Good morning…
We are all designed to live each day from “…the place where our lives touch and mingle with God’s. A shared space, a center,” writes Sue Monk Kidd on page 61 in God’s Joyful Surprise. This crucial concept expands all over these holy pages.
“A center is not simply an inner place where you are in touch with God’s presence. Most important it is a space from which you can focus your entire life. Being centered is not so much a state of being as a point of beginning.” (60)
“…life with God, in God, through God, experiencing Him as the ‘whole’ of life. Yes, that’s what I need. But I don’t think for a minute that a centered life is the solution to all of our problems. Rather it is a way to respond to our problems. We don’t withdraw from the world to our center. We respond to the world from our center.” (61)
“Being centered allows us to bring that elusive quality of focus to our lives. It enables us to set priorities. From the center we can respond to the chaos by eliminating that which isn’t meaningful and bringing order and calm to the rest. For in the center we are rooted in God’s love. In such a place there is no need for striving and impatience and dashing about seeking approval.” (61)
“We need not avoid our active lives, but simply bring to them a new vision and shift of gravity. We are called to live a life rich and full, but firmly rooted in the center where all is drawn together in God and then flows out of His presence. That is when life becomes the silent dance revolving around Him, alive with the music of His love.” (61)
“How do we shift our gravity to the center? …The essence of the centered life is attention to God in all we think, say and do. It is the growing realization of His presence in our most down-to-earth living.” (61)
“When we are centered in God alone, we are able to relate to more of life and the world, and find more meaning in them. In some way a centered life becomes wider and fuller. To form one’s life around this single perspective enables us to deal with more problems, not fewer, embrace more of life, not less of it.” (62)
“Nicholas of Cusa, the fifteenth-century bishop, is attributed with the saying, ‘God is he whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.’ If you think about that for very long, it will fill you with awe. There is the same feeling surrounding Paul’s claim, ‘From him and through him and to him are all things’ (Romans 11:36, RSV).” (121)
“…God is not far from each one of us. ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:27-28, RSV). …God dwells within me and everywhere around me. The world is a cup running over with God’s presence.” (123)
We are all designed to live each day from “…the place where our lives touch and mingle with God’s. A shared space, a center,” writes Sue Monk Kidd.
…Sue…
