I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Natalie Gould’s reflection Unchosen Habits. I’ve chosen monk-like paths.  At twenty-four, I bought hiking boots and moved to the Isle of Mull in Scotland. I joyfully participated in work and worship with the Iona Community. We lived without electricity, made giant pots of soup, baked heaps of scones, and scrubbed tea towels. The sea and young adults from Glasgow, Grimsby, and Muirhouse taught me about life.   At twenty-six, I lived in Santa Barbara in an adobe

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Melissa Layer‘s reflection on making nature mandalas. I became aware of how the extraordinary is exquisitely entangled within the everyday ordinary, and how I met Spirit there when I was a little girl.  I was raised in a remote corner of northeastern Washington. My bedroom shelves held altars of bird nests, pieces of bark and stones, pushing aside the collection of dolls my grandmother lavished upon me.  When mom sent me to weed the flower border

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Tina Thompson’s reflection on the path to Roman Catholic Women Priesthood. Have you heard of the international movement, Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP)? Until April 20, 2022, I knew nothing about this movement. Since that day, however, I have come to love this group of women (and men) whose mission is to prepare, ordain in Apostolic Succession, and support primarily women (although men are included), who are called by the Holy Spirit and their communities to a

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Bellon’s poem and reflection Return to the Ocean. This poem reflects a journey back to origins, which for me includes the Pacific ocean. But origins are funny things because in some sense they also appear in the now and the immediate, allowing the nature of Presence to hold memory, recognition, new life and expectation. Return to the OceanHere I am gathered at the edge of the Pacificsheltered in a cove behind the beige California bluffssculpted as

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest posts series from the community. Read on for Elaine Patterson’s reflection on walking labyrinths. Pilgrims are poets who create by taking journeys. ~ H. Richard Niebuhr I have always thought of myself as a ‘pilgrim’. I have never thought of myself as particularly ‘monk-ish’. But I loved the invitation to write about being a ‘monk in the world’ which would not let me go. And as I found myself reading the Abbey’s definition of a monk as someone ‘who lives in the world, immersed in