Reflections

Word for Today: Transformation If entered into mindfully and with a whole heart, each encounter on the road has the potential to transform. The pilgrim returns home not with all the answers. Instead, they receive better questions; questions that bring the pilgrimage experience into daily life and reveal depth in all they see around them. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: Can you stay open to the divine presence which is always in the midst of whatever life presents to you right here, right now, even if it is not what you were

Word for Today: Home Ultimately the pilgrimage leads us back home again. We always return bearing gifts for the community. We are always called back to share what we have been given with others. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: What gifts are you bearing back from your pilgrimage? Who will you share them with?     Next steps: Let the word, quote, and question inspire your creative practice (Download the list of daily words here.) Use the hashtag  #soulofapilgrim when sharing on social media. Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group to share your art and writing

Word for Today: Relationship God is never a set of concepts to be understood but a relationship to encounter. In this way, the spiritual life is always a journey. We do not let go once and for all. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: Can you allow yourself the time and space to move through the layers of your life until you are living more from your heart than your mind? Next steps: Let the word, quote, and question inspire your creative practice (Download the list of daily words here.) Use the hashtag  #soulofapilgrim when sharing on social

Word for Today: Holy Disruption The divine is that power which disrupts everything; it is at heart a great mystery at work. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: What if our pilgrimage practice courted holy disruption? What if we embraced the unknown as sacred wisdom for the unfolding of our lives?     Next steps: Let the word, quote, and question inspire your creative practice (Download the list of daily words here.) Use the hashtag  #soulofapilgrim when sharing on social media. Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group to share your art and writing with others. Name your

Word for Today: Inner Landscape While some physical places and landscapes feel more like home to us, ultimately it is in service to us discovering the primal home within each one of us. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: What would it be like to move through the world and, no matter where you found yourself, to recognize yourself as fully at home?   Next steps: Let the word, quote, and question inspire your creative practice (Download the list of daily words here.) Use the hashtag  #soulofapilgrim when sharing on social media. Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group

Word for Today: Stranger [Benedict’s Rule calls me] to welcome in every stranger who comes to the door as the face of the divine…. At its core, it means that everything that seems strange, foreign, or uncomfortable is the place where God especially shimmers forth. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: While it is relatively easy to see how this deep hospitality applies to strangers, can you see how it equally applies to an inner kind of hospitality, when we extend a welcome to the full spectrum of emotions, beliefs and thoughts which

Word for Today: Communion of Saints There might be wild beasts to encounter: the fierce ones in your own heart. But there are also powers there to help support and guide you. Remember that the threshold is full of shimmering presence. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: Is there an ancestor, or spiritual saint or guide, you could call upon for assistance in times of trouble? Who do you sense from the great “cloud of witnesses” and “communion of saints” traveling alongside you, offering their wisdom through the veil? Next

Word for Today: Wholeness Our life impulse calls us into community with ourselves, with others, and with the divine…. We are grounded in our wholeness and make choices from this place. —Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within Reflective Question: In what way does your life impulse call you to continue the difficult yet soulful journey you have begun?     Next steps: Let the word, quote, and question inspire your creative practice (Download the list of daily words here.) Use the hashtag  #soulofapilgrim when sharing on social media. Join the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group to share