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Ocean of Longing

Last Wednesday I went to the Hood Canal to check out a place for our Awakening the Creative Spirit program we are planning to offer in a weeklong intensive form (more info on this to come, dates are Nov 11-18, 2007). I decided to make the trip into a mini-retreat and spend the night in the area. Tune was with me, as well as my camera and journal — three of the essential elements for a good retreat. The Hood Canal area is a lovely place, hovering along the edge of a channel of still water. I took the ferry across the Puget Sound from Seattle to

February 25, 2007

Digging God Out Again

There’s a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then (God) must be dug out again. -Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life Lent is often associated with the desert, for good reason. The desert figures prominently in the scriptures as a place of testing and refining. Lent is a time when we consciously let go of those things or habits that take our attention away from the sacred presence that is always among us. Some people focus more energy

February 22, 2007

Ash Wednesday

Today we leave ordinary time to enter into the journey of Lent through the desert. The desert is that uncharted terrain beyond the edges of our seemingly secure and structured world, where things begin to crack. We begin this desert journey marked with ashes, the sign of our mortality. There is wisdom in these ashes. If you have ever been near death or had a loved one die, you know the clarity that an awareness of our bodily limits can bring. How suddenly what is most important in life rises to the surface. This is the invitation of Lent, to

February 21, 2007

Forty Early Mornings

A New Moon teaches gradualness and deliberation and how one gives birth to oneself slowly. Patience with small details makes perfect a large work, like the universe. What nine months of attention does for an embryo forty early mornings will do for your gradually growing wholeness. -Rumi Tonight is the New Moon and Wednesday begins the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I am feeling especially reflective this weekend, listening for what my spirit needs during this holy season ahead. What will those forty early mornings do for my gradually growing wholeness? What possibilities lie dormant in the seeds that are just awakening beneath the ground of my soul? With the New Moon, the sky is swathed in darkness with only the points of light from stars shining in the night. Watching the moon wax forth from her place of surrender to the beauty

February 17, 2007

Burning With Love For All of Creation

I wrote a few days ago about discovering the theologian Andrew Linzey in an article I was reading. I was so thrilled to discover someone writing seriously about the place of animals in Christian tradition and spiritual practice that I ordered three of his books: Animal Gospel, Animal Theology, and Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care The last of these three contains liturgies for celebrating creatures, healing of animals, a covenanting service with animals, a Eucharistic prayer for all creatures, a vigil for the suffering of all creatures, litanies for animal protection, blessings, burial services and memorials. I am moved beyond

February 15, 2007

A Celebration of Love

Please Note: I added some more Lenten Resources in the post below, please keep the ideas coming for books to read or practices to take on. The ultimate Mystery of being, the ultimate Truth, is Love. This is the essential structure of reality. When Dante spoke of the ‘love which moves the sun and the other stars’, he was not using a metaphor, but was describing the nature of reality. There is in Being an infinite desire to give itself in love and this gift of Self in love is for ever answered by a return of love….and so

February 13, 2007

Lenten Resources

The beginning of Lent is coming up a week from Wednesday. I love the seasons of Lent and Advent because they invite us to a deeper level of reflection, a retreat in the midst of everyday life. The 40 days of Lent comes from the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert in preparation for his life of public ministry. It is a time of increased prayer and purification that we find in other religious traditions such as Ramadan and Yom Kippur. This season gives us an opportunity to move more deeply into practices that are inviting us to deeper commitment and in the process

February 12, 2007

Emerging

I spent most of the weekend curled up in bed nursing my migraines. They began Friday morning when we had our Monthly Gathering, a wonderful morning of walking the labyrinth together except that I was in a bit of a haze from pain killers. That afternoon I was able to get my infusion two weeks early because of my recent achiness, but it always makes me tired. I came home that afternoon and slept for hours and continued like that through the weekend. My beloved husband, knowing that light really bothers me when I get these headaches, closed every last blind

February 12, 2007

I Am Going to Start Living Like a Mystic

I am Going to Start Living Like a Mystic Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall. The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field, each a station in a pilgrimage–silent, pondering. Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies are the ciphers of a secret, an occultation. I will examine their leaves as pages in a text and consider the bookish pigeons, students of winter. I will kneel on the track of a vanquished squirrel and stare into a blank pond for the figure of Sophia. I shall begin

February 9, 2007

Rule of Life at the Abbey

I have been reading a wonderful article from The Way journal by Andrew Linzey who is a theologian and writer on animal theology. I was delighted to discover that he has in fact published several books on the subject. Linzey writes: “People who keep animals have often made an elementary but profound discovery: animals are not machines or commodities, but beings with their own God-given lives, individuality, and personality. At their best, relationships with companion animals can help us to grow in mutuality, self-giving, and trust.” (emphasis mine) He goes on to quote theologian Stephen Webb who sees in these relationships

February 8, 2007

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Ocean of Longing

Digging God Out Again

Ash Wednesday

Forty Early Mornings

Burning With Love For All of Creation

A Celebration of Love

Lenten Resources

Emerging

I Am Going to Start Living Like a Mystic

Rule of Life at the Abbey

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