Excerpts from my presentation tonight
for Cabrini "Continuing Education" program:
TAKING “SABBATH” as a way of RESTING IN GOD
SABBATH ORIGINS:
JEWISH: Out of Genesis 2: SABBATH in over 25 passages in Hebrew and Christian Scriptures
Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy: The 10 Commandments
CHRISTIAN: Jesus, the Gospels & the Sabbath: His Practice of Going away to rest & pray ;
Practicing Compassion; Love your neighbor as you love yourself
ISLAM ... Koran enjoins the sabbath in over six passages
HINDU ... From the Upanishads ; festivals in India and Bali call for a day to turn off all power.
BUDDHIST ... meditation, communally and individually, discplines the mind and renews body
SABBATH TOOLS:
· Commit weekly to a time of 1-3 hours, a half day or full day – outside of Mass -
· In solitude or shared with a loved one
· Try “fasting” from electronics of any kind
· Feast on what else there is that is life-giving around you
· Begin by Lighting a Candle(s) … to connect with Tradition
· Place keys, phone, TV controller, etc. and petitions in a Sabbath box
· Bell or Gong (or alarm, if you must) to begin and end your sacred time
· Sacred Space or Altar with icons, images, mementos lead you into Sabbath rest
· Book of reflections or prayers which leads you to your Inner Sanctuary
· Walking stick or binoculars … to encounter Nature out your front door
· Favorite prayer practice or Scripture/Poem – for centering, grounding in rel. with God
· Musical instrument (or favorite quiet background music /guided meditation CD)
· Silence is your friend and can be a companion … leading you to deep self and to God with you.
** Whatever sensations or emotions arise in the time for Being, once attended to, will grow you, like a garden, winter into spring.
SABBATH RESOURCES & BOOKS:
Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller
The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel and Susannah Heschel
Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr;
Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton
Out of Solitude: Three Meditations by Henri J. M. Nouwen
Resting in God: Guided Meditations for Everyday Life (Audio CD) by Tim Malone
FOR MORE INFO ON SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
AND UPCOMING RETREATS/ SEMINARS:
www.Ignatiancenter.org ; www.TimMalone.org
Monday, January 11, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Two Benevolent Encounters (and upcoming 4 week Series on Meditation!)
Haiku: “Swirl”
11.28.09
Pine needles
Swirl
In pond
Revealing patterns:
What Being
Traces
11.28.09
Pine needles
Swirl
In pond
Revealing patterns:
What Being
Traces
Zen
(-fully)?
© TJM 2010
“Greeting Wild Robin”
12.3.09
Each morn'
Before sunrise
Outside my window in a holly tree
Waits
A plump, orange-breasted Robin.
Upon opening shutters
We greet
With our eyes,
head tilted in curiosity.
Benevolent Glances.
Together we watch the dawn rising
Over frosted rooftops
Until she begins to sing,
And poop and eat red berry,
Eyes meeting mine now and again;
Until one of us must needs
Travel on our way
Into the sunlit day
Perchance, full,
With Wild Communion,
We, two,
Companioned Souls.
© TJM 2010, www.timmalone.org
Are you looking ways to deepen your meditation and prayer life?
Do you desire a closer walk with the Divine each and every day?
Would you like to “try on” different styles of praying?
(-fully)?
© TJM 2010
“Greeting Wild Robin”
12.3.09
Each morn'
Before sunrise
Outside my window in a holly tree
Waits
A plump, orange-breasted Robin.
Upon opening shutters
We greet
With our eyes,
head tilted in curiosity.
Benevolent Glances.
Together we watch the dawn rising
Over frosted rooftops
Until she begins to sing,
And poop and eat red berry,
Eyes meeting mine now and again;
Until one of us must needs
Travel on our way
Into the sunlit day
Perchance, full,
With Wild Communion,
We, two,
Companioned Souls.
© TJM 2010, www.timmalone.org
Are you looking ways to deepen your meditation and prayer life?
Do you desire a closer walk with the Divine each and every day?
Would you like to “try on” different styles of praying?
Ways of Praying
A Four-week Introductory series
Exploring Spiritual Disciplines
including sitting in Silence.
