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Words of the Heart

To see the word cloud enlarged either click on the image or click here Nearly 300 of you responded to my invitation to allow a word to choose you which you might live into for the coming year.  The responses have been inspiring, beautiful, and profound.  Pour yourself a cup of tea and linger over them and listen for your own stirrings in response.  The image above is a Wordle (word cloud) created from all the words shared.  You can click here for a larger image or here for a PDF Version. (*Please note: the word size is in proportion to the number of

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January 3, 2011

Visual Meditation: Christmas Blessings from Vienna

Christmas blessings to all friends of the Abbey – may you discover the holy being birthed within your own heart, may your life enflesh the sacred presence for others. Stop by “Give me a Word” and share the word shimmering for you for 2011 and read the moving reflections others have posted in response to their own words.  If you need support in letting the word choose you stop by this post for suggestions. More winter images can be found here. . .  

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December 23, 2010

Letting a Word Choose You

I invited you the other day to offer a word which is calling to you for this coming year.  The responses have been so beautiful and inspiring (I encourage you to stop by and read them!) For some of you the word may have come right away, but for some you may desire a word to ripen within your soul these coming weeks and months, but one doesn’t seem to be coming.  So here are some suggestions for allowing a word to choose you: Release your thinking mind in this process, this isn’t about figuring out just the right word

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December 22, 2010

Visual Meditation: Winter Solstice (in Vienna)

Today in the Northern hemisphere we celebrate the Winter Solstice, that day of the great turning toward the light.  Winter is my favorite season with her achingly beautiful spareness.  I offer you some images from my time away below.  Blessings on your own journey through holy darkness toward illumination. More photos to come later in the week including a reflection about how to listen for the Word which might be calling to you for the coming year.  Make sure to stop by “Give me a Word” and share yours for a chance to win an online class and to read

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December 21, 2010

Give Me a Word (and second annual Abbey New Year Giveaway)

Last year I offered the invitation to my readers to consider a word shimmering for them that might carry them throughout the year.  There were 140 beautiful postings and I later created a Wordle from the entries as a celebration of the prayers gathered.  I offer the same invitation this year and again some prizes to give away: In ancient times, wise men and women fled out into the desert to find a place where they could be fully present to God and to their own inner struggles at work within them.  The desert became a place to enter into

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December 17, 2010

Advent Practices: Considering Our Earthiness (Week Four)

This is the fourth reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: When despair for the world grows in me . . . I come into the peace of wild things . . . I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. -Wendell Berry, excerpted from “The Peace of Wild Things” If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, / You are surely lost. -David Wagoner, excerpted from “Lost” In the scriptures for this fourth week of Advent we hear in the

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December 17, 2010

Advent Practices: Water’s Wisdom (Week Three)

This is the third reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance. ~ Thomas Merton For this third week of Advent I invite you to consider the element of water as an inspiration for your prayer and a way to grow in intimacy with creation.

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December 9, 2010

Advent Practices: Following the Fire (Week Two)

This is the second reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: Every being is praising God The fire has its flame and praises God. The wind blows the flame and praises God. In the voice we hear the word which praises God. And the word, when heard, praises God. So all of creation is a song of praise to God.   -Hildegard of Bingen In the first week of our Advent series we focused on the scriptural image of awakening and the gift of breath as our connection

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December 1, 2010

Advent Practices: Tending to Creation (Week One)

For the season of Advent I will be offering a weekly column at Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: As we enter these four weeks of Advent, we cross into a holy time when the scriptures are filled with images of expectancy as we await the coming of a God who enters into the heart of this world. I invite you during these next four weeks to embrace this season as a time to tend to your relationship to creation. As we anticipate the way holiness becomes enfleshed, we are called to reflect on the

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November 25, 2010

Winter Wisdom

 A major obstacle to creativity is wanting to be in the peak season of growth and generation at all times . . . but if we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons. . . then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring. -Linda Leonard, from Call to Create : Celebrating Acts of Imagination One of the greatest gifts of the seasons to me as a writer and

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November 18, 2010