Author: Brian Legate

Wild Geese

/ Brian Legate / Leave a comment
Image
 
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting  
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.
 
from Dream Work by Mary Oliver 
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

Salvation from …

/ Brian Legate / Leave a comment

Salvation from the False Self – Fr. Richard Rohr

“The saint is precisely one who has no “I” to protect or project. His or her “I” is in conscious union with the “I AM” of God, and that is more than enough. Divine union overrides any need for self-hatred or self-promotion. Such people do not need to be perfectly right, and they know they cannot be anyway, so they just try to be in right relationship. In other words, they try above all else to be loving.

Love holds you tightly and safely and always. It gives you the freedom to meet the enemy and know the major enemy is “me,” as the old comic character Pogo said. But you do not hate “me” either; you just see through and beyond “me.” Shadow work literally saves you from yourself (your False Self, that is), which is the foundational meaning of salvation. For then “You too (your True Self) will be revealed in all your glory with him” (Colossians 3:3-4).”

Read the full blog entry posted today by Father Richard

Welcome to Tradition – great works from Rob Bell

/ Brian Legate / Leave a comment

The_Ladder_of_Divine_Ascent_Monastery_of_St_Catherine_Sinai_12th_century

God belongs to all free beings. He is the life of all, the salvation of all —faithful and unfaithful, just and unjust, pious and impious, passionate and dispassionate, monks and laymen, wise and simple, healthy and sick, young and old —just as the effusion of light, the sight of the sun, and the changes of the seasons are for all alike; ‘for there is no respect of persons with God.’
from The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 1, Passage by St. John Climacus

From a Rob Bell Tumblr blog post – read more here.

What is the Bible? Part 54: Predestination, Election, and that Burning Feeling in the Pit of Your Soul

/ Brian Legate / Leave a comment

Rob-Bell

A favorite excerpt from Rob Bell’s Tumblr blog series entitled – What is the Bible?  Spoiler alert the passage below is at the end of his post – so if you would like to start first at the top click here.

Always ask yourself when you come across something that religious people have been debating and discussing for years what would happen if you actually had concrete answers to the questions. 

When I have been asked whether some are chosen or not, I always ask How would you ever know such a thing? and more importantly How would that ever make your life better? 

Some things that religious people make a big deal of are rather pointless. Avoid the insanity.

How often do you ask What would it feel like to swallow a hair dryer while it was turned on? 

No, you don’t, because it’s not interesting. And if you could answer the question, what would you have gained?

Here then is my word to you: Don’t participate in discussions that are pointless. You can say yes to God’s love and grace today, you can be grateful for each and every breath, you can trust that there is meaningful work for you to do today in the world. You can heal, you can be free, you can become more and more courageous and full of joy. All of this can be more and more the dominant reality of your life as you become more and more the person Jesus insists you can be. Why would you spend time on topics and discussions that have nothing to do with the very real invitation every single one of us have right now to live life to the fullest?

Agape by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

/ Brian Legate / 1 Comment

MLK Choose Love

 

“The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape. … agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him.” ―Martin Luther King Jr.

On Human Creeds and Such…

/ Brian Legate / Leave a comment

All creeds are human attempts to capture in human words the experience of the divine. The words we use to describe the divine will differ in every generation. There is no such thing as an unchanging universal language. No one can be bound by the words of a generation that no longer exists and that includes the words of our creeds. God is a living experience and talking about that experience will take different forms in every generation. None of those forms will ever be ultimate nor will any of them ever capture truth for all time. Words like infallible and inerrant have no place in the Christian vocabulary. – Bishop John Shelby Spong

A Lectio Divina for Today’s Christians by Richard Rohr

/ Brian Legate / Leave a comment

Read the following passage slowly and aloud four times. With the first reading, listen with your heart’s ear for a phrase or word that stands out for you. During the second reading, reflect on what touches you, perhaps speaking that response aloud or writing in a journal. Third, respond with a prayer or expression of what you have experienced and what it calls you to. Fourth, rest in silence after the reading.

The Shining Word “And”

“And” teaches us to say yes
“And” allows us to be both-and
“And” teaches us to be patient and long-suffering
“And” is willing to wait for insight and integration
“And” does not divide the field of the moment
“And” helps us to live in the always imperfect now
“And” keeps us inclusive and compassionate toward everything
“And” demands that our contemplation become action
“And” insists that our action is also contemplative
“And” is the mystery of paradox in all things
“And” is the way of mercy
“And” makes daily, practical love possible

Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See,
pp. 180-181 – Fr. Richard Rohr

NOTE: “In Christianity, Lectio Divina (Latin for divine reading) is a traditional Benedictinepractice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of God’s Word.[1] It does not treat Scripture as texts to be studied, but as the Living Word.” – Wikipedia