PRESS PAUSE - Moment to Breathe

 
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Each week our Soul Care Conversation Podcast features a Moment to Breathe - it gives listeners a chance to take a deep breathe and contemplate the truth being spoken. We decided to provide each of those Moment to Breathe’s separately for use with your private meditation and contemplation practice.

PRESS PAUSE - and join us for a Moment to Breathe.

Here are some ideas to seed your thinking and help spark your creativity about establishing your own ways of learning to live with obscurity as Jesus did. 1. Do a postmortem on a season of obscurity, wilderness, and anonymity that you've experienced in the past. Ask yourself the three questions following this paragraph.

  • From Episode 47 - Lamenting Through The Pandemic

  • Creating Space for our Souls in a Critical Time - this is an occasional portion of the podcast where our hosts show how they are practicing soul care in the midst of chaos

    • Today we will hear from Gwen on Finding Beauty in watercolors

We have added a segment at the end of each podcast that will be a "hand-on" illustration of how our hosts are practicing soul care during these troubled times. This week's is from Gwen, who talks about the soothing affect of working with watercolors. 

From Episode 45 Loneliness and the Soul Prayer of Relaxation with Gwen Smith Gwen walks us through how to do this prayer practice with your body each day.

From episode 44 "Stress and Soul Care" by Jan Richardson Let us agree for now that we will not say the breaking makes us stronger or that it is better to have this pain than to have done without this love.

Lord of Creation, create in us a new rhythm of life composed of hours that sustain rather than stress, of days that deliver rather than destroy, of time that tickles rather than tackles.

From Episode 41, Becoming an Ordinary Mystic, Part 2:  The Seven Deadly Sins And How To Really Change, Not Manage, Your Sins So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?

by Saint Francis of Assisi   Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord, All praise is Yours, all glory, all honour and all blessings. To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.

From Episode 39: A Deeper Understanding of the Enneagram by Emilie Griffin He is the one who can tell us the reason for our existence, our place in the scheme of things, our real identity. It is an identity we can't discover for ourselves, that others can't discover in us-the mystery of who we really are.

From Episode 38 "Trauma and the Soul" by Joyce Rupp I keep pulling it out - the old map of my inner path I squint closely at it, trying to see some hidden road that maybe I've missed, but there's nothing there now except some well-travelled paths.

From Episode 37 "A Life of Listening"   Now I become myself Now I become myself. It's taken Time, many years and places; I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people's faces, Run madly, as if Time were there, Terribly old, crying a warning, "Hurry, you will be dead before-" (What?

From Episode 36 Distinctives of Soul Care: what it is and what it is not from a Counselors point of view   The Dark Night - Stanzas Of The Soul 1. One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled.

Do the Next Thing by Mrs. George A. Paull From an old English parsonage down by the sea There came in the twilight a message to me; Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven, Hath, it seems to me, teaching from Heaven. And on through the doors the quiet words ring Like a low inspiration: "DO THE NEXT THING."

MERTON'S PRAYER My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

From Episode 32 "Looking Back & Moving Forward"   What makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would.

Taken from Episode 32 - You are the Beloved Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well­ being you desire? Don't you often hope: "Maybe this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship will fulfill my deepest desire."

amp;nbsp; Silent night, holy night All is calm, all is bright 'Round yon virgin Mother and Child Holy infant so tender and mild Sleep in heavenly peace Sleep in heavenly peace Silent night, holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight! Glories stream from heaven afar; Heavenly hosts sing Al-le-lu-ia!

For a New Beginning In out-of-the-way places of the heart, Where your thoughts never think to wander, This beginning has been quietly forming, Waiting until you were ready to emerge. For a long time it has watched your desire, Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, Noticing how you willed yourself on, Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

Taken from Potter's Inn Soul Care Conversations - Episode 29, Praying the Scriptures: Lectio Divina The Way to Freedom by Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Word of Scripture should never stop sounding in your ears ad working in you all day long, just like the words of someone you love.

"Dad." Pause. "Daddy." Shorter pause. "Dad!" Almost imperceptible pause. "Daaaadddddyyyyy!" My eyes remain locked on my computer screen. In other words, I first respond to my youngest son, Quinn, the way most of us respond to most of life-with distraction.

This way of simple prayer, when we are faithful to it and practice it at regular times, slowly leads us to an experience of rest and opens us to God's active presence. Moreover, we can take this prayer with us into a very busy day.

amp;nbsp; Look at all we've had to navigate this week--all the Tweets--all the inner tweets never sent.  But they lodge in us. They stay there and hijack our peace. All the voices barking at us like angry dogs.     All the layers of stress that have accumulated in our inner sanctums. That lie like thick dust on oak tables.