Greetings...
A "cold front" is blowing through FL tonight...
Rambunctious squalls are exiting the Gulf and hitting the coastline -- it is raining steadily right now in central city Tampa...
I am sitting on the front porch -- enjoying a slight mist that is lingering in the night air...
I love it!
The rain...
The cooler air...
The turbulence of the storm out there...
The quiet of the porch [nobody else in my crew wants to sit in the mist -- ha! ha!].
The eery lighting of the night in the distance as lightning flashes...
It could not be better [although I do wish it were a little earlier]...
Some reflection time...
I did something nice today because God stirred my heart -- not because I felt compulsed to -- I think I was so moved because of yesterday's reflection and the prayer to the Father that my spirituality would be about DESIRE and LOVE and PASSION, not morose obligation...
I wanted to love out of a loving YES -- a real, deep, authentic and firm YES to God!
I don't want to mislead you -- it was no big thing...
A cup of coffee [cream only] before team started today for our new doc on my hospice team -- Dr Von Rottenthyler [no not Rottenweiler] -- Hugarian born, German reared, USF educated, now LifePath Hospice employed...
A very little thing -- but she was so surprised and so appreciative -- a cup of coffee in Jesus' name goes a long way I guess -- my thrill came from the joy in my heart to serve her...
Did you say a big YES to God today???
For tonight...
Richard Rohr in speaking of the Church in our world today: "I think the Church's numbers, its institutions and traditions have sometimes given it a false sense of power. We think that just because we have the numbers we're influencing culture. Sometimes we're not at all, we're just reflecting the culture. There's a big difference between influencing culture and reflecting it. In many cases the Church tends to reflect the local prejudices and biases much more than influencing and changing them..."
Are we influencing or just reflecting???
Maybe we have been reflecting so long that we have actually lost the numbers and true influence, compromised our spiritual authority and cooled in our passionate and radical love for the people in the world around us???
Henri Nouwen: "The waiting and watching and serving we are called to demands that we become seers, people who discern the coming of God into our midst and in our world. Is there a space in our life where the Spirit of God has a chance to speak or act or show up? Being contemplative means peeling off the blindfolds that keep us from seeing his coming in us and around us, and learning to listen in the spaces of quiet we leave for God...we seem to have a fear of empty spaces. We want to fill up what is empty. Perhaps our fear is that an empty space means that something may happen to us that we cannot predict, that is new, that leads us to a place we might not want to go. I might not want to hear what God has to say..."
Do you hear God's voice calling us to create some space during this Advent season?
Do you sense the need for quiet spaces we leave for God?
I am feeling courage to move beyond my fears -- I want to hear what God has to say NO MATTER WHAT -- this must be God at work...
"perfect love drives out all fear..."
Can you sense his coming afresh in stirring your courage???
What about it -- let's carve out an empty space JUST FOR GOD tomorrow...
I can hardly wait -- I am excited -- both for ME and for YOU!!!
Shalom...
Sleep tight...
Guy
I think my dog would lay out here in the mist with me -- what do you think???
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