I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Callie J. Smith’s reflection Inner Hospitality On Those Different Days. My friend stopped his bike on the trail in front of me, sniffed the air, and asked, “Do you smell it?”  “What?”  “The animal smell.” I breathed in. Nothing.  “It’s that gamey scent,” he tried again. “You don’t smell it?”  Was it a bad smell? An unwashed body smell? I had no idea. “What’s ‘gamey’ mean?” “It smells … different.”  I shook my head, not smelling anything

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Alexia Jons’ reflection Living the Sacred in Ordinary Time: How Creativity Becomes a Form of Contemplative Prayer. For a long time, I assumed spiritual depth would arrive through dramatic moments—clarity during prayer, profound insight, or some unmistakable experience of transformation. Instead, I kept encountering God in quieter places: while journaling in the early morning, sitting with unfinished thoughts, or writing words I didn’t fully understand until they appeared on the page. What surprised me most was how

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Christine Davis’s reflection and poem Life to Life. In recent years, after deaths and losses, changes and griefs, I’ve moved farther and farther away from the traditional dogma I was raised under, and have grown increasingly impatient with what seems to me to be the empty use of religious jargon; the way words like ‘God’ are thrown around void of any true meaning, as if the terms themselves are idolized instead of being understood as signposts to

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elaine Breckenridge’s reflection An Expanding Pentecost. “Suddenly from heaven, there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind…and divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.”         I have been thinking about the day of Pentecost and how it carries important messages for us in all seasons. When the smoke and winds of Pentecost have died down what’s left? A conversation.  Above the murmur of the different languages,

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Amy Oden’s reflection The Ministry of Creation. I noticed it first when I needed respite from the demands of caregiving for my husband as he declined with dementia. When I became depleted or tempted to push myself beyond my own well-being, it was the trail along a nearby lake that saved me. I could walk the trail and weep or stare or daydream, the lapping waves and soft breezes offering balm to soothe and comfort me. I