This creative guide for individual and group prayer offers six weekly themes based on different images of the cup. The open cup, the chipped cup, the broken cup, the blessing cup ... each in turn becomes a teacher in prayer. For each day the author offers a short inviting essay, a wisdom saying, a scripture verse, a brief meditation, questions for journaling, and a suggestion for keeping the theme close to one's heart throughout the day. The reflective art that accompanies each theme offers yet another inspiration for prayer. The Cup of Our Life can also be used with groups that meet regularly for spiritual growth. Simple, helpful suggestions for group sharing and ritual are provided for each of the six weeks.
The Cup of Our Life will both revitalize and enrich your relationships with the Divine.
Thoughts from the Author
"...I have found the cup to be a powerful teacher for my inner life. The ordinariness of the cup reminds me that my personal transformation occurs in the common crevices of each day. The cup is an apt image for the inner process of growth. The cup has been a reminder of my spiritual thirst. As I've held it, filled it, drunk from it, emptied it and washed it, I've learned that it is through my ordinary human experineces that my thirst for God is quenched. In the cup I see life, with its emptiness, fullness, brokenness, flaws, and blessings.
"A cup is a container for holding something. Whatever it holds has to eventually be emptied out so that something more can be put into it. I have learned that I cannot always expect my life to by full. There has to be some emptying, some pouring out, if I am to make room for the new. The spiritual journey is like that--a constant process of emptying and filling, of giving and receiving, of accepting and letting go.
"...the main purpose of a cup is to have its contents given away."
The cup has taught me many valuable lessons for my spiritual growth. I have learned that my life holds stale things that need to be discarded and that sometimes my life feels as wounded as a broken cup. I have learned that I have flaws, chips, and stains, just as any well-used cup may have, but that these markings of a well traveled life need not prevent me from being a valuable gift for others. I have learned that the contents of my life are meant to be constantly given and shared in a generous gesture of compassion, just as the main purpose of a cup is to have its contents given away. I have especially learned gratitude for all those moments when the unexpected has transformed my life into an abundant cup of blessings.
"...The spiritual life is a journey toward becoming whole, a day-to-day movement of continually growing into the person we are meant to be."
(The) yearning for greater spiritual oneness with God is the foundation of The Cup of Our Life. I hope that this six-week guide, which is centered around the many facets of the cup, will inspire you to grow in your relationship with God and will fill your cup of life to overflowing." - Joyce Rupp
Review
"As anyone who has read any of her...books knows, Joyce Rupp is a gifted teacher who makes everyday spirituality dramatic, palpable, and transformative.... Rupp is a connossieur of attentiveness, imagination, and prayer. For example, she draws a link between a cup brimming over and the following practice: 'As I pour liquids of any kind into a cup, a glass or a bowl, I will smile inside as I remember how generous God is in filling my life with blessings.'" - - Spirituality and Health, Jan. 1999
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