What unnecessary stimulations and distractions do I allow in my life to blind me to, and numb me from, being present to what is mine to do as I walk the journey with Jesus though his passion, death, and resurrection?
For the first week of Lent, we are going to try to fast from stimulation itself. The first simplification of ourselves has to do with taking in less, and finding our contentment and ourselves at a deeper level. We are all victims of a giant "stimulation package" that is Western civilization: too much noise, too much to see, hear, do, experience, and think. As a result, we do not actually experience our experiences.
Ways to fast from stimulation might include leaving the radio off in the car and the TV off at home, fasting from paging through magazines, avoiding useless chatter, filling up the moment with diversionary tactics of any type. The positive goal always being simple presence to the moment, which never happens when their are too many frills.
~Richard Rohr, ofm
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart… ~ Ps. 51: 16, 17
Enter into the Journey of Death and Resurrection through
"The Path of Descent"