Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Advent is my favorite liturgical season of the year. Images of waiting, darkness, and birthing make my soul sing.  We are each given time and space to grow more welcoming to unknowing, where so much promise and possibility dwell.  During Advent we honor a God who is far beyond our own imaginations and who calls us into the fullness of our own horizons. The 17th century German mystic Angelus Silesius wrote, “I must be the Virgin and give birth to God.” He describes the call of this time: to birth the holy in the midst of our

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Today we begin our journey into the holy season of Advent with our online retreat. The theme this year is Sacred Time: Embracing the Slow Rhythms of the Season. Here is a brief excerpt from the first week’s reflection: “The seasons, whether of the day, week, month, year, lifetime, or cosmos, invite us into a profound respect for thresholds. In our usual day to day awareness, one moment isn’t especially different from another. In seasonal time, we become aware of the continual invitation to cross a threshold into a deeper awareness. Dawn, day, dusk, and

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I had a beloved spiritual director years ago when I lived in the San Francisco Bay area during graduate school who often asked me this question: What is it the season for? I loved this question because my creative heart was always full of new ideas, but one of my great invitations in life has been to discern the season I am in and what it calls for – to say no or not yet to many of the creative ideas stirring in me, to listen for what is truly ripe, to make space for

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, In 2012 my husband and I decided to embark on a life adventure. We were living in Seattle and had been traveling to Europe twice a year to explore ancestral landscapes. He was growing more in need of a sabbatical from his position as high school theology teacher. I had recently applied for and received Austrian citizenship through my father. Between February and May, we began to sort through our things. It is amazing what accumulates in nine years in one place even in a small apartment with only three closets. “Honey, I just found