To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims, A few days ago I received an email from a woman who is writing her dissertation and asked me to respond to the question: “If you had to choose one spiritual practice that is a non-negotiable for spiritual growth in the 21st century, what would it be and why?” My answer was supposed to be short and succinct. Here was my reply: “I would choose hospitality, both inner and outer, because I believe the welcoming in all of the

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims, I have been feeling a bit weary these last few days, fighting something off I think, and offering myself generous hospitality by resting and nourishing myself well with good food and the gift of herbs. I think it might be the transition of seasons, but I am listening in for the invitation and being gentle with my body and soul. I received a book of poems in the mail today, Small Bird by Elizabeth Cunningham, and the poem below

Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims, I love revealing each of the newest dancing monk icons (created by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts). This week we welcome in Saint Brigid to our dancing circle. She is one of the most revered saints of Ireland, second only to St. Patrick.  Born in the middle of the 5th century, and carrying the name of one of the ancient goddesses, Brigid performed miracles from an early age and was a founder of many monastic communities, the most influential of which was in Kildare (meaning “Church of the Oak”) and was a double monastery

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realise now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!)   Here at the year’s end, at the feast Of birth, let us bring to each other The gifts brought once west through deserts- The precious metal of our mingled hair, The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs, The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses- Let us celebrate the daily Recurrent nativity of love, The endless epiphany of our fluent selves, While the earth rolls away under us Into unknown snows and summers, Into untraveled spaces of the stars. -Kenneth Rexroth, from Sacramental Acts

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Dearest monks and artists, I am delighted to reveal the newest in the dancing monk icon series (by Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts) above of Mary with the Christ child, inspired by the Black Madonna of Czestochowa in Poland. Mary was often depicted with a pear in medieval art, and the pear became significant for my own journey of learning to yield, to let go of my own striving and reaching. (You can read my poem I wrote last July about this

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) The Risk of Birth This is no time for a child to be born, With the earth betrayed by war & hate And a comet slashing the sky to warn That time runs out & the sun burns late. That was no time for a child to be born, In a land in the crushing grip of Rome; Honour & truth were trampled by scorn- Yet here did the Saviour make his home. When is the time for love to be born? The