I recently acquired a number of back issues of Alive Now magazine from a staff person at GBOD. I've been reading through them and they are GREAT!! Every now and then, since I have a pretty wonderful collection of these magazines now, I'm going to post interesting things that I come across from Alive Now. I hope you enjoy the articles as much as I do.
Who is my body?
"I am your friend and closest partner. Sometimes I am your mother and father. Sometimes I am your child. Always I am your lover and spouse.
"I am truth-teller. I witness to you your unknown self.
"I am the faithful messenger and recorder of your memories, your powers, your hurts, your needs, your limits.
"I am the stored wisdom and hurts of the ages and generations before you.
"I am a gift-giver. Through me, you live and move in God's creation. Through me, you have your vital link with the rejoicing, groaning, travailing universe.
"I am your partner in stress and pain. I carry much of your suffering, so your spirit does not need to carry it all alone.
"I am the frontier you have barely explored and the eager companion who speaks to you every moment.
"I am the manifestation of the miracle which is you. I am the ground of your deep powers.
"I am the microcosm of the community that surrounds you. I am the microcosm of the universe in which you live.
"I am the visible means by which you relate and unite with others.
"I am one of the major ways by which God abides with you, speaks to you, touches you, unites you.
"Far from separating you from your spiritual life, I open it to you
"You can pray with me, for me, through me. I can pray also, in my way, when you cannot.
"I am always in embrace with you, though sometimes you ignore me or even hate and try to harm me.
"I will never leave you. I will be with you after death as your risen companion of clearer light and swifter energy in a different form. Only my outer appearance dies.
"Together, in passion unity, we will become the fully alive human being.
- Flora Slosson Wuellner, "Knowing the Wonder", Alive Now Journal, November/December 2003; p. 24-25
3 comments:
hmmm, staff person at gbod. i know a few of them. haha
i believe you do... in fact i think you live with one, right?
I should not dare to interrupt your more weighty affairs with a letter of mine, did I not hold you to be a disciple of Him who would not have the smoking flax quenched nor the bruised reed broken. But since I am entirely convinced of this, I beg of you that in your prayers and the prayers of the Church that sojourns with you, I may be commended to God, to be instructed in true poverty of spirit, in gentleness, in faith, and love of God and my neighbor. And, whenever you have a little leisure, do not disdain to offer to God this short prayer, which I have heard frequently offered by your brethren at Savannah (would they were mine also!):
Then the dauntless mind
Which, to Jesus joined,
Neither life nor treasure prizes,
And all fleshly lusts despises,
Grant him, Highest Good,
Through Thy precious blood.
God's most humble servant, I remain,
John Wesley
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