Date: August 7, 2023
As we move further into summer, I hope you have taken some time for rest and rejuvenation. Perhaps you spent time with friends and family or resumed summer travel or simply enjoyed quiet days of silence where you allowed yourself to be found by God. However you spent your time, I hope that there was great JOY!
I spent time this summer reading What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. I also found myself immersed in Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart. I cannot seem to read his meditation “How Good to Center Down” too many times. It is a reminder of the preciousness of life and being attentive to one’s own. As I reflected on his writings, I was reminded again and again of what resonated with me so deeply this past year while taking the Heart Longings course at the Shalem Institute – life is ALL gift.
So, as we enter this new academic year be sure to continue to make time for rest as the pace and intensity of the semester picks up. I am reminded each day that, yes, you can do anything, but you can’t do everything, at least not all at once. Be gentle with yourself as you balance the important things in life.
As we enter a new week, I offer you this:
It is very good to turn aside from the rush and weariness and the anxieties by which these days beset and lay siege to our moments, to rest in the
presence of God. It is good to pause to make an end of so much that bothers and harasses the spirit, to assess the meaning of our lives in the light of the
movement of the Spirit within us.
—–Howard Thurman, The Centering Moment
Happy Summer!
Jacqui Ballou
Senior Vice President for Finance, Administration and Operations