Dear Friends,
We hope that you are safe and well.
Today's Meditation features Joan Chittister reflecting on Five Ways of Seeing.
We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in the church, in healthcare, in the workplace--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.
In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that it is God's economy of abundance: when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.
We hope and pray that you find peace, healing, hope and the infusion of joy in your life!
With our love and care,
Ron and Jean
MEDITATION 818: Joan Chittister: Five Ways of Seeing
"The question, of course, is, at what level of insight are we now?" writes Sister Joan.
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Five ways of seeing
Life is about learning to see what we’re looking at—if we actually see it at all.
It takes a while, but eventually, the really perceptive soul discovers that there are actually five ways of seeing as we go through life.
At the first level of insight, we see only what’s in front of us. The immediate becomes the center of the world. We do not see beyond ourselves because we have drawn the circle of life too small, too close, too narrowly. The older next-door neighbor, the colleague with the sick child, the friend whose life is careening off the tracks are part of my consciousness—but not part of my heart. Their agendas do not compel me to action. Their lives do not really touch mine.
At the second level of insight, we see only the obvious, not what drives the obvious. Not what’s under the obvious. We come to see that the other has the same feelings we do and that, like ours, they need to be heeded. We see more of the world suddenly, but find it as lonely and confused as our own.
At the third level of insight, we see a broader world, but only from our own perspective. Everyone should live in a democracy, we decide. The whole world would be better off if everyone were like us. We are the acme of the universe, we know. Then, all of our efforts go into making the rest of the world like us. Except that never happens and we cannot for the life of us figure out why.
At the fourth level of insight, we see a changing canvas and realize suddenly that nothing is stable, all things are in flux. The question, of course, is whether we realize that we, too, are in the process of change now—because we have seen that nowhere does life stand still.
At the fifth level of insight, we learn to truly see beyond the center of the self and find that we are all alike, all trying to find one another, all wishing to be human together.
At that point, of course, we see our differences and find that they are beautiful—and see our likenesses and discover that they are the stuff of our growth. We do not need to be anyone else now. Instead, we can be everyone else now, understanding them, learning from them—trusting that I can change and become even more myself at the same time.
The question, of course, is, at what level of insight are we now? What will it take to grow beyond ourselves and discover the rest of life?
––from Two Dogs and a Parrot: What Our Animal Friends Can Teach Us About Life by Joan Chittister (BlueBridge)
Audio Blog on Role Models
“No theological treatise is any kind of substitute for the sight of a life well-lived,” says Joan Chittister in her latest audio blog, which deals with the idea of role models and their place in inspiring others in the spiritual life. Click here to listen to the full piece.
Joan Chittister Featured in Catholic Women Preach
A new compendium of homilies given through the Catholic Women Preach project is now available, featuring Joan Chittister’s homily on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, along with the writings of many other Catholic women. This book is a project of FutureChurch, and it is the first of three volumes in a series following the A, B, and C cycles of the lectionary. Watch a video of Sister Joan delivering her homily here, and order a copy of the new book here.
"The Time Is Now" Webinar
Joan Chittister was the featured speaker at an online event hosted by Mount Saint Mary House of Prayer in Watchung, NJ. With hundreds of people in attendance virtually, she spoke on the theme, "The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage," and drew rave reviews. One participant wrote, "Sister Joan’s passion and wisdom touched me personally. We could all do more to be the prophets needed in the world today. She is brilliant, candid, creative, inspiring—I loved it."
Monastic Way Zoom
Join Benetvision Staff members Sisters Anne McCarthy and Jacqueline Sanchez-Small for a FREE Zoom discussion on the October 2022 Monastic Way: "All Things are Changing" on Tuesday, October 25th at 3PM ET. Click HERE to join the discussion.
The hour-long Zoom call includes time for discussion in break-out rooms as well as large group reflection on the theme of the Monastic Way.
SOUL POINTSOctober 24: Rosa Parks, the Civil Rights activist who famously was arrested for refusing to surrender her bus seat to a white man, died on this date in 2005. She had been active in the NAACP and worked closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. before engaging in her famous act of protest, which set the stage for the Montgomery bus boycotts. Although Parks’s courage was widely celebrated in her later years, she suffered terrible consequences for her actions at first, including losing her job and receiving death threats for years. The anniversary of her arrest, December 1, is now remembered as Rosa Parks Day in several states.
October 24: Today is United Nations Day. What has been produced by the United Nations to this point may seem to be little more than talk, but talk is exactly what the world needs in a society where force breeds only force. It is so easy to give up on talk when talk does not seem to produce the results we want in the family, in the neighborhood, in the office. But for a harvest of peace, we need to sow understanding.
—from A Monastery Almanac, by Joan Chittister
October 29: “Receive a guest with the same attitude you have when alone. When alone, maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests,” wrote Soyen Shaku, who died on this date in 1919.
Shaku was the first Zen Buddhist master who taught in the United States, and played a major role in bringing knowledge of Buddhism to the Western world.
POEM OF THE WEEK
Pumpkin
To write as a field grows pumpkins,
to scribble page after page with an orange crayon,
to lose teeth and still smile,
to survive a frost that blackened acres,
to wake after surgery.
To live without rotting from within,
to ignore imperfections of the skin,
to be heavy, and still be chosen, to please a strict vegetarian,
to end the day full of light.
––Connie Wanek
Compiled by Mary Lou Kownacki, Jacqueline Sanchez-Small, and Benetvision Staff