Spirituality
Spiritual Reflection, Contemplation
09/23/15 11:22
A contemplation experiment: research says that if we practice a new habit for 21 days our brains adapt and, after a fashion, rewire around the new habit. With a friend I have agreed to read a morning meditation from "the little black book," 24 Hours a Day. Each day we agree to share our reflections with each other. Here is Day One.
9/22 Woke up feeling pretty good for an old man. 24 Hour book was on coffee table when I sat down with my cup of java. What I got from the reading was that "each day is an opportunity to serve God." This is curiously one of those insights that often makes me smile. I call these my "baloney sandwich" moments. In 1986 I was alone in my kitchen, having just turned 40, and I was spreading mayonnaise on a slice of bread, grabbing a quick bite before charging off to whatever I had to face that day.
For reasons I have never understood, the thought occurred to me that all God asks is that we love God and serve God by doing what He would have us do. Within two seconds the experience had passed, and I was standing there with bread and baloney. How strange to think now, thirty years later, that I have never forgotten a baloney sandwich. Perhaps God was telling me that on the one hand I have "bread for the journey," and on the other hand there is "the baloney of my life." This never fails to bring a smile, because I usually expect that God should bring me a burning bush, a blinding flash of light, or at the very least the power to part the Red Sea or raise Lazarus from the dead. "No, John," God seems to say, "you're confusing the bread with the baloney. Just eat your sandwich, and I will tend the universe around you."
When Brother Lawrence wrote his letters about the Practice of the Presence of God, he said that he realized that he could feel close to God in the privacy and relative darkness of his monastic cell, but that he experienced God most clearly when he was amidst the noise, heat, and commotion in the monastery kitchen, where he had once despised his job as a distraction and a burden. Today I will think on these things as I toil and sweat, perhaps enjoying the discernment that helps me distinguish the bread from the baloney. I am smiling as I write this.
Addendum: Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered a secret about living spiritual life here on earth. That "secret" is the art of "practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end." He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our soul. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. For nearly 300 years this unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day. You can browse a copy of the book on Amazon here.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day is available through major booksellers, and also from Hazelden. Written by Richmond Walker, it's a book that offers daily thoughts, meditations and prayers to help recovering alcoholics live a clean and sober life. It is often referred to as "the little black book." The three most published A.A. authors are Bill W., Richmond Walker, and Ralph Pfau, in that order. Ralph, who lived in Indianapolis, became in 1943 the first Roman Catholic priest to get sober in A.A., and under the pen name "Father John Doe," wrote the fourteen Golden Books© along with three other books, all of them still in print and read by A.A. people today. Richmond Walker got sober in Boston in May 1942, and later moved down to Daytona Beach in Florida, where in 1948 he published Twenty-Four Hours a Day©, which became the great meditational book of early A.A. from that point on.
9/22 Woke up feeling pretty good for an old man. 24 Hour book was on coffee table when I sat down with my cup of java. What I got from the reading was that "each day is an opportunity to serve God." This is curiously one of those insights that often makes me smile. I call these my "baloney sandwich" moments. In 1986 I was alone in my kitchen, having just turned 40, and I was spreading mayonnaise on a slice of bread, grabbing a quick bite before charging off to whatever I had to face that day.
For reasons I have never understood, the thought occurred to me that all God asks is that we love God and serve God by doing what He would have us do. Within two seconds the experience had passed, and I was standing there with bread and baloney. How strange to think now, thirty years later, that I have never forgotten a baloney sandwich. Perhaps God was telling me that on the one hand I have "bread for the journey," and on the other hand there is "the baloney of my life." This never fails to bring a smile, because I usually expect that God should bring me a burning bush, a blinding flash of light, or at the very least the power to part the Red Sea or raise Lazarus from the dead. "No, John," God seems to say, "you're confusing the bread with the baloney. Just eat your sandwich, and I will tend the universe around you."
When Brother Lawrence wrote his letters about the Practice of the Presence of God, he said that he realized that he could feel close to God in the privacy and relative darkness of his monastic cell, but that he experienced God most clearly when he was amidst the noise, heat, and commotion in the monastery kitchen, where he had once despised his job as a distraction and a burden. Today I will think on these things as I toil and sweat, perhaps enjoying the discernment that helps me distinguish the bread from the baloney. I am smiling as I write this.
Addendum: Brother Lawrence was a man of humble beginnings who discovered a secret about living spiritual life here on earth. That "secret" is the art of "practicing the presence of God in one single act that does not end." He often stated that it is God who paints Himself in the depths of our soul. We must merely open our hearts to receive Him and His loving presence. For nearly 300 years this unparalleled classic has given both blessing and instruction to those who can be content with nothing less than knowing God in all His majesty and feeling His loving presence throughout each simple day. You can browse a copy of the book on Amazon here.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day is available through major booksellers, and also from Hazelden. Written by Richmond Walker, it's a book that offers daily thoughts, meditations and prayers to help recovering alcoholics live a clean and sober life. It is often referred to as "the little black book." The three most published A.A. authors are Bill W., Richmond Walker, and Ralph Pfau, in that order. Ralph, who lived in Indianapolis, became in 1943 the first Roman Catholic priest to get sober in A.A., and under the pen name "Father John Doe," wrote the fourteen Golden Books© along with three other books, all of them still in print and read by A.A. people today. Richmond Walker got sober in Boston in May 1942, and later moved down to Daytona Beach in Florida, where in 1948 he published Twenty-Four Hours a Day©, which became the great meditational book of early A.A. from that point on.