Fourth week of Lent

Simplifying the Schedule – continued

This week, you are invited to explore your schedule.  Our schedules reveal our values by how we desire to spend our time.  An important self-examination is checking your schedule to see if it is balanced.  If for some reason you are unable to do the exercise for any day then create your own. It is the awareness that the exercise touches that is the important part of the practice.

Thursday:                                                     

Go to a Morning, Evening or Healing Prayer Service

Go to a weekday service during the time remaining in Lent.  Experience the church during the week with the smaller services in the chapel. Notice the atmosphere and how you respond to these simpler services in comparison to Sunday services.

Friday:                                                           

Take Time for a Walk and be in Nature

Taking time to be in the outdoors and experience nature as a gift.  Being in the natural environment can balance and refresh all our senses.  Find a prayer or mantra that brings you peace and say it as you walk.  Notice if there is any resistance in claiming this as your own time in your schedule.   How do you feel at the completion of the walk?

The greatness of nature can overwhelm the insignificant chatter by which we measure most of our days.  If you have the wisdom and the courage to go to nature alone, the larger rhythms, the eternal hum, will make itself known all the sooner.  When you have found it, it will always be there for you.  The peace without will become the peace within, and you will be able to return to it in your heart wherever you find yourself.  Kent Nerburn

Saturday:                                                      

Connect with Someone who Lives Alone Today

Today think about someone who lives alone and could use some friendly conversation.  Take the time to offer yourself in simple hospitality in whatever way seems appropriate, noticing any resistance you might have to opening yourself up this way.  Do you feel such a gesture might cause a disruption in your schedule?  How does this act change your perception about this person?

We become human only in the company of other human beings.  And this involves both opening our hearts and giving voice to our deepest convictions. …When we shrink from the world, our souls shrink, too.  Paul Rogat Loeb

Quotes from: http://globalstewards.org/motivational-quotes-simplifying.htm

Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit By Paula Huston Ave Maria Press  (December 19, 2011) Is being used as a guide.