Happy Saturday my friends! Good morning and good day to all my digital neighbors! We are in the final days of Easter, and it has been a wonderful season. I hope most of them have been days of joy. If you have been checking in on these little musings, you hopefully have found some food for thought or fuel for prayer. More Thee, and less me leads to days of joy. More love of God, then neighbor and finally myself puts life in the right order. Until that realization and then the commitment to it, life is disordered and a mess. While God can work wonders in the mess, He really likes it when we make straight His way, when we lower the mountains of pride and fill in the valleys of self-preoccupation. That straight path is the superhighway of holiness and joy. We will always be tempted to wander off the path, to stop when we should have kept going or hurriedly pass by when we were invited to linger. No one listens to the Holy Spirit flawlessly. We all have to constantly overcome the ever-present SELF and its demands. Only constant discipline will keep us on the path of Discipleship. There is no discipleship without discipline, the two are inseparable. I wish I were better at it with a higher degree of constancy. Each day offers that opportunity. It is never too late to begin if you have a day in front of you. A good prayer for a Saturday and the summer months in front of us. Have a great day my friends!
Slow me down, Lord!
Ease the pounding of my heart by the quietening of my mind.
Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me the calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams.
Help me to know the magical, restoring power of sleep.
Teach me the art of taking minute vacations…of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat the dog, to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day of the fable of the hare and the tortoise, that I may know that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than measuring its speed.
Let me look upwards into the branches of the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord, and inspire me to send my roots deep into the soil of life’s enduring values that I may grow towards the star of my greater destiny. Amen.
