Hi There!
So, welcome to our first ever wine tasting.
May it lead to a divine intoxication for us all.
Please savor this sampling of seven outstanding "spirits."
I heartily recommend them.
Over the years they have helped inebriated me
to the point of wild abandon in Love.
I pray that may be your "high" as well.
For most (all) of us, Chateau Lafite Rothschild,
at a thousand dollars a bottle,
is out of range and reach.
So, too, "spirits" like:
- John of the Cross
- Teresa of Avila
- Meister Eckhart
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Julian of Norwich
- Moses Maimonides
are frequently a bit too rarified and complex for daily imbibing.
On Wine Spectator's Scale they would surely be in the (95 - 100 range),
"Classics: the great wines."
More to our palate and price would be
a bottle of "spirits" like St. Francis Sonoma Red
at twenty dollars a bottle.
It's in Wine Spectator's Scale of (90 -94 range),
"Outstanding: a wine of superior character and style."
The "spirits" here for our tasting certainly are "of superior character and style":
- Thomas Merton
- Bede Griffiths
- Gerald May
- Richard Rohr
- Rob Bell
- Rumi
- Hafiz
Here's a :"taste" of each.
It is accompanied with a recommendation for a fuller portion
should you wish to imbibe even more after our little "tasting" here
(the recommendation is not necessarily the source of our tasting here ).
THOMAS MERTON
" Every moment and every event
of every man's life on earth
plants something in his soul."
New Seeds of Contemplation
****************
BEDE GRIFFITH
"Above all we have to go beyond
word and images and concepts.
No imaginative vision
or conceptual framework
is adequate to
the great reality."
Return to the Center
******************
GERALD MAY
"I would prefer a thousand mistakes
in extravagance of love
to any paralysis in wariness of fear."
The Awakened Heart
******************
RICHARD ROHR
" We do not think ourselves
into new ways of living,
we live ourselves into
new ways of thinking."
All Things Belong
also
a daily email from
The Center for Action and Contemplation
********************
ROB BELL
"I like to say that I practice
a militant form of mysticism.
I am really absolutely sure
of some things
that I don't quite know."
Love Wins
also
a weekly podcast,
The RobCast
*********************
RUMI
"Let the beauty
of what you love
be what you do."
The Essential Rumi
*********************
HAFIZ
"The heart is a
thousand stringed instrument
that can only be tuned
with love."
The Gift
**********************
Glad we could share a taste of these good "spirits."
With bottled spirits, excess is a danger.
The danger for the spiritual is being cold sober!!!
"Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." (Psalm 34:8)
Here's to you!!
Let's hold in Love the people of California's wine country
as the suffer devastating fires.
A warm welcome to our newest participants here from Kenya and Romania.
Glad we can share together!
Our circle widens.
What a blessing you all are!
All this reminds me of a prayer we used to sing in Gregorian Chant back in seminary days
( it was sixty six years ago and of course in Latin ):
"Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in Unum."
"Behold how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell as one."
Psalm 133:1
See you next week.
In God's Intoxicating Love,
John Frank
