By Dean Brackley, SJ
Have the courage to lose control.
Have the courage to feel useless.
Have the courage to listen.
Have the courage to receive.
Have the courage to let your heart be broken.
Have the courage to feel.
Have the courage to fall in love.
Have the courage to get ruined for life.
Have the courage to make a friend.
Dean Brackley was Jesuit priest, an educator, community organizer, author and social justice advocate who lived and worked in El Salvador starting in 1990.
By John O’Donohue
May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work
You do with the secret love and warmth of your heart. Continue reading
After closing your eyes, be aware of your eyes as they rest behind your eyelids. Feel them resting in their places. What do you know about your eyes? Besides the look of them, their color, shape, and size, what do they see? What do they avoid seeing? What have they helped you to discover in your life? How might you reverently use them during the day to discover what is around you?
After closing your eyes, be aware of your ears resting at the sides of your head. Feel them silently in their places. What do you know about your ears, your hearing? Besides size and shape, and acuteness or lack of it, what do they hear? What do they avoid hearing? What have they helped you to discover in your life? And how might you reverently use them during the day to discover what is around you?
After closing your eyes, be aware of your mouth, and of your tongue, your teeth, and the inside of your mouth. Feel them silently in their places. What do you know of your sense of taste? Is it related to your taste in general? What has your taste helped you to discover? How might you reverently use your taste during the day, especially concerning food and drink to discover what is around you?
After closing your eyes, be aware of your nose, and of your nostrils, and the air coming in and being exhaled. Feel your nose as it gently breathes in and out. What do you know of your nose besides its size, its shape, and whether you like it or not? What has your nose helped you to discover? How might you reverently use your nose during the day, especially in its activity of helping you breathe, to also help you in discovering what is around you?
After closing your eyes, be aware of your fingertips, and of the soles of your feet. Feel the surface of your fingertips are touching; feel the shoes or stockings or surface touching your feet. Try to discover where else on the surface of your skin you are responding to the sense of touch; be aware of your clothing on your shoulders; the feeling at your waist. What do you know of your sense of touch? Do you use your fingertips to sense fully the thousands of different surfaces they touch each day? How might you reverently use your sense of touch to discover the things and people you will contact today?
At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes, take another sixty seconds to be attentive to your breath. Then gently and slowly open your eyes and conclude with either a spoken word such as “good morning” or “amen,” or with a gesture to the mystery within you as an act of thanksgiving.