O Antiphons

 

Creating and Spreading Warmth for Others

 

This morning I was going to remind you of your warm hearth from yesterday (see day two) and how to create warmth to share with someone else today.

 

My plan was to deliver a fresh package of coffee to a local shelter and possibly go have a cup of coffee with my 93 year old grandmother at the nursing home. Just simple plans.

 

Plans never go as planned...even simple ones.

 

One of the grandboys was sick and so over to MayMay's house he came. That pushed my morning plans into the afternoon and canceled out my afternoon plans which were all self-obligatory anyway.

 

Instead, of sharing the warmth of my hearth outside my home, it meant keeping myself-inside-of-itself. Kind of a complicated notion, I suspect.

 

But that's right where God wanted me.

 

A good many of us fight God.

 

Why? Why? When it makes things so much harder on everyone, ourselves included.

 

I fixed warm sugar-cinnamon toast for the 15 month old, rocked him, cooled a feverish brow, and set-up a cozy play area on the floor for him.

 

Then Oma arrived in time for coffee with a box of cocoa mix in her hands.

 

Have I mentioned how a hot cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa is welcome and soothing to a person coming in from the cold. It reaches a spiritual part of us as well as a physical part. And that's because as we are wholly physical, we are also wholly spiritual. We cannot separate the two. We are only complete as physical and spiritual beings.

 

And God speaks to us...to our soul...through our senses.

 

How else would He communicate with us?

 

And I realized that I don't need to move very far from my home and hearth in order to spread warmth.  In fact, the less I drift away from it, the warmer it will be. When one's parents are 70 and 83 years old and can still come over for coffee, that's a pretty rare thing. My mother can still sit and rock the baby so I can do a few needed things at home. She can still make a pot of coffee or warm up fresh cocoa for us to enjoy after I've tended a diaper change.

 

We're made to believe that we have to do something major and huge this time of year, or at least something different and, yes, we are called outside of ourselves. Pope Francis has made this quite clear.

 

But the fresh package of coffee will still get delivered to the local shelter and I cannot rain too much guilt on not making that nursing home visit. A Christmas visit will get made but my grandmother does not know if I came or not or what day is tomorrow.

 

Then again, I think, because God knows, maybe she does know. Not literally right now but let me explain...

 

One day she will know that, when her soul departs this earth she will know the fullness of  her work and my work in this world. I know that her soul, if she knew this very minute, would be warmed knowing her daughter and granddaughter tended  to her great-great grandson side-by-side.

 

If we truly, honestly, knowingly believe we are spiritual beings as well as physical beings, we will know what important work we are doing no matter where God plants us.

 

It's faith that allows us to keep spreading warmth even when we do not see the source.

Holiday Relief for You

Click on each link to take you to the day's reflection.
Not all have a reflection but the one's that do are in PURPLE.

HOW IT WORKS

DAY ONE

 

DAY TWO

 

DAY THREE

DAY FOUR

DAY FIVE

DAY SIX

DAY SEVEN

DAY EIGHT

DAY NINE

DAY TEN

DAY ELEVEN

DAY TWELVE

DAY THIRTEEN

DAY FOURTEEN

DAY FIFTEEN

DAY SIXTEEN

 

DAY SEVENTEEN

 

The Beehive is Open this Season

Since it's time for crazy preparation, I'd like to offer an open invitation to join us at A Beehive of Spiritual Activity.

It's going to be freely open this Advent Season (beginning November 30) for you to partake of the encouragement, booklets, downloadable lists, etc. to *hopefully* free your home-beehive a little with intentional spiritual activity.

Everything will be sub-divided on the Spiritual Beehive blog and notices will be provided on our Beehive Facebook page. Now is a great time to join us because we have found the Facebook page to be too drippy with sharing the multiple seasonal files so it will be more structured on the blog until we can cull it together on the website: A Beehive of Spiritual Activity

For starters, every day of Advent a simple *stress relief* will be dropped into your holiday tank. This is something that will assist you this month or just something that helps you to embrace the Christmas spirit over the Christmas insanity.

For example, today you pick a cherished scent, one you always associate with holiday bliss, to embrace into your home this season.

Each time you inhale the scent, you will pause.
Each time you exhale the scent, you will prepare.
Each time you breathe the scent deeply, you will prosper.

Simple little cues. Nothing big. Nothing overwhelming. We know you have enough going on without adding any more. We also know there are so many good things hoping for your time, praying for your attention.

Our hope is that you merely think of peace when you see an update from the Spiritual Beehive. It is also our hope that if you are feeling over stimulated by your to-do list, the Spiritual Beehive will remind you to that even if all those snowflurries in your head don't build a snowman, the season is still a joyful thing to contemplate. That's our hope because this is the week of Hope. And if you only capture them in your head and they never become any more than hopeful ideals, that's ok. Because through them those images and ideals will find their way into our hearts and that's a beautiful place for snowflurries to land.

A very beautiful place.

Encourage!

Beehive Cover

DOWNLOAD BINDER COVER
before October

Wisdom: {If You Are Discouraged}

 

{Photography by Alice Cantrell @ A Number of Things}

 

"If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.”

 

~ Mother Teresa

~ HT to my friend Molly ~