Reflections

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Thank you for the very moving notes so many of you sent me from my reflection last week on chronic illness as pilgrimage experience. I am continuing to break my heart open to you here and offer another difficult journey, that of the grief of losing a loved one. I am grateful to Tara Owens at Anam Cara for sharing my guest post at her blog as part of the Soul of a Pilgrim summer blog book tour. Here is an excerpt: My heart sank when I stepped tentatively into my mother’s room. She lay

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I continue my blog book tour this summer and am delighted that Judy Smoot of Always We Begin Again is hosting a guest post from me as well as an interview (see interview details below). Here is an excerpt of my reflection on living with chronic illness as an experience of pilgrimage: I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was 21 years old. The only other person I knew at the time with this disease was my mother and her body had been ravaged by the effects of deterioration, with multiple joint replacements

Now it is time to sit quiet alone with You and to Sing a re-dedication of my life in this Silent and overflowing joy. —Rabindranath Tagore, “A Moment’s Indulgence” Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I offer you this excerpt from my new book The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Inner Journey. These are words which have been coming back to me as I begin my summer sabbatical and offering me consolation and refreshment. May they offer the same to you: I received the poem above when I attended a silent retreat a couple of years ago at