Spiritual Journey Thursday: Nourish

Photo by John Salzarulo

Welcome to Spiritual Journey Thursday and a special group of friends blogging each month about our spiritual journeys. Today we are sharing over at Ramona's Pleasures from the Page about her 2017 One Little Word, "Nourish."

As I typically do when thinking about a specific word, I went to my dictionary and found this:

1.   provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition.
2.   keep (a feeling or belief) in one's mind, typically for a long time.

I've connected with these thoughts on several levels recently. First, I've been considering a new, somewhat mind-boggling (at least for someone who had low fat eating drilled into me for so many years) new perspective on nourishing my body. I've been listening to the Keto for Women Show podcasts by Shawn Mynar on my phone for the last month. (Just open your podcast app and type in Keto for Women). They're well-worth considering. I love her tagline: Empowering women to take charge of their health and happiness. So much wonderful information on the many issues we face in light of what the world wants to nourish us with--images of skinny models, advertisements for medicines with so many side-effects it's ridiculous, and a constant push to over-exercise and under eat in order to be accepted. I like this idea of thinking about what goes into my body as nourishing it, but even more as healing it. 

A few weeks ago, I participated in a yoga training that required my body function well for six days from 6am to 9pm with very little down time and lots of interaction with others. I needed my quiet. I needed more rest. My body managed to keep up reasonably well, but I came away with a deeper knowing that I must maintain balance. So I continue to learn. Continue to move forward. 

So, I come to definition #2: To keep (a feeling or belief) in one's mind, typically for a long time. 

We can nourish all kinds of feelings, good ones and not so good. It's a good question to ponder. What feelings/belief am I nurturing? 

I've been reading a book called Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina by Thelma Hall. This quote stood out to me today. The author is quoting Thomas Merton's reply to a Sufi friend who had asked him how he prayed.

Now you ask about my method of meditation. Strictly speaking I have a very simple way of prayer. It is centered entirely on attention to the presence of God and to his will and his love. That is to say that it is centered on faith by which alone we can know the presence of God. One might say this gives my (prayer) the character described by the prophet as "being before God as if you saw him." Yet it does not mean imagining anything or conceiving a precise image of God, for to my mind this would be a kind of idolatry. n the contrary, it is a matter of adoring him as all...There is in my heart this great thirst to recognize totally the nothingness of all that is not God. My prayer is a kind of praise rising up out of the center of Nothingness and Silence...It is not "thinking about" anything, but a direct seeking of the face of the invisible, which cannot be found unless we become lost in him who is invisible.

What a beautiful way to nourish the spirit and the soul and the body.
             
Eat something wonderful to nourish your body.
                         
                         Read great words to nourish your mind.
                                         
                                           Center your attention on the presence of God to nourish your spirit.