Words that resonate with my experience

Authorities I trust, from Wendell Berry to Sri Ramakrishna, all remind me that the particular is the only means we have for touching the universal. We arrive at what is true for all by committing ourselves to particular beliefs, tasks, persons, and places that are true for us.

Garret Keizer, A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of a Ministry

What the Fathers Sought most of all was their own true self, in Christ. And in order to do this, they had to reject completely the false, formal self, fabricated under social compulsion 'in the world.' They sought a way to God that was uncharted and freely chosen, not inherited from others who had it mapped out beforehand. They sought out a God whom they alone could find, not one who was 'given' in a set, stereotyped form by somebody else.

Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

Great News for St. Andrew's

Lorne Calvert, former premier of Saskatchewan and a United Church minister, will become the principal of St. Andrew's college, the United church seminary at the U of S. Wonderful, wonderful news for the school.

Looking to Ash Wednesday

I love the blog The Painted Prayerbook. I love the way Jan Richardson sees the lectionary readings with a fresh eye and the connections she makes with art. And I love her art. Her posting for Ash Wednesday again prompts me to think in new ways about the day.

Here is a taste:

Ash Wednesday beckons us to cross over the threshold into a season that’s all about working through the chaos to discover what is essential. The ashes that lead us into this season remind us where we have come from. They beckon us to consider what is most basic to us, what is elemental, what survives after all that is extraneous is burned away. With its images of ashes and wilderness, Lent challenges us to ponder what we have filled our lives with: habits, practices, possessions, ways of being that have accumulated, encroached, invaded, accreted, layer upon layer, becoming a pattern of chaos that threatens to insulate us and dull us to the presence of God.

You can read the rest here.

Planning your day

My friend Lorraine just put this on facebook and I love it - gotta share:

E.B.White
"I arise in the morning torn between the desire to savour the world or save the world. This makes it hard to plan my day."

Solitude

I went to the Martha Retreat Centre today for a quiet day. I went after breakfast and stayed until a little after 3:00. The sisters are wonderfully hospitable. They provide you with a room and feed you good food and leave you alone so you can enjoy the silence. It went by so quickly I was stunned. The quality of silence there is really embracing...I love it there and don't know why I don't go more often.

I did have a moment though when I wanted to check something on the internet and was jerked by the realization that I didn't have internet access. I had a picture in my head of me sneaking into the office to 'borrow' their computer and then I breathed deep and let the impulse go. The funny thing is that now I can't even remember what seemed so important that I had to check it right then.

When I got back a friend had posted this link on facebook. I think that there is real truth to this story on the impact of internet access:

So please don't confuse what I have to say for that tired Luddite screed about how technology is ruining us. It isn't.

Except it just might.

Because of technology, we never have to be alone anymore. And that's the problem.

So for all sorts of reasons I'm grateful to the Sisters of St. Martha for their charism of hospitality and their gift of silence.

More on The Wrestler

Here is another take on the religious symbols in The Wrestler via The Revealer. Thanks to Bene for the suggestion.

The Wrestler is a movie all about redemptive suffering, as we see the central role that dramatized violence plays in the Ram's life. At a couple points this is made perhaps too clear, as in an early scene where Randy shows Cassidy the scars his career has left him with. She responds by quoting Isaiah 53:5 by way of The Passion of the Christ's opening epigraph: "He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; by His wounds we are healed." She makes the connection even more clear moments later, dubbing Randy "the sacrificial Ram," and later in the film we see a tattoo in the center of his back of Jesus crowned with thorns. Clearly, the film wants us to view wrestling as a spectacle of redemptive suffering.

Read the rest here.