Tag: #peace

REVERENCE TIPS Day20

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming
into the world. He was in the world, and the world came
into being through him.

John 1:9-10

In my understanding Jesus was not a saviour, but he was a living example of God’s existence and presence in us all. Jesus came to the world to show the way out of the Darkness back to the Loving Embrace of the Creator, the Divine. He enlightens us all by giving us ‘tools’ by which we can rise above our own limitations, fears and misconceptions if we wish so.

This is our great work—to shine our divine light and share our joy every day, all year round. To be that light even when we, or those around us, may feel alone, don’t smell any cookies, or see lights, or hear carolers. The reminder this holiday season is to celebrate the divinity that we are, and joyously share our light with the world.

Rev. DeeAnn Morency

HAFIZ

In the name of utter joy 🙂

HAFIZ – THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Hafiz, the Golden Compass from I hear God laughing by Daniel Ladinsky

That everything, everything in existence
Does point to God.

Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King’s beggars –
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
and those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues,
The ones you can trust for true guidance –
Who can aid you
In this blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz,
Look at the Perfect One at the circle’s center:
He spins and whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is rational,
To show this dear world
That everything, everything in existence
Does point to God.

Hafiz – The Golden Compass from I hear God Laughing translated by Daniel Landinsky

REVERENCE TIPS Day19

On this day of Advent,
I remember to live in joy.

Do you remember Joy, the ever buzzy and hyper blue-haired girl from INSIDE OUT? She is the epitome of exuberant joy!

“Do you ever look at someone and wonder, “What is going on inside their head?” 

Joy, Inside Out

As you can learn from the movie as well, Joy is a matter of choice just like any other feelings such as sadness, anger, or fear. Though we are not aware of it most of time because we are on auto-pilot most of the time when it comes to generating emotions, the truth of the matter is that we chose our emotional reactions to any situations. There are many great learned speakers out there who share about the mechanics of how that actually happens. I am not going to go into details right now.

I wish to share about entering a state of Joy. How? JOY taught me that you can take on the lenses of a wonderous child and chose to look at life from an angel of ‘that’s interesting!’. When people do things that I do not usually like, instead of judging it and making my way of doing things the right way, I simply state that ‘it is an interesting way’ of doing things and move on. Or, when someone is rude, I notice the fear behind their words and state that ‘it is an interesting way of responding’ then I move on. I am practicing turning it all on their good side. Why? Because there is a LOT that cannot be controlled in life so I’d simple better accept it as it is. I don’t have to like it, in most cases I don’t even have to live with it, nor do I need to judge it. I keep myself uplifted by staying observant and curious. I chose to find situations funny instead of annoying. It is simply a choice.

Pixar’s Inside Out.

REVERENCE TIPS Day18

The Joy of Anticipation

Hm, I noticed that JOY and LOVE the last two themes of Advent are interchangeable. I chose JOY to be the theme of the 3rd week because I believe that LOVE overrides all other qualities of Spirit.

On this day of Advent,
I remember to savor the joy of anticipation.

I remember that when I was a child I so looked forward to Christmas. I was excited about the presents that I would receive, that many distant family members would visit and that we will have a noisy house for a few days. I loved that we spent days visiting different relatives, that we ate strange food that my mum never cooked and that I felt free to run rampant because everyone was too busy or drunk to notice.

Now, Christmas is a chore. I need to help out, cook, clean, buy presents and do other rather boring tasks. I do not look forward to Christmas any more because Christmas time became a consumer event and lost its magic for me.

Today, I was thinking that I would like to bring back the joy of anticipation into my Christmas time; anticipating peace by withdrawing from the world; anticipating more time for myself and sleeping more; anticipating doing activities that lift my Spirit and bring me joy.

THIS IS A LINK TO A VERY SWEET ANIMATION – FULL OF SWEETNESS AND JOY! WATCH IT. (it cannot be embeded in a website, so you will need to follow THIS LINK (CLICK))

REVERENCE TIPS Day17

Saint John of the Cross – 14 December

Silence is God’s first language! WOW! How true. It maybe difficult to believe but the Silence truly has so much to reveal to those who seek a deeper meaning of Life. As long as we are lost to the word and wish to achieve great achievements, the mind rules our existence. As soon as, we realize that true living comes with withdrawing from the business of life, we will also notice the many faces of the Silence. Unfortunately, it is impossible to put it into words. Everyone experiences the depth of the Silence and communion with the Divine in the Silence differently.

I simply love the Joy and the Calmness of the Silence as it wraps itself around my being like a cozy blanket. I feel safe and embraced in the Silence of the Creator. I sense ‘his’ soothing words without hearing them.

It may be no accident that St. John of the Cross’ feast day is celebrated during the Advent season (December 14). For it is he who is best known for his moving account of the “dark night of the soul” that all seekers must experience on their way to God. He is the great mystic of Advent, who says that we are “face-to-face with Love’s own grace.” What wonderful words to ponder!

Saint John of the Cross was a 16th century reformer of the Carmelite way of life. In contrast to John’s lofty poetry, he took for himself the most menial jobs wherever he was. He served those with the most gruesome diseases before he entered monastery life. Together with Saint Teresa of Avila, he lived the primitive Rule of their Order, and paid a dear price for his commitment to reform and authentic living. Saint John of the Cross died in 1591.

REVERENCE TIPS Day16

The Feast of Saint Lucia

I love the traditions of St. Luca or St. Lucy. The feast and celebrations on the 13 December is centered on the annual struggle between light and darkness on the Northern Hemisphere. It heralds the coming of Love and Light that enables humanity to awaken from the darkness and walk Home with guidance.

