Tag: jesus

Transform Your Daily Tasks with Sacred Spiritual Practices

In the fall of 2025 I received a book as a gift. It was titled Sacred Balance – How  Ancient Practices Can Restore Modern Minds.  The author is Miriam Diephouse-McMillan who is a Chaplin in a psychiatric hospital.  In it she writes about nine spiritual practices you can use to help make a conscious connection to God.  

I have been reading it with interest and sometimes doing one of the practices.  Last week I spent the week focusing on Loving Kindness Prayer. This is a stillness practice.  So I lit a candle, sat in my chair and started repeating  the prayers over and over again.  Each time I did something shifted for me.  I felt lighter and more peaceful.  There was a sense of connection to a greater whole. At the same time I had a deeper knowing of who I am as a person.  I had a profound experience of Love that totally enveloped me.  I felt it inside and out.  I practiced this prayer every day for a week.  Each time I did it became easier to connect, to just be with and in that Love.  I call that Love God.

This week I have decided to try another one of the practices – Mindfulness – Practicing the Presence of God.  This is what I call an embodied practice where I bring conscious awareness of Love into whatever I am doing.

I began by rereading the chapter on Mindfulness practice. In it, she shares many reasons why it is helpful to practice. She explains how to practice throughout your day using specific tasks as examples. She also shows how you can increase your feelings of joy by doing this. It all sounded good to me. So let’s see how it works for me this week.

One of the tasks she suggested we could practice with is doing dishes.  She mentioned this several times throughout the chapter. I see it as a good place to start albeit challenging for me to do so.  Doing dishes is one of the household tasks I avoid. I stay away from it as much as possible because I do not like doing them. I don’t know why exactly I just don’t.  Those who know me well or have visited my home have seen my counter tops and sink filled with dirty dishes more often than not.  In fact, I once received a watercolor painting. It depicted a sink full of soapy water and dishes piled high. A cat sat on the counter beside it, just looking at it.  That painting hung in my kitchen for years.  I stopped feeling embarrassed about it and or trying to “fix” my problem years ago.  Eventually I get around to doing them and I have a clean kitchen for awhile anyway.  

Reading this chapter on mindfulness really struck a cord with me. I began to think something or someone was playing with me because there were so many references to doing dishes.  I felt a bit uncomfortable at first knowing how much I detest doing dishes. At the same time, I thought it may help me overcome this aberration in my personality. So I kept reading with a sense of humour about it all trying not to take myself too seriously.  It was when I got to the end that I just had to laugh out loud.  Miriam wrote “wash each dish as if it were the baby Jesus”. Oh come on!  Really?  I got where she was going, I really did!  The irony for me was that I was being invited to see something I hate doing as a loving task.  That is the point right? I looked around and could feel God laughing with me.  Sometimes God guides us to a place of Love through unexpected ways. This guidance helps us see things in a new light.

I will begin my practice tomorrow.  The sink full of glasses can wait another day.  

Have a good one dear reader!

Posted on by Beth 0

Finding Peace Amid Chaos: A Personal Reflection

At the end of October or beginning of November, I can’t quite remember, I retreated from the world. I needed time to be quiet and find the stillness within me. I needed to be peaceful and focus my attention on what my heart was telling me. My mind is always busy thinking about my family, friends and events in the world. I do my best to live in gratitude and to be kind, still I am human. I can have moments of frustration and deep and abiding anger at what I see and hear about what is happening around the world these days. Even in the lovely seniors apartment building where I live I hear about in fighting among the residents. They complain about the silliest things instead of feeling grateful for all we are given here. So I needed to take a break from it all.

It has been a deeply personal time of reflection and contemplation. Doing my best to stay in the present moment. I go to bed every night with love in my heart giving thanks for all the many ways I am graced with a good life. I wake up in the morning grateful for a new day to begin again. We can only live one day at a time so that is what I have been practicing. Being a deeply spiritual person I find hope, peace, joy and love in so many places. At the same time, I experience the crushing blow of violence in and around each of us as we walk in this world that is full of despair and misery.

I have to be honest with you all. I have been deeply affected by the story of Michele and Rob Reiner’s death this week. It weighs heavy on my heart. Not because they were celebrities because they were honest, kind and loving human beings who walked in this world bringing a message of hope to all who needed to hear it. Still they were met with a violent death at the hands of a son who they loved and tried tirelessly to help. This is not just their story. It is the story of humanity. It is how we are hurting and killing each other every day without even realizing it, because we can not see past the dark side of our humanity and into the light of Love from which we are all born.

In the quiet of my own home and in the stillness of my heart I pray every day for the people of the world who are painfully unaware of how their thoughts and feelings are impacting all of humanity. We are all connected. I truly believe and trust in that knowing. I can not love my neighbour without also loving my enemy. I can only love myself when I am able to accept with grace the Love that comes to and through me from my higher power. That is the light that shines in the darkness. That is the light that comes to us each year at this time. The longest and darkest day of the year is coming up very soon. Then the light will begin to return. We are all called to carry that light within us and shine it in the world wherever we are and in whatever we do.

This year I have had a different experience of what it means for me to be celebrating the season of Advent and soon Christmas as a Christian. I have been reflecting on the story of the nativity. The story of travelling toward the moment and place where Love and innocence are born into the world at a time of great upheaval. I have also been reviewing the events reported about the life of Jesus as he lived the human experience. In these stories I have seen my own story reflected. I have seen the story of what it means to be both human and holy. I see how we are called to stand up and challenge those dark forces that no longer carry the light of Love. When I hear and read stories of violence and overpowering condemnation, I find myself falling on my knees in prayer. Help me see through the darkness, I pray. Help me see through to the light of each human being who has been crushed and traumatized to the point that they can no longer experience anything but hatred, pain and a need to violate all that is good in this world. Then I pray for every soul on this beautiful Earth. I pray for the Peace that passes all understanding. I pray that Love surrounds us all and brings hope where it is most needed. I pray that everyone’s heart is opened to receive the gift that is theirs to receive.

So dear reader, whether you celebrate the season of Christmas or take time to reflect on whatever this time of year means for you, may you find what you are looking for. May you experience the gift of Love in its many forms. May you know Peace in your heart trusting in the Light to guide you along life’s path in the coming year. May all be well in your world. Many blessings to you.

Posted on by Beth 4