A Walk in the Woods by: Murray Bodo

A Walk in the Woods by: Murray Bodo in Song of the Sparrow
What is this prayer of fall? Mostly it rises from an emptiness caused by nature’s dying into winter. And in a sense this emptiness, this longing to live, is the beginning of all prayer. I walk into the bleak November woods and I want to believe that I am not alone, that this loneliness is illusion only. And so I reach out and call upon God and I am no longer alone. For there behind the wet, behind the black trees, behind my own feelings, is He who walked the same earth and entered into its dark soil only to rise again opening forever the dark recesses of the earth and of the heart of man. And I thank him and this too is prayer.

A Life Beyond Myself

It’s not for me, not to self-improve, or to appear valuable in the world.
It’s not for the pursuit of superficial peace of mind to soothe an ache I’ve given my own head.
It’s not to beat the guy next door and climb climb up that endless ladder.
It’s only for the in and out breath of life received and exhaled in praise of the Creator.
It’s only for the moves made by the stirrings of Spirit and eternity.
Life is not what we’ve made it, it is much bigger than we can attain, or understand.
Life is the expression of the divine manifesting itself in earthly flesh and blood.
It’s not for me, but through me to you, not to possess, but to express.
It’s not mine to hold, keep and guard.
It loses its liveliness cooped up within the limitations of man.
Life is in me, but beyond me connecting to God.
Apart from Christ there is no such thing as life.
Apart from Christ one’s life is only an accumulation of lessons learned and personal aspirations within the structures of a fallen world.
Life as I have known it pales in comparison to the life I’m being shown through the redemption of Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but simply Christ in me.
The only hope for glory.

Shower Thought

God, in His mercy, allows us to go through shit in life so that we do not mistake it for brownies later on. 

Shower Thought

"I'll get to the bottom of this!" cried Sherlock whilst gulping down his beer. 

Sections of Rumi's "Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion"

"The Lion's Shoulder" by Rumi the Sufi Poet
Don't worry so much about livelihood.
Your livelihood will turn out as it should.
Be constantly occupied instead
with listening to God.

How is it that you ask for physical comfort,
and not for true existence?

Why are you so blind to what the soul needs?
Weep for yourself as when a cloud weeps,
and then the branch freshens. As when a candle
releases tears and gets brighter.

You have been imitating spirituality.

Imitation is a lock on your chest.
Dissolve it with tears.

Imitation is a blind man describing a landscape
with beautiful words. There's no heart knowledge.

The blind man gets excited with the words,
but you feel the distance between him and the beauty.
The words burn but there's no warmth, and no broken-open-ness.

Had those words been written inside him,
his body would have shivered into particles.

You have been doing such things with the name of
GOD.
So the imitator doesn't know what he's fooling with. God thinks,
"You fake. Sinai crumbled and split with jets of blood streaming from it
for the sake of the name that you say so thoughtlessly.

You learned it from your mother and father,
not from your own experience."

"The LORD says, 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."
Isaiah 29:13