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Essential Flow

      I shared a couple of months ago dreams I was having about playing the cello.  After my third dream in about a month, I woke up and went for a walk to pray with the images that kept repeating themselves to me to pay attenton.  Toward the end of my walk I went by Cornish college and was amazed to find a woman playing the cello outdoors on their lawn.  This was synchronicity at work.  I have continued to pray with that image, letting itself play within me. Then, a couple of weeks ago I received some feedback on the lectio

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January 28, 2007

Body-Words of Love

I am fashioned as a galaxy, Not as a solid substance but a mesh Of atoms in their far complexity Forming the pattern of my bone and flesh.  Small solar systems are my eyes, Muscle and sinew are composed of air. Like comets flashing through the evening skies My blood runs, ordered, arrogant, and fair. Ten lifetimes distant is the nearest star, And yet within my body, firm as wood, Proton and electron separate are. Bone is more fluid than my coursing blood. What plan had God, so strict and empassioned When He an island universe my body fashioned? -Madeleine

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January 25, 2007

Bare Branches

Top two photos taken at Greenlake in Seattle, bottom four on Granville Island in Vancouver I find winter trees achingly beautiful, even more so this winter than any previous one I can remember. I see the black branches spread across the darkening sky and my heart swells with longing, as though there is something in the meeting of essence and horizon that speaks to a part of me that has gone unnamed thus far. Only questions rise up asking me to live into them: What is my essence? When everything is stripped away, who am I beneath all the roles

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January 22, 2007

Zen of Housework

Rachel at Swandive left me my 1000th comment and so is my drawing winner! Another wonderful poem about finding the sacred in the most ordinary: The Zen of Housework I look over my own shoulder down my arms to where they disappear under water into hands inside pink rubber gloves moiling among dinner dishes. My hands lift a wine glass, holding it by the stem and under the bowl. It breaks the surface like a chalice rising from a medieval lake. Full of the grey wine of domesticity, the glass floats to the level of my eyes. Behind it, through

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January 21, 2007

Sacredness of All Things

I love poetry that speaks of the holiness of the ordinary, the sacredness of all things. We make artificial divisions between sacred and secular, between what is worthy of our awe and gratitude and what is not. This is one of the elements I love most about Benedictine spirituality. In the Rule, Benedict wrote that “all utensils and goods of the monastery” are to be treated as “sacred vessels of the altar.” (RB 31:10-11) Esther DeWaal writes that Benedictine life “simply consists in doing the ordinary things of daily life carefully and lovingly, with the attention and reverence that can

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January 18, 2007

New Article on Spirituality and the Arts

In the fall the editor of the UCLA Spirituality and Higher Education Newsletter found my website through a search and asked me to write an article for their upcoming issue on spirituality and artistic expression. The article is titled “The Relationship Between Spirituality and Artistic Expression: Cultivating the Capacity for Imagining” and you can find it here. To the left of the article are links to a couple of other articles you may be interested in as well. The article on “The Empowering of Art and Spirituality” is written by Marilyn Russell, a Native American woman and scholar. You can

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January 17, 2007

Loving Into Wholeness

  It has been just over a week now since Tune has come into our life.  If you had told me ten days ago that I would now be completely smitten with a nearly ten-year-old dog I would have been very surprised.  These are the things that can happen when you allow the Spirit to lead and open your heart to hidden treasure.  It feels especially significant to me that we first met her on the feast of Epiphany for she has been a great gift.  We were going to wait until after our big trip this summer to adopt

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January 16, 2007

Snowy Wonder

Last Wednesday night it snowed and then the temperatures dropped down below freezing so schools were closed because of icy roads and Thursday my husband and I had the surprise gift of a day off together.  We walked up to Volunteer Park and delighted in snowy wonder.  It is unusual for Seattle to get any snow at all so people are unprepared when it happens, although this is the second time in a month and a half we have had this front of arctic air move in, and the third time for unusual and severe weather patterns.  So I finally got

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January 15, 2007

Sabbath Feasting

Last night we invited four of our neighbors over for our Sabbath evening meal.  Below I share two new recipes I used that turned out really well and were not hard to make.  We feasted on good food and wine and then laughed for hours playing board games.  Our neighbors are delightful people, not folks we would probably get the chance to know otherwise.  What we seem to have in common is an ecological commitment, a commitment to our building and neighborhood, and a desire to enjoy the company of others and have some fun.  The table was prepared in the afternoon as I gathered

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January 14, 2007

Sacred Earth

I am the vine and you are the branches. -John 15:5 God said, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. -Exodus 3:5 This earth we are riding keeps trying to tell us something with its continuous scripture of leaves.  –William Stafford I love the element of earth. I adore trees and mountains. I love the feel of dirt or sand under my feet.  The earth feels solid and secure, grounding me here in this place, in this moment.  When I am deeply rooted, my branches can reach far and wide. When

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January 10, 2007