Silence, Solitude, and Peace

My hope that is that all who follow the Thanksgiving Holiday had an awesome time with family or friends. Blessings to all.

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

In the delightful time with friends who are family this past Thanksgiving weekend, I felt my soul nourished. I also craved the time to simply Be Still in the midst of the beauty of God’s creation. The words below from Thomas Merton’s third journal speak to the blessing of that solitude with friends and simply by being still in the midst of it all.

Silence and solitude and peace. Even if everything else is noise, I can be silent within my own house.—November 2, 1959— A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s True Life — The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960

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Signs of Life and Hope: A Reflection

Blessings and Prayers

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

The past thirty-six hours have been tremendously difficult for us. You don’t realize how much a wee puppy impacts your life until she is gone. Pixie’s physical body is gone but she is so present with us in memories and in our hearts.

Pixie’s last evening on the couch after her bath…

Looking for signs of life when you are walking through the Valley of the Shadows can be a challenge (can you say massive understatement?!). Beginning in January of this year we have said good-bye to Denise’s close friend Joyce, her Dad, her former mother-in-law and our close friend Betty, and now Pixie. We buried and held hands of so many who were dying in Florida and Colorado as a part of my calling as a pastor. Denise was with my Mom when she died and we were with her Mom who waited until the family was getting some…

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Love

RIP Sweet Pixie #lovelovelovelovelove

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

HRH Queen Pixie soaking up the sun

Tonight is difficult for Denise and for me. Our hearts are broken. We keep looking for Pixie… especially when popcorn is around. She made us laugh, she gave more love and joy to our lives than you can imagine… especially for a puppy who only weighed 4.5 pounds. She crossed the rainbow bridge this morning. She knew how much we loved her and that love surrounded her as she took her last breath.

In honor of our beloved Pixie, I offer this quote from Thomas Merton’s book, Love and Living: Love is not just something that happens to you: it is a certain special way of living and being alive. Thank you Pixie for loving us and for being such a wonderful blessing to us.

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Remembering Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton

Happy Birthday Dorothy Day

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

Icon by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts https://etsy.me/3D3kDCi (print purchased from Marcy Hall)

Icon by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts https://etsy.me/3D3kDCi (print purchased from Marcy Hall)

Today is Dorothy Day’s birthday. She was born on this day in 1897 in Brooklyn Heights, New York. She and Thomas Merton were both lifted up, along with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Abraham Lincoln were lifted up by Pope Francis in his address to the US Congress on September 24, 2015. Calling them “four representatives of the American people,” Pope Francis lauded Day, King, Lincoln and Merton for using their dreams of justice, equal rights, liberty and peace to make America a better place.

Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day were not only contemporaries in the realm of social justice work, they exchanged letters with each other which can be found in the volume of his letters The Hidden…

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Working for Peace – A Reflection

Blessings to all

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

I had a discussion with a friend about the relevance today of Thomas Merton’s writings during the era of Civil Rights, the Anti-War and Anti-Nuclear peacemaking movements. It is often quite a jolt to me how often Merton speaks to my heart about issues and concerns of my own heart. The following words from volume four of his journals spoke to me today.

It is shocking that so many are convinced that the Communists are about to invade or destroy America: “Christians” who think the only remedy is to destroy them first. Who thinks seriously of disarming? For whom is it more than a pious wish, beyond the bounds of practicality? I need patience to listen, to learn, to try to understand, and courage to take all the consequences and be really faithful. This alone is a full-time job. I dread it, but it must be done, and I don’t…

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Another Why???

Alzheimer’s Disease

A Bit of Brian's Brilliance

This is part of an article written by Donald Weever, Professor of Chemistry, Director of Krimbil Research Institute, at the University of Toronto.

As a researcher who studies Alzheimer’s disease and a neurologist who cares for people with Alzheimer’s, I share in the frustration, indeed anger, of people and families when I tell them that I have no cure to offer. Over the past year, scientists have tackled COVID-19, a previously unknown disease and within months developed effective new vaccines. Over that same time frame, the list of Alzheimer’s treatment failures got longer. Currently, the only approved drugs for Alzheimer’s merely alleviate some of the symptoms — partially and temporarily — but do not stop the disease from progressing.

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Brian’s Rant

So, HOW AND WHY is it that a vaccine could be manufactured for COVID-19, a brand new pandemic, very quickly BUT NOTHING for Alzheimer’s. How did THAT happen?…

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World Alzheimer’s Awareness Month

Very good post

A Bit of Brian's Brilliance

This information is from Alzheimer’s Disease International. Here is a link to their site. https://www.awarenessdays.com/awareness-days-calendar/world-alzheimers-day-2021/

For this year’s event, organisations and interested individuals can get involved by supporting awareness through contacting the Alzheimer’s association in their specific country. https://alz.org

Every September, people come together from all around the world to raise awareness and to challenge the stigma that persists around #dementia. September 2021 marks the 10th year of this vital global awareness raising campaign.

September 21st also marks World Alzheimer’s Day. For ADI, World Alzheimer’s Day typically coincides with the launch of our World Alzheimer Report. In 2021, our report will focus on diagnosis.

This year’s campaign will shine a light on thewarning signs of dementia, encouraging people to seek out information, advice and support, as well as contacting theAlzheimer’s or dementia associationin their country.

It is only through a truly global effort that we…

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A Reflection: What the World Needs Now

Love is love is love is love …..

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

When we all reach that perfection of love which is the contemplation of God in His glory, our inalienable personalities, while remaining eternally distinct, will nevertheless combine into One so that each one of us will find himself in all the others, and God will be the life and reality of all. “Omnia in omnibus Deus” (So that God may be all in all—1 Corinthians 15:28 in Latin). (Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 72)

In the vernacular of my parent’s time… what the world needs now is love sweet love — Dionne Warwick — What the World Needs Now (1966)

And in the vernacular of my generation — John Lennon – Imagine

May we all seek to be the love which we are called to be… especially to love our enemies…

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Being Ourselves as God Calls Us to Be

Blessings

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

This particular reading from the book A Year With Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations spoke to me after a day of work and reflection on who we are called to be and how we are called to love as God loves us.

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself—and, if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself. For it is the unaccepted self that stands in my way—and will continue to do so as long as it is not accepted. When it has been accepted, it is my own stepping-stone to what is above me. Because this is the way man was made by God—and original sin was the effort to surpass oneself by being “like God,” i.e…

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A Reflection: Late Night Musings

Love love love

Pastor Michael Moore's Blog

Sister Moon over our house tonight

I came across the following quote from a letter that Thomas Merton wrote to Dorothy Day in 1961. She was knee deep in the fight for those whom society and the establishment ignored and abused in their quest for riches and power.

Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action.(letter from Thomas Merton to Dorothy Day, 20 December 1961 from The Hidden Ground of Love)

The real nature of our duty and right action… we need to hear this challenge today. Yes, these are indeed challenging times for…

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