The Sun

The Sun

The Sun Have you ever seen anything in your life more wonderful than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone– and how it slides again out of the blackness, every morning, on the other side…

Compassion and Community

Compassion and Community

To follow Jesus means to relate to each other with the mind of Jesus; that is, to relate to each other as Jesus did to us in servanthood and humility.  Community is journeying together, each on our own path, but supporting each other in that journey.  You have discoved fellow travelers on a journey and…

Living Out Our Great Desires; Considering Greatness

Living Out Our Great Desires; Considering Greatness

Christian spirituality elicits great desires in people so that they can better serve others.  In our hyper-competitive culture, greatness can take on different meanings.  Some think it means engaging in high-profile activities, landing notable positions, and achieving big results.  Following deep desires may lead to such outcomes, but not necessarily.  Reducing greatness to honors, positions,…

When I am Among Trees

When I am Among Trees

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and…

Upstream

Upstream

I walked, all one spring day, upstream, sometime in the midst of ripples, sometimes along the shore.  My company were violets, Dutchman’s-breeches, spring beauties, trilliums, bloodroot, ferns rising so curled one could feel the upward push of the delicate hairs upon their bodies.  My companions were downstream, not far away, then father away because I…

How the Light Comes

How the Light Comes

I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining. That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us. That it loves searching out what is hidden what is lost what is forgotten or in peril or in pain. That it has a fondness for…

The Wisdom of the Mystics

The Wisdom of the Mystics

We live in a time of both crisis and opportunity. While there are many reasons to be anxious, I still have hope. Westerners, including Christians, are rediscovering the value of nonduality: a way of thinking, acting, reconciling, boundary-crossing, and bridge-building based on inner experience of God and God’s Spirit moving in the world. We’re not…

How Can I Pray?

How Can I Pray?

Do you want to Fast This Lent?  Perhaps Praying is the best way to start. A great way to pray is to look for God’s presence in your life. More than 400 years ago St. Ignatius Loyola encouraged prayer-filled mindfulness by proposing what has been called the Daily Examen. The Examen is a technique of…

A New Beginning

A New Beginning

We must learn to live each day, each hour, and each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new, finding “God in all Things” and “Living a Life with Purpose.”  Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment full of possibilities with new life.  Imagine we could live…

Praying

Praying

It doesn’t have to be the be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, it isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and silence in which another may speak….