Happy New Year!  With January we offer a new invitation for contemplation. Starting in December we returned to a monthly focus on our Monk Manifesto themes. Our focus for this month is on the second principle of hospitality: I commit to radical acts of hospitality by welcoming the stranger both without and within. I recognize that when I make space inside my heart for the unclaimed parts of myself, I cultivate compassion and the ability to accept those places in others. The new year brings a sense of renewed hope and beginning again. What will you welcome into your lifes in the

With December we offer a new invitation for contemplation. We are returning to a monthly focus on our Monk Manifesto themes. Our focus for this month is Silence. The month of December can be busy and full of noise. And so it is all the more important to take special care to cultivate true silence. I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and music). How amazing it would be to discern together the

With November we offer a new invitation for contemplation. Our focus for this month is honoring saints and ancestors. The month of November is traditionally a time when the Christian Community remembers those who have died. And so we are inviting you to welcome in the wisdom of those who have gone before us. I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from the Letter to the Hebrews. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and music). How amazing it would be to discern together the movements of the Spirit

With October we offer a new invitation for contemplation. Our focus for this month is letting go. In the northern hemisphere it is the season of fall when nature begins to release what is not necessary. What are you called to shed in your own spiritual garden? I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from the Gospel of Luke. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionallyvisio and audio divina as well with art and music). How amazing it would be to discern together the movements of the Spirit at work in the hearts of

With September we return to our monthly invitations for contemplation. Our focus for this month is harvest. In the northern hemisphere it is the season for gathering the fruits of our labors. What are you called to harvest in your own spiritual garden? I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from the Gospel of Mark. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionallyvisio and audio divina as well with art and music). How amazing it would be to discern together the movements of the Spirit at work in the hearts of monks around the

Artwork: “St. Francis Dancing Monk Icon” © artist Marcy Hall at Rabbit Room Arts With May comes a new invitation for contemplation. This month I invite you into a visio divina practice, which is an adaptation of lectio divina. In visio divina we are invited to see with the eyes of our heart, much in the way lectio calls us to listen with the ears of our heart. Francis of Assisi is our newest icon in the dancing monk series (which has included other notables so far such as Hildegard of Bingen, Benedict of Nursia, Brigid of Kildare, Brendan the Navigator, and Mary, Mother of God).  I

With April comes a new invitation for contemplation. In the northern hemisphere, spring is slowly arriving with birdsong and blooming. Wherever we live on this beautiful planet, we can tend to the flowering that happens within after a season of fallowness. The outer seasons become a mirror for our inner experience. I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from one of my favorite biblical books: Song of Songs. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and