A Four-week Introductory series
Exploring Spiritual Disciplines
including sitting in Silence.
Begins Tuesday January 12th.
Each evening will include teaching and a guided prayer experience (including prayer with scripture, prayer in the tradition of Saints Benedict and Ignatius, and prayer with silence). Later in the evening, participants may choose to take part in silent reflection or small group faith sharing.
Facilitators: Tim Malone, MDiv, and Rosanne Michaels, MATS
Tim and Rosanne are both spiritual directors and retreat leaders in the Puget Sound area. Both have facilitated prayer experiences at the Ignatian Spirituality Center, and are directors of the Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life.
Dates: Tuesdays, January 12, 19, 26, February 2nd
Facilitators: Tim Malone, MDiv, and Rosanne Michaels, MATS
Tim and Rosanne are both spiritual directors and retreat leaders in the Puget Sound area. Both have facilitated prayer experiences at the Ignatian Spirituality Center, and are directors of the Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life.
Dates: Tuesdays, January 12, 19, 26, February 2nd
Time: 7:00 -9:00 pm
Place: “Cathedral Place” behind St. James, Downtown Seattle
Directions: www.st.james-cathedral.org
Place: “Cathedral Place” behind St. James, Downtown Seattle
Directions: www.st.james-cathedral.org
Register: email hoesterle@stjames-cathedral.org
Questions? Call Helen Oesterle at 206-382-4514
“The light within us and within all things
needs to be enkindled
by our acts of love,
our emptiness,
our reaching out.”
Patrick Twohy, SJ
Monday, December 28, 2009
Winter as time for Being
The light is returning yet our energy may seem sapped or drained out of us. Many of us feel pretty tuckered out by this point in the season and some of us crash, physically (sickness, sugar) or emotionally. This season can be a time of harvesting the fruits of the year by simple spending time "doing" nothing, that is, by "being" for a day or two. Do you notice the body calling you to just rest, to lean into the winter "blanket"?
For me, this is when naps and creativity take more front and center. These seemingly "unproductive" activities can mean loads of space for something new to grow in the next season or at least a chance to let the soil take a much needed breather!
Suggestions:
Go take a walk and see what nature is doing, (or being!).
Write a journal entry or a poem about where you at this time of year.
Sing or paint, create a meal which is nourishing.
What else might fit into "being" activity for you?
What if you saw your life as largely un -charted territory…
For me, this is when naps and creativity take more front and center. These seemingly "unproductive" activities can mean loads of space for something new to grow in the next season or at least a chance to let the soil take a much needed breather!
Suggestions:
Go take a walk and see what nature is doing, (or being!).
Write a journal entry or a poem about where you at this time of year.
Sing or paint, create a meal which is nourishing.
What else might fit into "being" activity for you?
Question for meditating upon this season of New Light, new beginnings:
What if you saw your life as largely un -charted territory…
with infinite choices
that could each be lived "in the light," with divine inspiration at your back?
Monday, December 21, 2009
For my ally is ... (May the light be with you!)
Today is the Solstice: the first day of winter yet marks the beginning of light returning and longer days a burning.
Isn't that just like life?
The first day of the (often) most dreaded season and yet a new beginning for the Light, that fiery glow on the horizon which makes life possible here on earth. "Light," by the way, is the most prominant positive image of the Divine which is shared in spiritual traditions worldwide.
I offer a snippet of conversation heard on the street in NW: "Isn't it great the sun came out today - I need that light -vitamin D -bring it on! "so tell me, HOW ARE YOU??"
What if we said when people asked this common question: "Ah, I am glad you asked. the Light is my ally. When I am feeling myself IN the light, connected to the light (Divine, God, etc.) my whole being is well. I am well, right here and now, thank you."
The ancient Yule, welcoming the light, was a communal practice in the British Isles, a community celebrating for days in just this kind of spirit! Maybe you are like me: I sure like to fill myself with food and glittery trees and presents for the holidays. Yet I wonder: what if I focused my gaze each morning before all this holydays/holi-daze on answering this question:
Who is my ally?
What if we thought not of a person, or an image (of God), nor a concept only (Love) but a felt experience...
