My current “spiritual director “works with me through his blog – along with thousands of others, I’m sure. The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston is a former Minnesotan, and served as Bishop of Alaska and dean of General Seminary in New York City (when Kate was there!). He is a member of the Choctaw Nation and has been a passionate spokesperson for Native Americans, for the environment, and for justice for all people. He currently resides in Oklahoma.
I read his meditations nightly and they sustain my spirit and give me hope. This is one:
Here is a prayer for the hollow places, for the hollow people, for the emptiness inside. How often our lives are determined by the need to fill something within us, something stolen away when we were small, something that has long gone missing. So tender is this space we rarely speak of it in public but shelter down in our souls to hold it hidden. It can make us brittle. It can make us rage or cry out of fear. We can seek to fill it with power or pills, drink or drama, but wake more empty than before. Come good Spirit and give us the love that heals the hollow we know but never name.
And another:
We live in an uneasy age, when doubt urges greed to claim what it can, and confidence fades as the old temples go unattended, Public leaders walk backwards, showing us what was as though the past is what we should become. Distraction is big business. Information outsells wisdom. Technology the magic on which we rely. You and I were born to this time though we feel no part of it. We are here to witness to the quiet prophecy of reason, the healing of sharing, the hope that does not fear the future. We are stewards of a faith that is not anxious, peace when peace is hard to fine.
See what I mean?
You can find more of Charleston’s meditations on Facebook or in two published collections available from Red Moon publications. They are superb.
See you in church.
Barbara
