A Snail’s Pace: Beauty, prayer, and rhythms of rest.
image shot at Fourth of July campground Trail, New Mexico
Current Readings
The Invisible Embrace: Beauty by John O’Donohue
The subtitle is Rediscovering The True Stories of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope. Every bit of this book even the titles offer invitations to just sit with before even opening the pages beyond the covers image portraying the green hills of Ireland.
A slow reading “Yes!” For me the Introduction was not a skimming: “The Cry of Our Times: To Awaken Beauty”—sitting with this invites reflection alone. And here’s a little more:
“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time…”
Only twenty pages in thus far, the words of O’Donohue and others he quotes take time to hear, really speak and to wonder and maybe even ask where is this going. These words I’m reading, I know they are touching places within.
“To behold beauty dignifies your life; it heals you and calls you out beyond the smallness of your own self-limitation to experience new horizons. To experience beauty is to have your life enlarged.” (20)
Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
This one has been floating around our shelves and floor space. I finally picked it up when a good friend recommended a portion to read of Willard’s writing. I took the bait with the gift of remembering I can read “portions” of a book and they don’t always need to be read front to back (or back to front often how I read magazines). So I began in Chapter 7: The Community of Prayerful Love, a challenge and helpful, inviting reflection and pauses within each portion upon portion. Here are a few lingerings still doing something within:
“a description of prayer is simply “Talking to God about what we are doing together” (243)
“Laughter is so good for our health, it is even a symbol of redemption for there is no greater incongruity in all creation than redemption.” (238)
“prayer is above all a means for forming character. It combines freedom and power with service and love”
Another kind and engaging read has been: Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom In The Rhythms of Rest by Lynne M. Baab. If you haven’t read a book on Sabbath, I recommend this one. Her suggestions are gentle and come from her own life experiences living through various seasons of life and places.
This is one (just finishing 2020-2021 year) has turned into a soothing and helpful evening reading—again slow, also laid out weekly. I’ll be picking up the newest version 2022-2023 to begin in November. I highly recommend this Gospel way of engaging with the Scriptures if you’ve enjoyed learning, practicing and exploring Lectio Divina. I love this book because it also includes prayers and reflective questions if you’d like to journal or sit with more.
Podcasts:
Being Known with Curt Thompson M.D.
Discerning Leader with Steve Macchia
Mystic & Makers with host Stephen Roach Two recent favorites for you, The Art of Receiving with Strahan and The Poetics of Restoration with Malcolm Guite
