I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Roger Butts’s reflection and poem I Will Look. And I Will Sing. After decades of playing tennis, my knees hurt. After being in the car driving down a Colorado interstate, my back aches. My eyes don’t see so well after being alive 58 years. Sometimes I wonder how my arthritis will play out over time. I’m a hospital chaplain. I know this old body decomposes. I know it gets creaky. Some of us are in wheelchairs and

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for June Mears Driedger’s reflection Yielding to Emerging Life. I learned the story of Celtic Saint Kevin of Glendalough, the founder of the ancient Glendalough monastery, while on a Celtic pilgrimage with Abbey of the Arts in 2016. As the story is told, St. Kevin was praying with his arms outstretched in his monastery cell which was so small his right arm extended through the window. As he prayed, a blackbird nestled in his hand then began to

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jean Wise’s reflection Linger with the Questions. For Christmas, my daughter gave me an online subscription to a story sharing software program. This package includes weekly story prompts for the recipient to respond and share a story from their life. At the end of the year, we would receive a hardcover book with all the stories collected in a legacy, keepsake compilation. Each Monday a thought-provoking, memory-stirring question pops into my email. What was your dad like

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Andrew Lang’s reflection Opening our Posture to the Sacrament of the Present Moment. I sat atop the rocky Washington beach, watching the waves of the Puget Sound coming and crashing against the shoreline. Somewhere in the distance, a small boat had just steered itself through the passage, making its way to who knows where. The memory is faded by now, but I like to think it was the Victoria Clipper on its twice-daily trip, carrying people up