Our Easter Season E-Course is underway and it is a joy to guide others through the practice of praying with water, wind, earth, and fire as vessels for awareness of the ways God moves through the world. This first week’s focus is on wind.  Click the links below for some blog posts written by participants: Mind Sieve and Diamonds in the Sky With Lucy both offer their beautiful poetic reflections on the gift of wind. Laurel at The Rose Window shares her thoughtful reflections as she begins this time of retreat. ___________________________________ David Crumm at Read the Spirit shares these

Do you have a body? Don’t sit on the porch! Go out and walk in the rain! If you are in love, then why are you asleep? Wake up, wake up! You have slept millions of years Why not wake up this morning -Kabir I have been away this last week, traveling to visit family for Easter and then the Spiritual Directors International conference where Awakening the Creative Spiritwas officially released (and the bookstore sold out of their copies!) In between I was going to have a few days to play in San Francisco with my beloved. Instead we both

I am in the midst of the Novena of Grace, a powerful Lenten retreat in everyday life which I coordinate for the Ignatian Spirituality Center.  Along with teaching my Lenten E-Course on Benedictine Spiritual Practices and Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Contemplative Practice courses, my days are full of rich reflection.  I offer here another slightly revised reflection written last year. Reading my words again I am moved to find they still ring very true in my heart. __________________________________________ Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of

Last year I wrote this Lenten reflection on meeting the Saints in Walgreens and I offer it here again in a slightly revised version: ____________________________________________ These have been very full days.  This Thursday the Novena of Grace begins, which is a nine-day preached retreat in everyday life hosted by the Ignatian Spirituality Center where I work half-time as Program Coordinator. Essentially there are two liturgies  each day, midday and early evening, and participants can choose one.  It is a truly transformative experience, gathering together for a pilgrimage of the heart in the midst of everyday life.  I have been working with the

Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up the mountain to pray. While he was praying his face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white. -Luke 9:28-29 Today’s gospel reading is of the Transfiguration of Jesus which is a story of seeing and how beauty becomes a window onto the divine. The burning light that once appeared to Moses in the bush now radiates from Jesus himself. For Gregory Palamas (a 14th c. Orthodox monk), it was the disciples who changed at the transfiguration, not Christ. Christ was transfigured: … not by the addition of something he

Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction – the book – is here! My box of books has arrived – I got a sneak peek at my new book at a book festival a week and a half ago and finally have my own copies to hold in my hand and savor.  Morehouse Publishing did a fabulous job with the layout of the text – we had various little icons to indicate the different art exercises, some photos, as well as a variety of contributors. Amazon.com says the books ship in 1-2 months, but rest assured they