Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Login Here

Reflections

Filter

Holy Silence

Be still. Listen to the stones of the wall. Be silent, they try to speak your name. Listen to the living walls. Who are you? Who are you? Whose silence are you? Who (be quiet) are you (as these stones are quiet). Do not think of what you are still less of what you may one day be. Rather be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one you do not know. O be still, while you are still alive, and all things live around you speaking (I do not hear) to your own being, speaking by the unknown

Read More
April 9, 2009

Living the Questions

The high priests brought many charges against him.  Pilate again questioned him, saying, “Have you no answers? Look how much you are accused of.” But Jesus still said nothing. Pilate was amazed. -Mark 15:3-5 Always the beautiful answer. Who asks a more beautiful question? -ee cummings I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given

Read More
April 8, 2009

Depths of the Divine Fecundity

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. The mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribeable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s Thought and Art within me, speaking

Read More
April 7, 2009

A Prayer to Begin

I’m the secret fire in everything, and everything smells like Me. The living breathe My sweet perfume, and they breathe out praise of Me. They never die because I am their Life. I flame out—intense, godly Life—over the shining fields of corn, I glow in the shimmer of the fire’s embers, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. The secret Life of Me breathes in the wind and holds all things together soulfully. This is God’s voice. -Hildegard of Bingen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fiery Spirit, Source of all creative power, Kindle your Holy Spark within me, Breathe into

Read More
April 6, 2009

Patterns and Imaginary Walls

Last week I had the joy of going to hear Michael Meade speak.  He is a mythologist who weaves folktales, myths, drumming, and singing into his wise talks about navigating complex times.  As always, as I listened to his words much stirred in me, some of which I am sure will appear in this space.  One story he shared was extraordinarily simple but has been living inside of me in surprising ways: A woman once had a goldfish bowl and she enjoyed watching the fish swim around in its small space.  One day the goldfish bowl needed to be cleaned

Read More
April 2, 2009

Summer Retreat and Fall Online Course Explore Benedictine Spiritual Practices

This summer I will be in Berkeley leading a weekend retreat on Praying the Hours at the Episcopal seminary CDSP.  I will follow it up with a fall online course on Benedictine spirituality.  Consider joining me for one or both!  Here are a short interview and article about them: Summer Retreat and Fall Online Course Explore Benedictine Spiritual Practices In the midst of busy lives, time is often seen as an ever-diminishing resource, a constraint on our ability to do all that we might like to get done. But, “time can become a gift,” says Christian spirituality scholar Christine Valters

Read More
April 1, 2009

“Everywhere I look I see fire”

In the dead of night he suddenly beheld a flood of light shining down from above more brilliant than the sun, and . . . the whole world was gathered up before his eyes in what appeared to be a single ray of light. –The Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict by Pope St. Gregory the Great, If the landscape reveals one certainty, it is that the extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation. After the one extravagant gesture of creation in the first place, the universe has continued to deal exclusively in extravagances . . . The whole

Read More
March 29, 2009

Prayer for Springtime

Earth our Mother, breathe forth life All night sleeping Now awaking In the east Now see the dawn Earth, our mother, breathe and waken Leaves are stirring All things moving New day coming Life renewing Eagle soaring, see the morning See the new mysterious morning Something marvelous and sacred Though it happens every day Dawn the child of God and Darkness -Pawnee Prayer Dawn is the Hour of the day that corresponds to springtime — the new light spreading across the sky after a long winter’s night.  What is awakening in you?

Read More
March 27, 2009

Peeling Away the Layers

The last couple of days my body has asked for rest and so I have listened rather than pushed forward.  And in the quiet spaces I have been listening. Lent is doing its work on me.  Shadows are being illumined, layers of myself are being peeled back to reveal the depths of who I am, my grip is being loosened on unhealthy patterns.  Amazing work, often unnerving work, is moving within me.  I have had many moments of profound grace this season as well, and as a result I am being invited into some external and internal places I was quite certain

Read More
March 25, 2009

Visual Meditation: Exploring the Shadows of Lent

When we stand in the light, we cast a shadow. Light and shade are to each other as breathing in is to breathing out. Some aspects of ourselves are in the light, visible to us and others. Other aspects, positive and negative, are in the shadow, unseen by us, even when seen by others. These are parts of ourselves that have been neglected, disowned, forgotten, judged, unrecognized or undeveloped. Some of the ways we can glimpse what is in the psychological shade include noting what we idealize or denigrate in others; recognizing our uneasiness about others’ perceptions about us (good

Read More
March 19, 2009