Today’s question: WHAT DESIRES ARE SHAPING WHO YOU’RE BECOMING RIGHT NOW?
This is Day 17 of the 5-week Lenten journey with The Society of Saint John the Evangelist and their daily meditation on TIME.
See Br. David Vryhof on the video (2:13) below, or to leave comments on the Brothers' website, go here. (http://ssje.org/ssje/2015/03/05/pray-6-becoming)
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Question: WHAT DESIRES ARE SHAPING WHO YOU’RE BECOMING RIGHT NOW?
Transcript of Video:
One of my favorite quotations comes from Mahatma Gandhi, the great spiritual leader of India in the twentieth century. He says, “We become what we yearn after, hence the need for prayer.” Now if we look at that statement, look at the first part: “We become what we yearn after.” Gandhi doesn’t mean we just get whatever we want or we become whatever we want. It’s not an automatic thing. What he’s saying is that we become what we yearn after. In other words, what we’re yearning after, what we’re desiring in life will shape who we are. And if wealth is what we desire more than anything – or success, or prestige, or social status, or fame, or popularity, what we desire most deeply – then those desires will shape the kind of person that we become.
And the second part of the quote is equally important. It says, “hence the need for prayer.” That’s why Gandhi says we need times of prayer where we can step back from our lives, where we can retreat as it were, where we can look at our lives, look at the desires and motivations that are shaping them and make conscious decisions about how we want to live and what we want to live for. And one of those decisions that we should make is: are we giving ourselves time to rest, time to step out of our lives and look at the bigger picture, to see what’s driving us, what’s motivating us, what’s really shaping us, and what’s really forming and influencing the way that we’re living in the world? Is this how we want to live, and what choices can we make that might help us to live in a different way?
-Br. David Vryhof
Blessings on our journey to re-order time in our lives,
Agatha