Welcome to CCS

May the Blessings of His Freedom be with you this day...

Great picture!! I know you are proud.

Happy Birthday, America. (This is my son, Jeff.)

From Sounds of the Eternal a Celtic Psalter by J. Philip Newell
Tuesday Night Prayer

‘Heed the counsel of your own heart,
and above all pray to the Most High
that you may be guided in the way of truth.’ Ecclesiasticus 37:13, 15

Silence
Be still and aware of God's presence within and all around.

Opening Prayer

At the ending of the day,
in the darkness of the night
I seek an inner assurance of you presence.

My body is still
and my soul is silent
as I listen for the renewing springs of your Spirit
deep in the ground of my being
and in earth’s quietness all around me.

Guide me to the wellsprings of health
in the landscape of my soul
and to the hidden reservoirs of strength
in the people and places of my life
that I may be made well this night,
that I may be made well.

Scripture and Meditation

‘You are the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?’ Psalm 27:1

‘You endowed me with strength like your own.’ Ecclesiasticus 17:3

Dia annseo isteach!
God to all here!

Hey Melina,

Thanks for bringing your prayer requests to us here.

Father God, Protector of your Creation, put your hands of Melina's grand daughter and keep her safe from harm. You know the reason she is there, you arrange the things in her life, watch over her and bring her time there to a completion in your provision. Return her safely in her time back to the family you gave to her as well. We thank you for all in Jesus' precious name....

Slan
Marty

I'd appreciate your prayers for my 21 year old granddaughter. She flew to Costa Rica Saturday night for a one-month intensive Spanish language class at the university in the capitol. At the same time, the Honduran military staged a coup next door and sent the ousted president to, you guessed it, Costa Rica! I'd just like prayer that she's safe and will be able to complete her classwork. This is her first trip away from home, and it has to be to a part of the world where revolution breaks out before breakfast! She's a level-headed young woman, but I still worry about her. Thanks.

Marty,

Great connection! Thanks. To prove this, I was talking with my wife and told her the very same thing; that they too must make the stupid decisions we did. She quickly told me that what they are doing is far worse then what we did. See, after 20 years, she will still deny that what we did was foolish.

They will be fine and in many ways, I do feel like a new father.

Hey Scotty,

Look again! Its not a break, its an example of what O'Donohue wrote! "Through the innocence of beginning we are often seduced into growth." The young are always innocent, yet, we were there and in our youthful foolishness we learned to grow! God provides the opportunities for all of us to deal with the troubles in our life! He'll do the same for your kids too.

Father, we never know your full plans for our lives but we thank you for your abiding presence throughout. We submit Faith and Lance into your care and trust in your goodness and guidance for their lives. Protect them and bring them together in you...

Thanks all for your posts and participation here...

Slan
Marty

Cindy,

My pride is what is keeping me together. My service to my country was cut short by a medical separation, so there is a lot of unfinished business I need to do for my own sake. With Faith now serving, I can reconnect to my country by serving her, Lance, and all our fighting boys and girls through my veteran's programs. So in many way I have joined with her and my efforts will keep me busy.

And if things get really bad, all I need to do is go in her room and see how many stains, and marks she has made on my concrete floors in her room! Some how that kid all but destroyed her room in three years. It really was time for her to go on her own. And everyone of you parents know what I am talking about. 'I love you, but it is time for you to go.' LOL

Scotty

Praying for you all Scotty...
My baby will be off for basic in October. He'll actually be gone a total of 6 months (with 2wks home for Christmas) and then will be back in Ohio since he's in the National Guard. And of course, my middle son is still at Fort Bragg and might possibly go off to Afghanistan in late Aug. It's really hard, but they have to make their own decisions and we pray! I'm proud of them, though, and I'm sure you are proud of her too. They are in God's hands.

Forgive the break in the conversation here. I would ask for everyone's prayers as Daddy's baby girl arrived in Great Lakes,IL for basic training last night. She was able to text me when her plane arrived, but was unable to get her phone call due to the fact that cell phones will not allow collect calls. But we were ok, just recieving the text from her. Also keep her husband Lance in your prayers. He is a great young man, but we fear that this seperation will much harder on him then he realized. If his ship date is not changed, they could be looking at next April before they are actually stationed together. But they were awear of this and willing to go through with thier wedding. The young couple will grow up really fast in the next year.

Scotty

Thanks Marty. I have written (and I can't remember if it's in Celtic Wisdom or something I've recently written,) that nature (or as she says life) does not just bear the fingerprints of God, he is found there. It might be nitpicking, but to say that God's fingerprints are on Nature is to place him far away someplace from his creation.

But I think what she has written is lovely and I'll have to check that book out. I've seen it. It's published by a publisher that some friends of mine used for their book, A Scrapbook of Christmas Firsts.

I picked up O'Donohue's To Bless the Space Between Us from the library. Anyone read it? Here's a passage from that, p. 2-3.
"There are journeys we have begun that have brought us great inner riches and refinement; but we had to travel through dark valleys of difficulty and suffering. Had we known at the beginning what the journey would demand of us, we might never have set out. Yet the rewards and gifts became so vital to who we are. Through the innocence of beginning we are often seduced into growth."

Dia annseo isteach!
God to all here!

Greetings all,

I'm still finishing off Tracy Balzer's book, 'Thin Places', the one I recommended because of her Evangelical background, and found something I really liked from it. This is from chapter 6, Saints and Symbols (from Visible to Invisible) on page 134. It goes back to a discussion on praying continually.

"The faith expression of the early Christian Celts was, at its core, sacramental in nature. ... every aspect of life presented to them an occasion for connection with God - a reason to pray, to listen, to worship, to exult, to delight in the goodness and nearness of God. We've seen in the Celtic appreciation of thin places that these early Christians were convinced that God is, indeed, very near to us and that nearness is sometimes sensed in unusual ways as physical locations become conduits of His Presence. Through the faith expression of these Celtic Christians, we see that all of life is sacred and covered with fingerprints of God."

It seems to me that the 'seeing' and 'listening' we speak of is linked to the heart within us that senses He is near. We need to understand that all of Life is the flow of his Love for all Creation, us included. Yet, learning to see and hear with the eyes and ears of our heart can be so 'outside' our life that we often miss doing it. I admire our ancestor's ability to live with the awareness of the other world within.

Enjoy your day all...

Slan
Marty

My pastor preached on Ps 51 last Sunday. I had my Message Bible and found some good stuff, especially this:

"God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life." That was cool to think about, especially after reading Newell's creation book.

I know the Psalm is about asking for forgiveness, but about 1/2 way through he is asking for renewal and I felt that really appied to me and my cancer. Things like: "give me a clean bill of health", "put a fresh wind in my sails", "commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God", "set these once-broken bones to dancing."

United Methodist, but be warned. I've belonged to three different ones, and they are different in some ways.

What kind of church do you go to Cindy? I'm kind of wishing for a social justice church.