Another way to ask this might be: What is the primary ally which gives life, (and is not the sun or the earth) but the force behind the light, the Source and essence behind all of life? What might that be, for you?
Any one of us might answer this with a million different responses or descriptions. Today, my answer would be: "the Light or the Force." This, for me, draws and sustains my essence, even when I am not aware. This is my primary relationship, winter and summer, pain of loss or joy of just being alive in a forest. This is what is behind a mass of people across the planet feel moved by films and stories such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter: "The Force," "and magic are just other images for this all-pervading, life-sustaining energy which comes from ... that which made us. "The Force be with you" was director George Lucas just slipping in a different word for the first greeting the catholic priest gives at Mass: "The Lord be with You." It is curious that when the census asks for "religion practiced" hundreds of thousands say "Jedi/the Force." As a teacher of comparative religion this is essentialy the same as saying, in the East, the Tao (Ying Yang), and the West, the (Holy) Spirit. Thus, its not just a silly movie or a new moder myth, its pointing to something people have experienced as real for ten thousand years.
Yoda, the little Jedi master/teacher in Star Wars 6 movies, says it like this :
"For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes."
There will always be this movement toward balance: light and dark, emergence and shadow, life and death, ending and new beginning. This is happening to us all, individually and collectively. This is happening to me at present, if I take a moment to sit, settle and notice the movements in my life. Or stop in a church or sacred temple for five minutes. Or "treat" myself to a massage, other treatment such acupuncture/cranial sacred/alternative medicine. All of these "alternative" modalities are about balance; and compliment western medicine beautifully because of this primary focus. Opening myself to these many ways of finding balance have also opened up my image of God -- and allowed the Light -- to show me how the real God works...
A student at the Seattle Institute for Oriental medicine looked at my website and wrote, it seems you are "Forging a new path in relatively unaddressed field …" Whatever that field might be called, for me, it must always come back to the source -- experience and relationship to deepest connection in life. When i write haiku I notice "the Force" meditates me, that is, flows through me into words on a page. Experience becomes form. Life speaks, through me, as it were. On Christmas day I will post a few of these peaches (or mangoes?). Scroll down to earlier posts for to taste poems ripened on my tree -- from last year in Thailand and this year in the Northwest.
MAY THE LIGHT BE WITH YOU!
Isn't that just like life?
The first day of the (often) most dreaded season and yet a new beginning for the Light, that fiery glow on the horizon which makes life possible here on earth. "Light," by the way, is the most prominant positive image of the Divine which is shared in spiritual traditions worldwide.
I offer a snippet of conversation heard on the street in NW: "Isn't it great the sun came out today - I need that light -vitamin D -bring it on! "so tell me, HOW ARE YOU??"
What if we said when people asked this common question: "Ah, I am glad you asked. the Light is my ally. When I am feeling myself IN the light, connected to the light (Divine, God, etc.) my whole being is well. I am well, right here and now, thank you."
The ancient Yule, welcoming the light, was a communal practice in the British Isles, a community celebrating for days in just this kind of spirit! Maybe you are like me: I sure like to fill myself with food and glittery trees and presents for the holidays. Yet I wonder: what if I focused my gaze each morning before all this holydays/holi-daze on answering this question:
Who is my ally?
What if we thought not of a person, or an image (of God), nor a concept only (Love) but a felt experience...
Another way to ask this might be: What is the primary ally which gives life, (and is not the sun or the earth) but the force behind the light, the Source and essence behind all of life? What might that be, for you?
Any one of us might answer this with a million different responses or descriptions. Today, my answer would be: "the Light or the Force." This, for me, draws and sustains my essence, even when I am not aware. This is my primary relationship, winter and summer, pain of loss or joy of just being alive in a forest. This is what is behind a mass of people across the planet feel moved by films and stories such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter: "The Force," "and magic are just other images for this all-pervading, life-sustaining energy which comes from ... that which made us. "The Force be with you" was director George Lucas just slipping in a different word for the first greeting the catholic priest gives at Mass: "The Lord be with You." It is curious that when the census asks for "religion practiced" hundreds of thousands say "Jedi/the Force." As a teacher of comparative religion this is essentialy the same as saying, in the East, the Tao (Ying Yang), and the West, the (Holy) Spirit. Thus, its not just a silly movie or a new moder myth, its pointing to something people have experienced as real for ten thousand years.
