Reflections

Two wonderful new reviews of Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements (click the link to purchase your own copy on Amazon.com) Reviewed by Spiritual Directors International: Spiritual director Christine Valters Paintner describes sitting on an Oregon coastal shore piled with sand and stones, watching the setting sun while gulls glide on a Pacific Ocean breeze. She writes, “Here in this place, wind, water, earth, and fire all meet in a glorious window onto the Divine extravagance” (138). Encountering the four elements in one place is exactly what Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire does, inviting

Register between September 8-12 for online classes starting September 13th –  Lectio Divina and Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Contemplative Practice – and 50% of the profits will be donated to the National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf Oil Spill Restoration Fund.  If you have been waiting to sign up, now is the time!

A postcard from the Abbey in honor of my anniversary today. This is my blessing for you, my dear readers, in the days ahead. May you be blessed with the grace of companionship. May your heart be embraced by the love of a kindred soul. May you span time together, stretched out over the beauty of the seasons, knowing the rise and fall, the fullness and emptiness of life. May love become your crucible of transformation, that place where deepening trust leads to a softened heart. And may your growing love of those you trust deeply lead you to expanding

The world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed we are in the midst of it, and it is in

Sending you blessings of illumination during these late summer days.  Where in your life do you feel luminous and radiant? Make sure to stop by this week’s Poetry Party and read the wondrous words about being a monk in the world.  Submit your own poem to join the fun and for a chance to win a prize! Have you joined the 298 other monks and signed the Monk Manifesto?

Sending blessings and love to you this day – may your heart experience at least one moment of wide-open freedom today – may you breathe in possibility and breathe out hope. Have you joined with over 200 240 monks and signed the Monk Manifesto (and downloaded the printable PDF version)?  Did you sign up yet for the free e-course on becoming a Monk in the World? If you live in Seattle and offer compassionate listening to others through spiritual direction, chaplaincy, counseling, or pastoring consider joining our newly added session of Soul Care for Compassionate Listeners (limited to 6 participants / only three spaces left).