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Reflections

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Sense of Direction

Perhaps the most stressful part of our entire trip to Ireland in June was the driving and navigating. It wasn’t so much driving on the opposite side of the road, as the fact that almost all of their roads are extremely narrow.  Every time a truck or bus came the other way I cringed, sure that there was not enough room to get by.  And every time we drove through a town we would lose track of the road signs telling us which way to continue on to our destination.  My husband did all of the driving, mostly because we had to

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August 13, 2007

Inevitable Creating

“After all, the goal is not to make art, but to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.” -Robert Henri from The Art Spirit “I don’t believe in it. . .Plumbers don’t get plumbers block, and doctor’s don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working and then expect sympathy for it?” -Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) These two quotes have caught my attention today, in part because they seem to each speak of a different end of the

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August 8, 2007

Illumination of Questions

“Think of the ways that questions illuminate the world around us.  Questions tune the soul.  The purpose behind questions is to initiate the quest. . . . We need to be introduced to our longings because they guard our mystery. Ask yourself what mystery is being guarded by your longing.”  -Phil Cousineau from The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred I am in the midst of one last journey of the summer, holding many questions in my heart, guarding many longings I am not yet able to name.   My quest feels like it was initiated long ago, but I

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August 6, 2007

Picking Blackberries

What will you give for a taste of summer’s last sweetness? This jewelled crown of thorns rings every path and highway; No use pretending you have not heard sweet temptation chatter through the vines- taste    eat Put your hand in the thorns and come out dripping juice, king’s purple spread from hand to tongue. Reach gently, or you will find your thumb full of thorns, and your pail filled with unbearable tartness. Reach gently, but reach. The sweetest berries hide toward the inside, hidden beneath leaves barbed like critics. Balance, if you must, precariously, held by will and longing

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August 2, 2007

Linger a While

Rather than writing a new post today and burying the Invitation to Poetry I posted on Monday, I invite you to scroll down or click here and re-visit that post with the abundance of beautiful words offered by others and linger for a while. . . A deep heartfelt thank you to everyone who has shared so far. What fun to see how much is evoked in a single image.  Feel free to keep leaving your responses in the comments or by sending me an email and I will add your words to the body of the post.

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August 1, 2007

Playing in the Field of Possibility

This summer has been rich in experience, epiphany, and insight and there is still another month to go.  I will be processing all of it for many months to come.  Going to Ireland in June was amazing, it connected me with a land infused with holiness that sings in my memory.  I felt a deep connection to those ancient monks who developed a Christianity that was wild and organic, that emerged from their land and traditions as a nature-embracing people.  I felt anger at the history of the Roman Church with its love of order and its petty argumentation. I was

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July 31, 2007

Contemplative Living

A great reflection by Robert Toth at the Merton Insitute:  “Do you consider yourself a contemplative person? Would you say that you live contemplatively?” Having asked these questions of hundreds of people, we find that most people do not see themselves as contemplative or feel they are living contemplatively. Most defined contemplative living as leading a less busy, more quiet life or engaging in certain practices such as meditation, centering prayer or yoga. In the popular imagination contemplative living is still influenced by the close connection between contemplation and monks and nuns who leave “the world” and live in monasteries.

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July 29, 2007

We Give It

The Weighing The heart’s reasons seen clearly, even the hardest will carry its whip-marks and sadness and must be forgiven. As the drought-starved eland forgives the drought-starved lion who finally takes her, enters willingly then the life she cannot refuse, and is lion, is fed, and does not remember the other. So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance. The world asks of us only the strength we have and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. -Jane Hirshfield from October Palace -Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the

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July 26, 2007

Kinship with Creation

One of the elements of Celtic spirituality that most attracts me is its sense of kinship with all of creation.  I have written here many times about the connections between animals and spirituality.  While I was in Ireland I read several books on Irish history and Celtic spirituality.   In Thomas Cahill’s book How the Irish Saved Civilization, he describes the prayer of  St. Patrick’s breastplate as conveying this simple message: “The universe itself is the Great Sacrament.”  The French Jesuit and scientist Teilhard de Chardin described our interconnection as the “breathing together of all things.” All God’s creatures are theophanies The world is holy and

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July 25, 2007

Inspiration as Grace

The other essay in the Theological Aesthetics book I am reading that has especially moved me is by the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff from his book Liberating Grace: “The poet, the musician, and the writer feel overtaken by inspiration.  On the one hand, it is they who do the work. Their energy and their deepest selves are totally involved. The effort to express themselves often leads to complete exhaustion. On the other hand, they feel possessed by something that is above them, outside them, or within them. It drives them to create, compelling them to express their inner experience to

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July 24, 2007