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Tag Archives: Mary Oliver

Finding Your Voice

  One of our key tasks as Christian leaders is to do the kind of interior work so that we find our own voice i.e. the voice God has given us for the world. That is no small task. This has been a life message of my mentor, Leighton Ford, over the last 30 years. When I was with him last month, he shared this wonderful poem by Mary Oliver. It has served as a rich companion to my meditation on Jesus as He bravely launched His ministry and resisted the Evil One (Matt.3-4). Too many people never find their own voice and simply repeat the things they have heard for their entire lives. Too many of us don’t lead as a result. May God give us grace to be brave and let our voices be heard. Take some time and prayerfully read this lovely poem. Then go back and read Matthew 3:13-4:11 and. Read more.

Finding Your Voice

One of our key tasks as Christian leaders is to do the kind of interior work so that we find our own voice i.e. the voice God has given us for the world. That is no small task. This has been a life message of my mentor, Leighton Ford, over the last 30 years. When I was with him last month, he shared this wonderful poem by Mary Oliver. It has served as a rich companion to my meditation on Jesus as He bravely launched His ministry and resisted the Evil One (Matt.3-4). Too many people never find their own voice and simply repeat the things they have heard for their entire lives. Too many of us don’t lead as a result. May God give us grace to be brave and let our voices be heard. Take some time and prayerfully read this lovely poem. Then go back and read Matthew 3:13-4:11 and consider. Read more.

Midday Prayer: A Doorway into Thanks

In 2008, I wrote The Daily Office (now available on Kindle), eight weeks of morning/midday/evening prayers and devotionals around the themes from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Since then, I have been collecting devotionals in preparation for writing a year-long Daily Office. The following is one for you to enjoy.  So take a 10-20 minute block of time to be with God, using the following as a guideline to be with Him. Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes) Scripture Reading – Mark 10:46-52 Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped. Read more.

"Between Dreams" – Gifts from a Wise Mentor

I spent the day yesterday with Leighton Ford, a mentor of mine for the past 30 years.  Leighton again shared out of his life as he approaches his 81st birthday and looks forward to another five years of encouraging mentoring communities around the world. The following are a few golden nuggets from our time: 1. The time “between dreams” is perhaps the most important in the spiritual journey. Alan Jones, in Exploring Spiritual Direction, writes: “If we are willing to wait in the darkness “between dreams,” a larger and wider reality appears and life’s dream takes on richer images and more liberating structures. It’s often at a place such as “between dreams” that a guide, a friend, or spiritual director can wait with us in a dark place until a new way of looking at things emerges for us. Many a marriage, for example, turns sour and dies precisely at the point of its. Read more.