Today’s Life-Line is:

The whole process of coming to wholeness through being willing to take the learnings of the past to the challenges of the present shrivels in the face of denial. In the traditional view, struggle required one of two things: that what could not be endured be changed or that what could not be changed be endured. Missing from the lexicon of options was the notion that we ourselves could do more than endure: we could be transformed by the possibility of new beginnings.

The essence of struggle is neither endurance nor denial. The essence of struggle is the decision to become new rather than simply to become older. It is the opportunity to grow either smaller or larger in the process.

There is, then, a gift in the travails of forced change. It is the gift of beginning again: conversion.

~ Joan Chittister

REFLECTION: 
• Listen deeply: What is your biggest struggle right now?
• Ruminatio*: I can deny it, endure it, or let go into a new beginning?
• Prayer for the Day: Transform me with the possibility of a new beginning.

* In lectio divina, the second movement is meditation. The Latin ruminatio, from which we get the word rumination, is often used to describe this movement. Literally, it means “chewing the cud.” In the context of this contemplative practice it refers to pondering deeply or chewing on a word, phrase, or sentence and extracting the “juices.”