Yoda, the little Jedi master/teacher in Star Wars 6 movies, says it like this :
"For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes."
There will always be this movement toward balance: light and dark, emergence and shadow, life and death, ending and new beginning. This is happening to us all, individually and collectively. This is happening to me at present, if I take a moment to sit, settle and notice the movements in my life. Or stop in a church or sacred temple for five minutes. Or "treat" myself to a massage, other treatment such acupuncture/cranial sacred/alternative medicine. All of these "alternative" modalities are about balance; and compliment western medicine beautifully because of this primary focus. Opening myself to these many ways of finding balance have also opened up my image of God -- and allowed the Light -- to show me how the real God works...
A student at the Seattle Institute for Oriental medicine looked at my website and wrote, it seems you are "Forging a new path in relatively unaddressed field …" Whatever that field might be called, for me, it must always come back to the source -- experience and relationship to deepest connection in life. When i write haiku I notice "the Force" meditates me, that is, flows through me into words on a page. Experience becomes form. Life speaks, through me, as it were. On Christmas day I will post a few of these peaches (or mangoes?). Scroll down to earlier posts for to taste poems ripened on my tree -- from last year in Thailand and this year in the Northwest.
MAY THE LIGHT BE WITH YOU!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Meditation from new audio CD "Resting in God"
In these darkest days before the Light returns
what if :
you gave yourself a gift
of a quiet moment,
to sit on our favorite chair,
to breathe,
to sink into
the moment,
take a break
from the busy-ness
of holi-daze ...
read this meditation aloud or
silently,
as you wish...
Be Still …
and
Be Found.
Be
Still …
Be
in
the
Silence.
Be . . .
Here,
Be . . .
Home ...
in
this
moment.
Be … with
what
Is.
Be Freed . . .
from suffering…
constant movement,
response, reaction.
Be released . . .
from seeking,
for a moment.
Let yourself
be found . . .
as you are.
Be still
and Know . . .
that you
are found
In the Heart
of Love.
Be
Still.
Be
Found.
At
Last!
Timothy J. Malone, © 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
From Outer space to Exploring Inner space
From Outer space to Inner space: "to boldly go where ..." “
I love “outer space” and the limitless imagination of authors and filmmakers to dream of what the future might be, at its best for all humanity. Hearing my musing a friend of mine noted, “its seems to me that you help people explore inner space.”
I could not deny the accuracy of this image and the call of deep within me to / walk with others as they unfold more and more authentically on the journey we name Life.
"Spiritual direction" is the field of Spirituality in which one person accompanies another on their spiritual journey with the explicit intention of supporting that "Life unfolding in each person." click on the link below to continue reading this about this passion and call for my life as I meet with around 10 people a month in person and via skype as far as Colorado and Costa Rica ... http://www.timmalone.org/tim_malone_spiritual.htm
Review of the new CD Resting in God, (Resting in Silence):
“I listened to your CD in my car while I am driving. It’s such a precious jewel that you have made, a wonderful gift you have put out into the world. I am really glad to have received it.” Dr. Spring Cheng, JourneyDance and Joyful Spring.com
I love “outer space” and the limitless imagination of authors and filmmakers to dream of what the future might be, at its best for all humanity. Hearing my musing a friend of mine noted, “its seems to me that you help people explore inner space.”
I could not deny the accuracy of this image and the call of deep within me to / walk with others as they unfold more and more authentically on the journey we name Life.
"Spiritual direction" is the field of Spirituality in which one person accompanies another on their spiritual journey with the explicit intention of supporting that "Life unfolding in each person." click on the link below to continue reading this about this passion and call for my life as I meet with around 10 people a month in person and via skype as far as Colorado and Costa Rica ... http://www.timmalone.org/tim_malone_spiritual.htm
Review of the new CD Resting in God, (Resting in Silence):
“I listened to your CD in my car while I am driving. It’s such a precious jewel that you have made, a wonderful gift you have put out into the world. I am really glad to have received it.” Dr. Spring Cheng, JourneyDance and Joyful Spring.com
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