Gifts of the Present

"Joy and laughter are gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about. It always strikes me that rich people have much money, while the poor people have much time. And when there is much time life can be celebrated... Money and success are not the problem; the problem is the absence of free, open time when God can be encountered in the present and life can be lifted up in its simple beauty and goodness." Henri Nouwen

Nouwen continues to be one of the most profound Spiritual authors in my opinion. I have been reading his books for the last four years, off and on, whenever I can get my hands on one of his books. I picked up four of his books at a used book sale the other week and have enjoyed reading them. This quote is taken from the book Here and Now.

In time it is as if God keeps prodding me with this aspect of time and simplicity. Showing me how important it is to have rhythm and rhyme to my life. I've learned that the most important things are not about jobs and money, but about relationship and growth in them. I admire my sister as she makes sacrifices right now in her life to make sure that her time is spent as a full time Momma. I see the difficulty of the transition for her family but I know that it is truly a gift from God that they can pursue her being a full time Momma.

I am enjoying these months of spring and summer without school. I'm excited for the upcoming fall, grateful for a graduate assistant ship and the freedom that brings into my life. God does provide, I'm learning to trust that and rest assured in his faithfulness.

The lessons of life, they never stop happening.

gratitude

I am thankful today for:

time with my sister
sunshine and thunderstorms
newly born neices
library books that are new and inviting
early mornings spent with Him and a cup of coffee

Book Review

I picked up Thomas Moore's book Soul Care when we were in Wellsboro for our honeymoon. It was in a used book store, I had heard good things about it before, so I decided to give it a go.

Moore was a Catholic Monk for twelve years and is an astute scholar. He hold three different degrees in theology, music, and pyschology. This book is his thoughts on how one can take care of their soul, how important it is to take care of your soul, and the lack of soul tending that is in society today.

I found this book intriguing. It dealt with some of the issues that I have been faced with in my own life and the desire that I have for beauty and simplicity. Moore writes on the importance of taking care of your soul through and sacredness. He writes of spirituality, how religion is sometimes not enough for the depth of the soul. There is a lot of retelling of mythical tales throughout, the stories of the greek gods. He interweaves the symbolism of these tales and what they tell us about living throughout the book.

The last three chapters of the book were by far my favorite and in my opinion the basis of the book. Within these chapters he writes of rythm, ritual, and connecting your head to your heart. There is a lot of writing about the sacredness in the ordinary and how we can experience that in everyday life. Moore says that "culturally we have a plastic espohagus, suited perhaps to fast food and fast living, but not conducive to the soul, which thrives only when life is taken in in a long slow process of digestion and absorption" (206). In this quote, Moore hits on the radical pace of American life, how fast we go without time for reflection and rest.

I think that Moore spends to much time in teaching how to understand dreams and the images that we see in our sleep. Although I do agree that our dreams do speak into our lives, I could have had a lot less of this within the book. His writing is at times weighty and hard to read through but all in all this was a good book. I would recomend this book if you were looking for ways to slow down, searching for your identity, or simply wanting to cultivate ordinary sacredness in life.

I shall end this with a quote that Moore has on how we can care for the soul through sacredness. He says that "To live with a high degree of artfulness means to attend to the small things that keep the soul engaged in whatever we are doing, and it is the very heart of soul-making" (285).