Streams 'N Stirrings

Monday, December 11, 2023

O come, O come, Emmanuel - (Piano/Cello) - The Piano Guys

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Advent: A Waiting Adventure!

“We need patience with each other;

with the old, the young, the sick, the slow,

and with God!

Psalm 36 speaks of this last need,

the need to wait on God: 'Be still before the Lord and wait in patience.'

We must learn how to sit still, to stop being in a hurry,

and wait for God to move within our lives.

We still ourselves in prayer,

aware that the graces we need,

the special gifts we desire,

will come to us when we are ready.

Whatever is necessary for our spiritual journeys

will come when the time is ready.

Until that time we simply sit in stillness,

waiting, and even seeing pleasure, finding fun, in waiting!”

Edward Hays ~ Pray All Ways

Advent Examen . . .Waiting in Gratitude!

Ignatian Examen for Advent

The Grace of Gratitude
I speak from my heart telling God why I am grateful,
being very particular and naming specific things:
gifts, people, events, blessings
How do I wait with gratitude?

The Grace to See
I walk with God through the experiences of my day
(or past year) giving thanks where I have grown,
and noticing where I have stumbled.
Where do I need the gift of light?
How do I wait with a discerning heart?

The Grace of Freedom
I ask for the grace to awaken my memory to anything from
my day (or past year) where God is inviting me to greater
freedom and peace.
I spend some time listening to my heart.
How do I wait in peace… in silence… listening?

The Grace of Mercy
I ask to feel hope, knowing that God will always give me
forgiveness. I ask God’s mercy in personal words that come
from my heart.
How do I wait in hope and with trust this
Advent Season?

The Grace of Transformation
I listen to my heart for invitations to change the way I pray,
live, work, love, play, relate, serve, or define success.
What deep desire within me is waiting to be
uncovered, discovered, or recovered this
Advent Season?

I pray the Our Father that God’s Kingdom reign in my life.

Examen adapted by William Watson, S.J.
Advent Reflections

A Blessing Befriending Darkness . . .

A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark

Jan Richardson

Go slow

if you can.

Slower.

More slowly still.

Friendly dark

or fearsome,

This is no place

to break your neck

by rushing,

by running,

by crashing into

what you cannot see.

Then again,

it is true:

different darks

have different tasks,

and if you

have arrived here unawares,

if you have come

in peril

or in pain,

this might be no place

you should dawdle.

I do not know

what these shadows

ask of you,

what they might hold

that means you good

or ill.

It is not for me

to reckon

whether you should linger

or you should leave

But this is what

I can ask for you:

That in the darkness

there be a blessing.

That in the shadows

there be a welcome.

That in the night

you be encompassed

by the Love that knows

your name.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

God of the Seasons . . .

O God of all seasons and senses, grant us the sense
of your timing
to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.

O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.
O God, grant us the sense of your timing.
From Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder