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Tag: path

When the Path Disappears

April 23, 2025April 22, 2025 ~ James ~ 1 Comment

Two days after Easter, many of us are still basking in the glow of resurrection and new life—or at least, trying to. Hope, after all, isn’t always easy to hold onto. Even with faith, the world’s noise and the uncertainties of life can make it difficult to trust that new life is still unfolding. When … Continue reading When the Path Disappears

A View from My Walk

September 19, 2023 ~ James ~ 3 Comments

When I wrote about walking, it was suggested we share some pictures. Here are some from today.

A Dream Last Night

August 26, 2023August 26, 2023 ~ James ~ Leave a comment

Tell us about the last thing you got excited about. Awakening this morning, I was excited to remember a dream. It is rare for me to recall one at all, let alone clearly. Here is how I might summarize it: I was back at university; the grounds were very familiar from the time I was … Continue reading A Dream Last Night

What I learned from Jesus

June 22, 2023 ~ James ~ Leave a comment

When I look at the stories of Jesus of Nazareth, I see a person teaching and modeling a path for living. Jesus taught about healing and wholeness, and facilitated others finding the wholeness about which he taught. Jesus practiced being in the moment, with whoever he happened to be with then. He would stop at … Continue reading What I learned from Jesus

  • Ripening Awareness: The Space Before We React
  • A Creed of Holy Mystery
  • Ripening Effort: Gentleness in What We Bring
  • A Grace-filled Creed
  • A Sabbath Creed
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You are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

James Henry

Ripening Awareness: The Space Before We React - Infinitely Precious

In week seven of the Ripening series, James Henry turns to one of the quieter but most transformative dimensions of spiritual growth: ripening awareness. Building on the series' central metaphor — that transformation is less like achievement and more like a fruit slowly receiving what it needs to become what it already is — James explores what it means to notice a reaction rising in you before it becomes your automatic response.Drawing on his own practice of Centering Prayer, James describes how sitting in twenty minutes of silence, releasing thoughts as they arise, trains the same muscle needed in everyday conversation: the ability to catch a reaction — anger, defensiveness, the urge to walk away — in the split second before it takes over. He talks candidly about the amygdala's role in this process, the evolutionary logic of fight-or-flight, and why so many of our modern reactions aren't actually about survival at all, even though they feel that way in the moment.This episode offers a gentle, practical invitation: you don't have to react to everything that rises in you. Through simple practices like breath and pause, James shows how ripening awareness creates space — not to suppress what we feel, but to choose, with more freedom and presence, what we do with it.In This Episode:Why James chose the word "ripening" over "growth" for this seriesHow Centering Prayer trains the mind to notice and releaseThe role of the amygdala in reactive, self-protective responsesThe difference between needing to react and wanting to reactA simple breathing practice for creating space before respondingHow ripening awareness deepens presence with others
  1. Ripening Awareness: The Space Before We React 12:18
  2. Ripening Effort: Gentleness in What We Bring 12:53
  3. Ripening Release: Loving Without Grasping 16:02
  4. Ripening Enough-ness: I Am, and That's Enough 13:02
  5. Ripening Action: The Ripple You Never See 12:46
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