off the water and get dressed. 

Focusing on the writing work I have challenged myself to do has become harder. Like those first weeks after the election and then the inauguration, I am drawn to online news reports and to having the radio on in the background as I try to work at my desk. 

I am outraged and fearful. The white supremacists turn my stomach, but it is the president's behavior that upsets and concerns me even more. How close are we to a national brawl where shouting is the norm? 

What to Do? How to respond?

I can't give you those answers. Each of us has to decide for ourselves what we can do and how to respond, but first, before any action, there needs to be a kind of stillness. I need to remember what grounds me, what clarifies next steps and fortifies me for action.  

For some that may mean walking along the river or reading to a grandchild or cooking a pot of soup or needlepointing or swimming laps or even washing the car. 

For some it may mean walking a labyrinth or reading scripture or writing in a journal. Attending a worship service, praying or sitting motionless on a meditation cushion. 

Each one of these activities can be a spiritual practice, a threshold into deeper relationship with divine presence. Each one of these practices can be a way to center and open to what we are asked to do and how we are asked to respond and be in these troubled times. 

Words to Consider

                You do not need to know precisely what is
                 happening, or exactly where it is all going.
                 What you need is to recognize the possibilities
                 challenges offered by the present moment, and 
                 to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.
                                                  Thomas Merton

                       Teach me to be love,
                              as You are Love;
                       Lead me through each fear;
                       Hold my hand as I walk through
                             valleys of doubt each day,
                      That I may know your peace.  
                                              adapted from Psalm 27

           The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and
           do something. Don't wait for good things to happen
           to you. If you go out and make some good things
           happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will
           fill yourself with hope.
                                           Barak Obama


An Invitation
What do you do to come to stillness and awareness of the divine presence? I would love to know.