E&W 8-18-13

Sacred Story

Encouragements & Wisdom: August 18, 2013

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Encouragements and Wisdom: August 18, 2013 (PDF).

E & W reflections are additional helps for your Sacred Story prayer journey. Reflect on them at week’s beginning or outside of your 15-minute prayer periods.

Silence

A Jesuit friend of mine calls prayer and times of spiritual retreat as “wasting time with the Lord.” Of course, it is not wasted time. He is challenging the “productive” bent of modern society where all our efforts must produce material advantage. Our “smart phones” are one such productive tool that more and more of us, me included, get hooked on. We buy into the idea that these tools will allow to us be constantly available for “producing” something.

I am working hard to get myself unhooked from this “dumb phone” because a new study shows that those of us who rely on them are beset with what researchers are calling “digital dementia.” We are using our brains less and less as we rely on the “dumb phone” to answer all our questions for us. Statistics show we now “consult” our “dumb phone” over 160 times a day.

As we become more electronically connected, there is the very real danger of becoming less and less attuned to the spiritual world. These past weeks, I have been suggesting that you try different ways to open to the spiritual world which requires quiet and silence. A good experiment is to try incorporating a “shut-off time” during the week for your computer and phones. Make it easy at first. Try turning the phone off at 8 PM and the computer at 9 PM. Do it consciously so you can wind down, find some peace of heart and mind and open more to God’s voice in your heart, in creation, and in the beauty around you.

Lord Jesus, may I find some time each day where I unhook from the electronic grid
and open to the spiritual world in
Creation, Presence, Memory, Mercy and Eternity.

I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me.
The LORD heard my cry.
He drew me out of the pit of destruction,
out of the mud of the swamp;
he set my feet upon a crag;
he made firm my steps.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.
Many shall look on in awe
and trust in the LORD.
Though I am afflicted and poor,
yet the LORD thinks of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O my God, hold not back!

(Psalm 40: 2, 3, 4, 18)

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