Listening to teachers today, and letting them converse and dialogue:(here’s a collage of excerpts of some of my favorites this week….) I like putting wisdom notes in the same room, and see how they converse!

Song of ascents as a metaphor of the spiritual journey. Starting with being fed up with the world entirely. Then setting out on a pilgrimage into God. You start in “trouble” (Ps 120), but necessary trouble to want to thirst and hunger and go on a pilgrimage.
Help me Lord who is the Author and The Finisher. I do not know You well as a Finisher. I have known you as Vision and Creator, but not as Finisher. Help me to learn to know You also as a Finisher. I start so many things, and rarely finish—even my sentences. Help me to walk farther into You as One who both Visions and Finishes. If You were not a Finisher, the entire universe would be a great peril! Thank You for attracting me to these parts of You Father, through Your Son Jesus and His Finished work, and the works, even in me, which He is still finishing.

Also help me not to live by the world’s pressures and anxieties, but to bring my inner being to Your Gentle Being more hourly, so I can stay resonating in and with You. Just to practice being with and in You Lord. Help me often to return to You, and place my being in Your Being. I want that. It is the only safe house, and home. You are my home, help me to live in You.

Meaning is “going towards God”—it is knowing you are going some place—heading deeper into His Character and Nature. That journey never ends, so life is entirely meaningful. We are all getting to know God once we turn towards Him. He is in every direction. And life is worth living, because He lives, as the old song goes. Life is meaningful, because we have met and are getting to know God daily and through all our sufferings and trials and joys. If meaning is man’s central need. God meets that need, as soon as we turn to Him, and try even to follow Him. Life becomes meaningful. It has a purpose. Namely, to know and love God more and more.

Thank You Father for meaning!

Pray scriptures-ie enter, reading as actually listening to God through them—that ignites their living word aspect. We come expectantly listening, and He meets us. So we are transformed. Approach them to meet God, not just to use and find information. We are a user culture-we use one another, we use and brand our gifts and we do the same the sacred text-we use it for our own enlightenment or self help—when the reverse is true. Encountering the Sacred through scriptures is more about God reaching out to us, than us reaching out to Him. The Holy scriptures are an invitation to encounter, be loved, and therefore start loving

Nouwen taught us to be frank and vulnerable with God and one another, but also that we really are each included in The Father’s Love towards His Son—we are actually Loved, so we have to live through our particular struggles through that lens of Love. Since we are beloved…..we are included, adored, poetic wonders, and pleasures to Him; live accordingly!

The songs of Ascent (Psalm 120-134) are a model for the whole spiritual journey. Starting with turning from the world’s systems, and towards God. Saying no, then yes; and then going out on a pilgrimage to God, and continuing to go…as we go, we are discipled by Him. That’s the spiritual journey in a nutshell.

Actually listening to God, not just talking at Him. Christianity is a listening spirituality! It’s relational. A loving relationship is what Jesus made available.

Crisis of meaning. What God does is give you a purpose. The purpose is spiritual growth with Him through life’s circumstances.

An argument for turning towards, because God is turned towards us…

How Desire is meant to work!
“We are God’s desire. And He becomes more and more ours, once we realize His. God actually desires us! Both to know and love us, and therefore guide and comfort us. That is a mystery—the fact that He actually desires to know us, and be with us! God’s search for man! The Hound of Heaven. This is why the prophet’s response is: here I am Lord! It is what Adam and Eve could not say, after the fall. Here I am Lord. Dwell here, with and in me! We most often think of our thwarted desire for God; but rarely risk, thinking about it more from His perspective-more empathetically. If God wants to know and love us, who are we not to say yes! If we realize that God desires us, and we are willing to empathize with that, we attain another motivation for turning towards, and, once we do, find ourselves desiring Him! This is the true nature of how desire is meant to work.”

I let go of ALL my plans, and seek to rest in Yours Father.

Good teachers teach you the architecture of the house before they take you into the house. So you remain oriented throughout the rooms to the whole. This requires humility, but also the gift of teaching.

You have to appreciate teachers who are humble enough and still not too bitter, even after having dealt with the church and many many people through the years, to share what they’ve learned at the end of their lives. Thanks Eugene Peterson. Love endures! And wisdom is actually helpful from those no longer in competition with others. Just trying to help other along the long obedience in the same direction.

Nice letting a few of mine converse here today in a collage form!