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Sleep is the Prayer of the Body

Sleep is the prayer of the body shrouding itself in holy surrender. It is an act of supplication, with its secret longing for the things embodied in luminous darkness. What happens in that moment of great release into the total eclipse of night when the body descends into the cradle of dreaming? Does the breath suddenly become slow? Does the heart become still, barely perceptible, in its faithful work? Or do they labor more heavily to make space in the body for the rhythmic eruptions of story and symbol that beg me to awaken to a bigger life? This is

November 12, 2006

Standing in Place

There is a lot weighing on my heart this week, a conflict with a dear friend continues, one of my fellow oblates is in the end stages of pancreatic cancer, and my mother-in-law’s Alzheimer’s is slowly worsening. I feel so very tender. I received a couple of wonderful emails from readers who shared with me how much it meant to them that I wrote my post last week about feeling all too human and needing to let what I wrote be enough. I was touched by reflecting on the gift we offer each other in our shared vulnerability and permission to be

November 8, 2006

Seeking Balance / Honoring the Masculine

I have been aware for a long time that many of the spirituality and arts programs I am involved in tend to draw mostly women to them. Our Awakening the Creative Spirit program this year is 12 wonderful women (last year we had two great men participate out of 13 participants). Our Monthly Gatherings which average 15-20 tend to usually be all women. I thought this was perhaps due to the combination of spirituality and the arts. I was very surprised when I started teaching at the School of Theology and Ministry this fall that out of my 29 students, only 4 are

November 6, 2006

The Gifts of Greenness

Rain has been drizzling and dousing and pouring in fits and starts these last several days here in Seattle. As winter draws nearer I witness the subtle slow waves of velvety moss that spread up tree trunks and across sidewalks. I heard a saying on NPR, that in the Northwest if moss isn’t growing on your North side, you are moving too fast. I shared this once with the driver of an airport shuttle as we made our way through blankets of thick rain. “You can tell an outsider made that up,” he responded, “because around here moss grows on all

November 6, 2006

Go read these. . .

. . .Monastic Mumblings has the funniest post on “How People of Faith Read a Stop Sign” — definitely good for a hearty laugh. . . and the author David James Duncan has a great article on writing advice (that I found over at Kristin’s blog) where he claims having fun became for him the key to the door of the literary kingdom. Enjoy!

November 3, 2006

Enough

Dear ones, I am feeling very tired. I have been pushing to get the draft done of our lectio divina book (which it finally is, now for editing!), I teach all day tomorrow and Saturday the Awakening program I love (but always exhausting), and I am having some conflicts with a good friend which is emotionally draining. So I am feeling my humanness especially right now and trying to listen deeply and gently to myself in the midst all that is stirring in me. I am aware of my longings for Sabbath, for time to just play and be with my husband,

November 2, 2006

Marigold Path Grid Blog: Saint Duke

One of the ways I understand Saints are as those people who have been honored for embracing their flowering, for allowing themselves to bud and blossom and burst forth fully into the world. These last few months, I have been contemplating the idea of what it would mean to extend my image of the Communion of Saints to include not only the ones I love who have gone before me, but other members of creation as well. Animals don’t refuse their own flowering, they are simply what God created them to be. This image has arisen for me especially in response to

November 1, 2006

GridBlog Invitation

So I don’t know if any of you have this problem, but in my daily life I often have conversations in my imagination and then forget whether I said things out loud. My poor husband always looks a little worried about me when I start a sentence with “I am not sure if I actually said this to you or just imagined I did, but. . .” So the same thing happened with this wonderful GridBlog idea. I read about it at Kristin’s blog a week or so ago who heard about it from Bob at The Corner (click on this link

October 31, 2006

Loving everything that increases me. . .

I’ll take all the time I please this afternoon before leaving my place alongside this river. It pleases me, loving rivers. Loving them all the way back to their source. Loving everything that increases me. -Raymond Carver from a poem titled “Where Water Comes Together With Other Water” in a book by the same name. A student included this poem in her last reflection paper and it was one of those wonderful unbidden gifts of the day. I am in love again (how easily I fall in love with poetry!) I want to love “everything that increases me.” I want to love the

October 30, 2006

Moments in Time

I mentioned before borrowing some of Michael Meade’s CD’s from the library and listening to them while driving on my retreat. He has such a wonderful way of weaving in poetry and storytelling with his own insights about the mythical and imaginative life. In his CD titled The Great Dance: Finding One’s Way in Troubled Times, he quotes the poet Blake as saying “there is a moment of eternity waiting for you every day.” Meade sats the word “moment” comes from the Latin root momentus, which means to move. We are moved when we touch the eternal and timeless. There is a sense

October 29, 2006

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Sleep is the Prayer of the Body

Standing in Place

Seeking Balance / Honoring the Masculine

The Gifts of Greenness

Go read these. . .

Enough

Marigold Path Grid Blog: Saint Duke

GridBlog Invitation

Loving everything that increases me. . .

Moments in Time

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