What am I looking for?

The symbol of the heart has often been used to express love…… Some have questioned whether this symbol is still meaningful today. Yet living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart

Instead of running after superficial satisfactions and playing a role for the benefit of others, we would do better to think about the really important questions in life. Who am I, really? What am I looking for? What direction do I want to give to my life, my decisions and my actions? Why and for what purpose am I in this world? How do I want to look back on my life once it ends? What meaning do I want to give to all my experiences? …All these questions lead us back to the heart.

Pope Francis, Dilexit Nos

finding a place of rest in the midst of things

now air is air and thing is thing
now wind is wind

on forever’s very now we stand.

e.e.cummings, from No Thanks

Remind yourself when you are being blown about

After a very wild and windy day in Ireland….

The Tao is always at ease.
It overcomes without competing,
answers without speaking a word,
arrives without being summoned,
accomplishes without a plan.

Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, 73 [Mitchell translation]

Longings and limitations

Happiness is not a reward for virtue, nor a gift of the gods.

It is the natural state of a mind that has learned to balance its longings with its limitations.

The rituals of religion once taught this; we must now learn it consciously

Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists

Sunday Quote: dancing

When I am grateful,

I am neither rushing nor slouching through my day-

I’m dancing.

David Steindl Rast

Do nothing

Waiting is one of the themes of Advent.

“Wait on the Lord” is a constant refrain in the Psalms, and it is a necessary word, for God often keeps us waiting.

He is not in such a hurry as we are, and it is not his way to give more light on the future than we need for action in the present, or to guide us more than one step at a time.

When in doubt, do nothing, but continue to wait on God. When action is needed, light will come.

J.J Packer, Knowing God