{"id":6167,"date":"2025-10-02T17:22:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T22:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/?p=6167"},"modified":"2025-10-28T16:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T21:14:17","slug":"ponderings-from-pastor-patti-october-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/2025\/10\/02\/ponderings-from-pastor-patti-october-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponderings from Pastor Patti &#8211; October 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This month I entered a new journey with Seeking the Spirit Within, in the Spiritual Direction Program, and our first assignment was to read a book by Henri Nouwen called \u201c<em>The Way of the Heart\u201d.&nbsp; <\/em>It\u2019s an excellent book for anyone who desires to deepen their relationship with God.&nbsp; This book examines and reflects on the spiritual lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers who lived in the Egyptian desert during the fourth and fifth centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because it seems that the darkness in our world is thicker than ever and that the powers of evil are more blatantly visible and testing us more severely than ever before, we have to find a practical and workable response to Paul\u2019s exhortation in Romans: \u201c<em>Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modeled by your new mind.&nbsp; This is the only way to discover the will<\/em> <em>of God and know what is good, what it is that<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.\u201d <\/em>(Romans 12:2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What I am pondering on for this journey is that by engaging in silence, prayer and solitude, as the Desert Fathers practiced, and that as I become more in tune with my own relationship with God, I will be more present for you as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is something that I am sure will transform my life, but yours as well as God works in and through me.&nbsp; This is a journey that I have felt called to for a long time and just didn\u2019t have the time and resources to enter into.&nbsp; Now that it\u2019s a reality for me, I hope I can count on your prayer support.&nbsp; And I pray that your life will be transformed too as we continue to journey together in worship, study and prayer.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>-Pastor Patti\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month I entered a new journey with Seeking the Spirit Within, in the Spiritual Direction Program, and our first assignment was to read a book by Henri Nouwen called \u201cThe Way of the Heart\u201d.&nbsp; It\u2019s an excellent book for anyone who desires to deepen their relationship with God.&nbsp; This book examines and reflects on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8agoY-1Bt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6209,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6167\/revisions\/6209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flcssc.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}