A “story of a young girl bringing light in the midst of darkness no doubt held great meaning for people who, in the midst of a North Sea December, were longing for the relief of warmth and light”

Some of the interesting Festivities from around the world

Saint Lucy is one of the few saints celebrated by the overwhelmingly Lutheran Nordic people — Danes; Swedes; Finns and Norwegians but also in the United States and Canada and Italy as well as in central Europe.

St. Lucia was a Roman young woman who became a Christian martyr about 300 AD. Lucia gave her dowry to poor Roman Christians on her wedding day, was condemned as a traitor, and was to be burned at the stake. The flames did not harm her, so her executioners killed her with a sword. Years later, when Sweden was suffering from famine and despair, legend tells how St. Lucia appeared one cold and dark winter night and brought food and light to the people of Sweden. A similar thing happened in Italy. There was a famine, and families gathered in a cathedral on her feast day, Dec. 13 th, to pray. Legend says two ships showed up with wheat, Lucia at the helm. She was dressed in white with candles on her head. (St. Lucia is the patron saint for fishermen and is said to guide them home during rough seas. )

SOURCE

It is speculated that the St. Lucy’s Day celebrations in Scandinavia alone may retain a few indigenous Germanic pagan, pre-Christian midwinter elements inherited from Yule.

In Croatia, Hungary and some their neighbouring countries, a popular tradition on Saint Lucy’s Day involves planting wheat grains; nowadays this serves as symbol of the new life born in Bethlehem, with a candle sometimes placed in the middle of the new plant as a symbol of the Light of Christ that Saint Lucia brings. Interestingly, it is in actuality one of the many pagan traditions found in Croatia and other Slavic nations, that once served as part of rituals to appease their many deities and fairies, which were mostly forgotten after their Christianization. Traditions such as this one stubbornly live on to this day, the deities and original meanings long forgotten, their meanings simply replaced with ones more in accordance with Christianity. The real reason wheat was and is planted at this time, or on the Day of Saint Barbara, is because the density, color and richness of the shoots will foretell how the upcoming yield will be, as well as increase the chances of it being a good one.

SOURCE

SOURCE of other quotes

At the link there is a lot of information on different interesting traditions the way people celebrate St. Luca’s day around the world. LINK HERE

REVERENCE TIPS Day15

JOY

Tonight as we light another candle on our Advent Wreath – if we do – we light the candle of JOY.

Joy empowers you. It makes you undefeatable. If you can laugh at it all you are invincible, no one can get to you, the world cannot push you or pull you.

Joy is a choice.

As we focus into Spirit more and more instead of the World that can only offer confusion and drama, we start becoming freer and lighter. The less we allow the world to hold our attention into the never-ending scary chaos, the more we enter the world of the Joy of Spirit, the more we turn towards fun stuff that make us happy.

I simply draw more … What do you do more of when you are not concerned with the state of the world? What type of activities make you happy? What brings smiles onto your face?

REVERENCE TIPS Day14

What is Advent?

Advent is a season of candlelight, reflection, and expectation. For believers, Advent represents a multi-faceted period during which to prepare for the birth of Christ, celebrate faith in and conversion to Christianity, and anticipate the eventual resurrection of the son of God. Christians traditionally pray, sing, and light an additional candle on each Advent Sunday until all of the candles are lit on the fourth Sunday. A fifth, white candle known as the Christ candle sometimes sits unlit in the center of the wreath; it is only lit on Christmas Eve.

It is the 14th day of Advent which started on the night of the 28th of November this year. It gets dark soon. It is pretty miserable most days: gloomy and damp or freezing cold and crispy. The sun hardly shines and feels as if it is dark most of the time. In central Europe where I am stationed at the moment, we cannot complain. In Alaska or northern Sweden, sun does not even rise for months. It is a miserable time and I am not surprised that most of us cannot wait for the Winter Solstice to arrive on the 21st of December bringing more day light with it.

Last year I bought tons of ‘plastic’ candles that run on battery. I keep them on all day and night to give myself a positive boost of ‘light’. This year I am realizing that there is not much I can do about either the weather or the darkness. All I can do is spend my time with enjoyable and fun things to lift my mood.

Yesterday I shared about a Hallmark film – Let it snow – that lists different fun traditions around Christmas time. As I was watching the film I realized that all we need is to have fun. We are attached to gloom and doom. We recycle our human drama daily in the shape of wars, epidemics, personal misfortunes, and more. Instead we could just have fun.

The drama will never cease! We, humans, are tragedy generators – read Romeo and Juliet? – so it is simply unavoidable to have some kind of disaster going on in our lives all the time. So, the best we can do is to have fun nevertheless. As opposed to crying over our misfortunes all the time, we could defy our fate and find things that lifts our spirit and make us smile.

I am going to make some fun ART today! 🙂 A funny snail maybe! 🙂

What is my tip for today?

MAKE YOURSELF SMILE!

Sources

REVERENCE TIPS Day13

When it gets colder, the days get shorter I start watching Hallmark Christmas movies. I love them. They are so bad that they are good! 🙂 They are cozy an comforting. I wrap myself around with my duvet, make some hot chocolate then sit on my sofa and watch these heavenly sweet movies endlessly.

This one is one of my favorite. Not only because it a great story of change at Christmas but because the movie introduces many different Christmas traditions from around the world.

I will write more about those traditions that I plan to try this year. 🙂

What is my tip for today?

Watch movies and read books that warm your heart, that make you feel the Spirit of the Season: Love is all around! 🙂