Contemplative Child of God

My name is Brandon. I am 22 years old, gay, a singer, pianist, organist, and a music major attending seminary in the fall.

[buggie-hagen]

“Similarly it is the concern of a minister or preacher to carry on his preaching and to administer the Sacrament properly, to comfort the sorrowing and the sick, to denounce the wicked, and to pray for needs of every kind; for he has the command to wait upon souls and to guide them.”

— Martin Luther, “Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount” in Luther’s Works, Vol. 21, 193.

[gaysandpets]

[boyskisslove]

BOYSKISSLOVE. Your place to be!

[solfege914]

When they put you in charge of the chalk board at Caribou. #pride #lgbtq #queer #celebrate (at Caribou Coffee)

[lnfatuacion-deactivated20140620]

[wolftramp]

Vintage Blog

[natura-e]

- Nature blog ^^

[thrilled-d]

🍃

[staff]

Hey. It’s Pride Month!

Over the next 30 days, we are actively encouraging you to share your LGBTQ+ pride with all of Tumblr. You deserve to be proud of who you are 365 days a year, but these next 30 days, we’re going all out. There’s no wrong way to do it. Upload an illustration. Write a poem. Make a GIF.  Take a selfie and slap a Pride sticker on it. Maybe send a sticker to a friend. These precious babies are in your app right now:

Do one thing, do 100 things—whatever feels right. Just tag it with #TumblrPride so other people can find it. And, hey, if you can’t do any of these things, know that we still support you. You have every reason to feel proud this month, even if you aren’t ready to show it. <3

We’ll also be signal boosting other influential LGBTQ+ voices all month long. We’ve secured some really amazing people for Answer Time and Issue Time:

6/23—Gavin Grimm, 17 year old activist fighting for the equality of transgender students, held on Action (@action).

6/29—Becca McCharen, queer fashion designer and founder of fashion label Chromat (@chromat).

6/30—Trans Rights & Community, focusing on urgent issues that affect trans people, like violence, access to health care, and unemployment, held on Action (@action).

Have a safe and beautiful Pride Month, Tumblr.

[dramoor]

“The aim is a union with God, not fulfilling some external rules.”

~via Orthodox Way of Life

(photo of Meteora, Greece, via Pinterest)

[solfege914]

Late night trips to the chapel to celebrate the resurrection cause easter is a whole season! Christ is risen. Alleluia. (at PLTS: Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary)

[solfege914]

3.5 hours of church and it's time to celebrate the resurrection with food and Ale-leluia beer! Christ is risen! Alleluia! (at All Souls Episcopal Parish in Berkeley, CA)

[solfege914]

First painting ever! Gaiwan with tea (at The Dels)

[dramoor]

(via 4.bp.blogspot.com)

[solfege914]

Spring in the bay (at PLTS: Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary)

[solfege914]

Selfie with my homeboy #luther #reformation (at Graduate Theological Union)

[subcognition]

A dog does not know He is a dog. He only knows He is. If only man could be so fortunate.

The Lost Writings of Wu Hsin (via subcognition)

[know-the-self]

Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.

Ramana Maharshi (via know-the-self

Meditation is an act of social justic

[oceanandwave-deactivated2018032]

In my case, which I think is similar for many, many people, the greatest solvent for ego is found within our lives—the fabric of our existence, the grit of what’s actually happening in our everyday experience. I find that this is often overlooked within the context of spirituality. Many of us are using our spirituality as a way to avoid life, to avoid seeing things we really need to see, to avoid being confronted with our own misunderstandings and illusions. It is very important to know that life itself is often our greatest teacher. Life is full of grace—sometimes it’s wonderful grace, beautiful grace, moments of bliss and happiness and joy, and sometimes it’s fierce grace, like illness, losing a job, losing someone we love, or a divorce. Some people make the greatest leaps in their consciousness when addiction has them on their knees, for example, and they find themselves reaching out for a different way of being. Life itself has a tremendous capacity to show us truth, to wake us up. And yet, many of us avoid this thing called life, even as it is attempting to wake us up. The divine itself is life in motion. The divine is using the situations of our lives to accomplish its own awakening, and many times it takes the difficult situations to wake us up.

 Adyashanti (via oceanandwave)

[thegoldeneternity]

First of all, abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that. Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual. Abandon any desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind. You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (via thegoldeneternity)

[christwasasocialist]

If we want to be anything other than what God has made us to be, we are wasting our time. It will not work. The greatest accomplishment in life is to be what we are, which is God’s idea of what he wanted us to be when he brought us into being; and no ideas of ours will ever change it. Accepting that gift is accepting God’s will for us, and in its acceptance lies the path to growth and ultimate fulfillment.

Thomas Keating in The Heart of The World: an introduction to contemplative Christianity Via a #centeringprayer blog on tumblr http://centeringprayer.tumblr.com/ (via christwasasocialist)