Refection
Openness is the door through which wisdom travels and contemplation begins. It is the pinnacle from which we learn that the world is much bigger, much broader than ourselves, that there is truth out there that is different from our own. The voice of God within us is not the only voice of God. Openness is the munificent abandonment of the mind to new ideas, to new possibilities. Without an essential posture of openness, contemplation is not possible. God comes in every voice, behind every face, in every memory, deep in every struggle. To close off any of them is to close off the possibility of becoming new again ourselves.To be a contemplative it is necessary to throw open the arms of our lives, to take in daily one experience, one person, one new idea with which we have no familiarity and ask what it is saying to us and about us. Then God, the Ultimate Reality, the Life beyond life can come to us in deep, in rending, new ways.
Joan Chittister
Prayer
May I have an open mind and heart.
Action
Consider “ Openess is the door through which wisdaom travels and contemplations begins”. What does it mean for you to have an open mind? Where in particular fo you see change necessary? How will you work toward this?
Suggested Reading
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;.
John 20:30
Even today there is a dictatorship of a narrow line of thought which kills people’s freedom, their freedom of conscience. “This is the drama of the closed heart, the drama of the closed mind, and when the heart is closed, this heart closes the mind, and when the heart and mind are closed there is no place for God.
Pope Francis
Only an open mind still has room for new knowledge. What is outgrown andused up must be discarded to make room for what is yet to be learned.
Robert Fulgham
Renewal requires opening yourself up to new ways of thinking and feeling.
Deborah Day
Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
People are very open-minded about new things – as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.
Charles Kettering
Never stop learning and adapting. The world will always be changing. If you limit yourself to what you knew and what you were comfortable with earlier in your life, you will grow increasingly frustrated with your surroundings as you age.
David Niven
The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about .
Wayne Dyer