I. Living in the Present
"A new beginning! We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises." p.15
our imagination can lead us to the truth of our lives...The problem is that we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us: 'You know it all; you have seen it all, be realistic; the future will be just another repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best as you can.' There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: 'There is nothing new under the sun...don't let yourself be fooled.' p.15
Rev 21:2-5
Without 'oughts' and 'ifs'
Here and now-the most important ; "Prayer is the discipline of the moment. When we pray, we enter into the presence of God whose name is God-with-us. To pray is to listen attentively to the One who addresses us here and now. When we dare to trust that we are never alone but that God is always with us, always cares for us, and always speaks to us, then we can gradually detach ourselves from the voices that make us guilty or anxious and thus allow ourselves to dwell in the present moment. This is a very hard challenge bc radical trust in God is not obvious." p.18
"Listening to the voice of love requires that we direct our minds and hearts toward that voice with all our attention. ...prayer." p.19
"One of the discoveries we make in prayer is that the closer we come to God, the closer we come to all our brothers and sisters in the human family. God is not a private God. The God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is also the God who dwells in the inner sanctuary of each human being." p.20
"We often wonder what we can do for others, especially for those in great need. It is not a sign of powerlessness when we say: 'We must pray for one another.' To pray for one another is, first of all, to acknowledge, in the presence of God, that we belong to each other as children of the same God. Without this acknowledgement of human solidarity, what we do for one another does not flow from who we truly are.' p.21
II. Joy
Joy & sorrow. "Joy is essential to spiritual life. ... Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing--sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away." p.25
Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there bc it comes from the knowledge of God's love for us. ...sorrow and joy can exist together. ...when we think about some of our deepest life experiences, such as being present at the birth of a child or the death of a friend, great sorrow and great joy are often seen to be parts of the same experience. Often we discover the joy in the midst of the sorrow." p.25
"Joy doesnt simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us." p25
"It is important to become aware that at every moment of our life we have an opportunity to choose joy. Life has many sides to it. There are always sorrowful and joyful sides to the reality we live. And so we always have a choice to live the moment as a cause for resentment or as a cause for joy. It is in the choice that our true freedom lies, and that freedom is, in the final analysis, the freedom to love." p.26 at the end of the day decide to remember the day as a day to be grateful for. increase our heart's capacity to choose for joy. As our hearts become more joyful, we will become a source of joy for others.
Joy is contagious
"He is a realist, but his deep faith allows him to know that hope is more real than despair, faith more real than distrust, and love more real than fear." spiritualrealism p.27
Surprised by joy instead of sorrow (news)
Hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, p.32
III. Suffering
Jesus shows, both in his teachings and in his life, that true joy often is hidden in the midst of our sorrow, and that the dance of life finds its beginnings in grief. ...It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in the pain." p.37 Jn 16:21
Our desire for communion
Be faithful to our vocation
IV. Conversion
The Spirit of Love: "The Spirit of God is soft and gentle like a small voice or a light breeze. It is the Spirit of love. ...Maybe we still distrust the Spirit, afraid to be led to places where our freedom is taken away." p.51
Set your hearts on God's kingdom first...and all other thgs will be given you as well' summarise best the way we are called to live our lives. ...God's kingdom is, first of all, the active presence of God's Spirit within us, offering us the freedom we truly desire. p.52
How to set our hearts on the kingdom first when our hearts are preoccupied with so many things? Somehow a radical change of heart is required, a change that allows us to experience the reality of our existence from God's place." p52
Jesus answers from above to questions raised from below. e.g. Matt 20:22, Acts 1:7-8
the reverse mission
being freed from the burden of judgement-Only when we claim the love of God, the love that transcends all judgements, can we overcome all fear of judgement. p.61
V. Disciplined Living
Living for the one clear goal: What is our prize? Is it the divine life, the eternal life, the life with and in God?
Eternal life starts now, it is not the afterlife. It is living in communion with God p.68
Spiritual reading: books that have spiritual content or reading the news of today with a spiritual reading (not to master knowledge or info but to let God's Spirit master us." p71
VI. The Spiritual Life
Matt 11:28-30
God is eternal love
Fatalism vs. faith. Faith is the deep trust that God's love is stronger than all the anonymous powers of the world and can transform us from victims of darkness into servants of light. p.78
VII. Prayer
'Well, when you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong...you will be fine!'-Mother Teresa to Nouwen after he explained all his complicated problems p89
from worrying to prayer.
Contemplating Psalm 23
VIII. Compassion
be compassionate, as the Father is.
Being the beloved.
downward mobility Jn 12:25, Matt 18:3, Matt 20:25-28
"Compassion means to become close to the one who suffers. But we can come close to another person only when we are willing to become vulnerable ourselves." p.197
IX. Family
X. Relationships
XI. Who We Are
Dec 13, 2016-Jan 3, 2018
London: St Pauls, 2002.
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