Spiritual Aging's Weekly Study Guide Preview

Risking a Miracle

Every week, members who have opted to upgrade to a paid membership receive a study guide such as the preview of the Fourth Week of December that follows. Each guide is based on that week’s reading in Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life. You are invited to join our small group of self-selected members to work the readings individually and then to have the option to converse with each other in the comments that follow as you are so moved 24/7. There are no meetings or obligations just the gift of knowing you don’t have to do aging alone.

—Fiercely Yours, Carol Orsborn

Risking a Miracle: This Week’s Reflection

To believe that miracles are possible—beyond our control, understanding and expectations—requires a leap of faith. And taking a leap of faith entails risk.

This is not feel good spirituality, meant for happier times. This is grit your teeth, what do you really believe is the deepest truth about life stuff.

To be both awake and hopeful: this is the challenge. To find the courage to change what you can and believe that God can act, even when you cannot: this is the true miracle of the season.

Questions for Journaling or Discussion

1.) Are you finding it particularly challenging to think about peace on earth and goodwill this year?

2.) Is it possible to hold hope in difficult times that isn’t based on denial, complacency or complicity?

3.) What is the role spirituality, religion and faith play in maintaining hope even when it’s not rational? Why do you think miracles play such a big role in most holiday stories?

4.) Why does taking a leap of faith require taking a risk?

5.) In the reading, it says: “This is not feel good spirituality, meant for happier times. This is grit your teeth, what do you really believe is the deepest truth about life stuff.” In what ways does this reflect or challenge your own understanding of spirituality as you’ve developed spiritually over the years?

6.) What would it take for you to be both awake to reality and hopeful at the same time? Is this something to which you aspire?

Spiritual Exercise

One of the most powerful spiritual tools for being both awake and hopeful is the Serenity Prayer. We’re going to apply the Serenity Prayer to something that is on your mind, capturing the true spirit of the holiday season as the means for deepening spiritually.

The Serenity Prayer

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Reflect on these questions:

PART ONE: “The serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

1.) What’s something that’s both on your mind and weighing on your heart?

2.) What, if anything, is blocking your acceptance of this situation?

PART TWO: “The courage to change the things I can.”

3.) What can you change about the situation?

4.) In what ways, if any, is finding the courage to change what you can a challenge for you?

PART THREE: “The wisdom to know the difference.”

5.) After you’ve submitted whatever is both on your mind and weighing on your heart to the questions in Parts One and Two, what yet remains to be resolved? Part Three assures us it’s alright—an inherent part of being whole—to be confused, unsure and conflicted. What Part Three is calling for is further discernment: an expansion of consciousness which in and of itself can constitute a valid next step.

6.) If you have done your best answering these questions honestly and the wisdom you seek is still eluding you, you’re ready for PART FOUR.

PART FOUR: “God, grant me the serenity, the courage and the wisdom.”

The Serenity Prayer is predicated on acceptance of your powerlessness over not just the situation you’re facing but the attainment of the gift of serenity, courage and wisdom you can’t muster by yourself. To find the courage to change what you can and believe that a power greater than yourself can act through you and in the world even when you cannot, is the true miracle of the season.

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