Rise Up Rooted
Book of Hours II, 16 How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the strongest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world. Each thing – each stone, blossom, child – is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, push out beyond what we belong to […]
Essential Flow
I shared a couple of months ago dreams I was having about playing the cello. After my third dream in about a month, I woke up and went for a walk to pray with the images that kept repeating themselves to me to pay attenton. Toward the end of my walk I went by […]
Body-Words of Love
I am fashioned as a galaxy, Not as a solid substance but a mesh Of atoms in their far complexity Forming the pattern of my bone and flesh. Small solar systems are my eyes, Muscle and sinew are composed of air. Like comets flashing through the evening skies My blood runs, ordered, arrogant, and fair. […]
Bare Branches
Top two photos taken at Greenlake in Seattle, bottom four on Granville Island in Vancouver I find winter trees achingly beautiful, even more so this winter than any previous one I can remember. I see the black branches spread across the darkening sky and my heart swells with longing, as though there is something in […]
Zen of Housework
Rachel at Swandive left me my 1000th comment and so is my drawing winner! Another wonderful poem about finding the sacred in the most ordinary: The Zen of Housework I look over my own shoulder down my arms to where they disappear under water into hands inside pink rubber gloves moiling among dinner dishes. My […]
Sacredness of All Things
I love poetry that speaks of the holiness of the ordinary, the sacredness of all things. We make artificial divisions between sacred and secular, between what is worthy of our awe and gratitude and what is not. This is one of the elements I love most about Benedictine spirituality. In the Rule, Benedict wrote that […]
New Article on Spirituality and the Arts
In the fall the editor of the UCLA Spirituality and Higher Education Newsletter found my website through a search and asked me to write an article for their upcoming issue on spirituality and artistic expression. The article is titled “The Relationship Between Spirituality and Artistic Expression: Cultivating the Capacity for Imagining” and you can find […]