Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I have been in a long season of release. Ongoing health issues can bring clarity over what is most important in a given season of life. My word for the year is distillation and it is providing a compass for how I discern what to take on and what to let go of.  While there has been some clearing out of closets and donations to the charity shop, most of what I am releasing are the old patterns and ways of being that deplete me and obstruct my full access to the divine image carved

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, John Cassian, one of the early theologians in the Christian church, writes about what he calls the three renunciations. In her book Thoughts Matter, Mary Margaret Funk describes his teaching:  “First, we must renounce our former way of life and move closer to our heart’s desire, toward the interior life. Second, we must do the inner work (of asceticism) by renouncing our mindless thoughts.…Third, and finally, we must renounce our own images of God so that we can enter into contemplation of God as God.” Renunciations are a kind of fast. They are an intentional giving