Mark Nepo is one of our 6 devotional authors that we are listening to for our “Daily Respite” devotional series. Below is Mark’s devotional today from “The Book of Awakening,” his classic little daily reader that has helped millions of spirit-seeking people around the world, of all (or none) religious persuasions.

  “Facing Sacred Moments”

“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.” – Abraham Heschel

Maybe it’s part of being American, this want to build things instead of facing them. After all, our ancestors believed it their manifest destiny to keep moving on until they ran out of land. But now that there’s no place left to go, a different sense of exploration, that has waited centuries, is calling.

Instead of building a road to somewhere, other than where we are, the life of the spirit requires us to open doors that wait before us and within us. This is what Abraham Heschel calls, “facing sacred moments”: the opening of doors into the life we already have.

The effort to build our way elsewhere can be admirable and even heroic, but it often distracts us from inhabiting the life we are given.

Certainly, there is nothing wrong with bettering our outer circumstances, but these constructions mean nothing if we never face the very pulse of life that waits like a kind mother at the edge of our exhaustion.

I hope you enjoyed this little taste of our daily devotion series, “Daily Respite.” This week we are focusing on Richard Rohr’s daily meditations. I hope if you haven’t been a frequent or regular listener, that you will use our little 10 minute of so devotions to create a sacred space in your day. If you want to be added to the email list for recordings of our daily devotions, just let me know.

Peace & Joy,

Pastor Bob <><