5 am thoughts

Today, I did something I have not done for many years. I sat outside on my back porch and watched the sun rise. It was a beautiful, calming thing to do! The birds were singing at the top of their lungs, the grass was so green and the world was so quiet. It gave me a chance to experience real stillness inside and around me, an experience I really needed in the face of the reality of the extreme difficulties facing our world today.

While I sat and rested and felt reassured, the affirmation my spiritual director gave me recently came to mind. She invited me to say daily: “At the core of my being I am beloved of God. I am intimately united with Christ through the Spirit. I dwell in the Abiding presence of the Trinity and the Abiding presence of the Trinity dwells in me. This is who I am.”

For me, it is so important in trying, destabilizing times to be reminded of and get reconnected with what is '“true, noble,right, pure, lovely and admirable.” (Philippians 4:8) For each of us, truth will look a little different and our spiritual foundation and traditions may also differ, yet underneath it all, there runs a stream which is life giving for each of us. It is important at times such as these to connect with it, whether it be by sitting out on our porch in the early morning, walking a labyrinth, praying with our rosary beads etc etc. We each know how to do it, and I encourage you to intentionally connect often with what for you is the ‘stream of living water’ in your life.