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Reflections

Category: Monk in the World Guest Post Series

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Laurel Ralston

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Laurel Ralston’s reflection on swimming as contemplative practice. It wasn’t my idea to go swimming first thing in the morning. I was in the middle of my evening routine, such as it is, minding my own business, when the thought occurred to me, silent yet surprisingly loud: You should go to The Pond tomorrow. Find your bathing suit. You should go to The Pond tomorrow. I grew up in a house about ten minutes’ walk from a small but magical

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Carmen Acevedo Butcher

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for acclaimed translator Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s reflection “Translatio Divina: Transformative Soul-Body-Self-Mind Practice.” Her book Practice of the Presence: A Revolutionary Translation is our featured book for June in the Lift Every Voice Book Club. Contemplative practices like lectio, scriptio, and visio divina help us slow down and, as Mary Oliver says, “Pay attention.” To these I’d like to add translatio divina or embodied mindfulness in translating. Recently translatio divina steeped me in the joyful spirituality of the soup-stirring, dish-washing, and sandal-mending contemplative I call the friar of amour: Brother Lawrence.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Amy Oden

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 “Christian Mindfulness Practice.” It started with the hunger I heard around me for more authentic, rooted, present lives. Seminary students and church folks, directees and retreat participants, all longing to be present in their actual lives instead of rushing from one thing to the next. They were hungry for lives less curated and edited and more authentic and real. I began to trace two thousand years of Christian mindfulness practice as a doorway into

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Kirk Byron Jones

We are delighted to offer this post by Kirk Byron Jones, author of Soul Talk: How to Have the Most Important Conversation of All and Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing Your Divine Purpose. Soul Talk is our featured book this December in our Lift Every Voice Book Club. Listen to our conversation with Kirk here.  We’d like to offer this poem by Kirk as an invitation into the holy pause of the season. It was originally published on his Facebook page Yes to Grace. Nothing is Something Going, going, going. Slowing, slowing, slowing. Stop. Being at ease is healing and

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Janeen Adil

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Janeen Adil’s reflection on the holiness of food. Farmland surrounded the small Midwestern towns where my parents grew up. Families there typically had a vegetable garden, including the Victory Gardens of the Second World War era. When my parents married, moved to Connecticut, and began raising a family, a large garden out back became a permanent fixture. Dad tended the plot, Mom tended what it produced, and we kids helped when and where needed. We were living

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Kathleen Deyer Bolduc

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kathleen Deyer Bolduc’s reflection “Mary’s Message: Say Yes to Breaking Open.” I sit in my study, depleted. I have no energy to write or pray or meditate. I light a candle that sits next to an image of Mary I keep close, knowing she understands what it is like, as a mother, to experience a broken heart.  I take a few deep breaths and simply sit in her presence. She stands, eyes cast down, face thin and

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Paula Frazier

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Paula Frazier’s reflection “Savoring the And Ten.” Hospitality is a family legacy. There was always room for one more at the table. There was always space for someone who needed a place. My aunts reminisced about my grandfather feeding potato pancakes to all the neighborhood children. When I married, my husband and I continued to open our home to others. We hosted weekly fellowships with food and music. We housed friends in need. Our doors were always

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