Consuming

 

This morning I sat eating my usual bowl of overnight oats, scanning the heartbreaking headlines about the devastation Ida left in Louisiana, military families grieving, the crisis in Afghanistan, COVID 19 cases, masks mandates...with each word I consumed my soul ached a bit more.  I realized that just as I feed my body, so I feed my mind, heart, and soul.  Just as I exercised my body this morning, so what I was consuming and reading was exercising my mind, heart, and soul.

We don't often think about what we are consuming...or what is consuming/occupying/feeding our dis-ease with the world today.

If all we hear is brokenness, that cause and create brokenness within us.

This is not to say we should just bury our heads in the sand.

But have you ever stopped to wonder what a 24-hour news cycle does to your soul?

Have you ever stopped to wonder what constantly consuming misery does to your heart?

Have you ever stopped to wonder what is happening internally to all that we experience and encounter externally?

Today, I want you to pay attention to what is stirring and swirling in your body.

Over the last few weeks, I have invited you into the prayer practice of pausing to name and notice what is happening in you physically ~ emotionally ~ spiritually ~ and ~ mentally.  I have encouraged to you name your weather patterns of your soul.

Now is the next step.  Weather patterns do not happen in a vacuum...winds and seas and the moon control what is happening outside your window.  This week I want us to look at the winds and seas and moonlight of our world and how it is impacting, influencing how we inhabit the world.  

Today, just notice what you experience and your reaction.  What thoughts stir in response to the news stories?  What conversation warms your hearts?  You can start right now, what does this meditation evoke and provoke mentally ~ spiritually ~ emotionally ~ physically within you?

Breathe in God's presence and encounter the Eternal this day, I pray.  Amen.