There are a few dear friends who will accompany me over the next several weeks and provide water and food for the tiny mustard seed that lives and grows in me. Not in any particular order, here is a brief introduction to each.
The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson Recommended to me by a friend who embodies the sense of wonder in the world, this book is filled with the most beautiful photographs and well written moments of wonder in nature. Rachel Carson is called “the patron saint of the environmental movement” and died in 1964 just as she was finishing this book. Looking at the photographs in this book, I am instantly transported to the coast of Maine. And the reawakened wonder in my heart instantly turns childlike to the Maker of All Things.
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.” -Rachel Carson
Divine Eros Hymns of Saint Symeon the New Theologian. I do not have words adequate to describe the effect what is stirred and pulled out of me and renewed when I read these hymns. But the effect is of some transcendent poetry that leaves me with both greater clarity and greater wonder after a time of meditation on the words.
Hymn 6
“How are You both a fire gushing forth,
and also a sprinkling water,
how do You both enflame and sweeten,
how do You make mortality disappear?
…
How do You drag darkness to the light,
how do You seize the night,
how do You illuminate my heart,
how do You entirely transform me?”
-Saint Symeon The New Theologian
*”New Theologian” in the Orthodox Church is a relative term – he was born in AD 949. 
The Inner Kingdom Metropolitan Kallistos Ware speaks with intelligence, kindness, beauty, and wisdom that is otherworldly – how fitting that he should write a book of this title. As Jesus said in Luke 17: 21(KJV) “Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.”
On the topic of silent prayer or prayer of the heart…
“{T}his silence is not vacant and negative – a blank pause between words, a short rest before resuming speech – but intensely positive: an attitude of alert attentiveness, of vigilance, but above all of listening.” – Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective This is an old favorite that I’m doing with a small group of intimates to further see and understand ourselves. The Enneagram is my favorite personality assessment – I offer this to clients and pursued family and friends to find out their number. I also love the spiritual direction of this book – spiritual direction that is specific to each by offering what we need most to be able to see ourselves – a mirror. I am an in-process Seven, by the way.
“Our sin and our unredeemed perception of the world is also, paradoxically, the method that helps us to get to our driving force. When we commit our “favorite sin,” we are “fully there.” That is why we can’t simply “give it up”:it belongs to the specific way that we give our life a goal and a direction. It belongs to the survival strategy that we adopted as children. We’re all creatures of habit. We keep retreating back to where we feel at home. That is why we find our gift where our sin is…” In other words, we find the potential for our greatest strengths in our greatest weakness.
Last and certainly not least, The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox Christians – daily scripture readings for Lent from Old and New Testaments, plus nurturing ancient commentary that transcends time and trend.
“The proud man thinks he can comprehend everything with his mind. The Lord does not grant this…The Lord does not manifest Himself to the proud soul. Pride is difficult to detect in oneself, but the Lord leaves the proud to be tormented by their impotence until they humble themselves.” – Saint Silouan. Ouch. Lord, have mercy.
How will you be enjoying and celebrating this beautiful season of preparation?
