Reflections

Last week I offered to donate 50% of the profits from registrations for two of the Abbey’s online classes for those who registered in the last couple of days.  I am delighted to report that the response was great and I was able to make a donation of $1000 to National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf Oil Spill Restoration Fund!  Thank you so much for your support of the Abbey.  (Registration for  Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Contemplative Practice is still available – begin the class at any time!) You can make your own donation to NWF here. Make sure you go by this

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

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?