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Category: Patheos

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Stirring in the Belly: Listening for New Life

My latest Seasons of the Soul column for Patheos is now available here: The most important events make no stir on their first taking place, nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem hedged about by secrecy. It is concussion, or the rushing together of air to fill a vacuum, which makes a noise. The great events to which all things consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no explosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to be suddenly filled; as a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered about the neighborhood.

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Advent Practices: Considering Our Earthiness (Week Four)

This is the fourth reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: When despair for the world grows in me . . . I come into the peace of wild things . . . I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. -Wendell Berry, excerpted from “The Peace of Wild Things” If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, / You are surely lost. -David Wagoner, excerpted from “Lost” In the scriptures for this fourth week of Advent we hear in the

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Advent Practices: Water’s Wisdom (Week Three)

This is the third reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: The bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength. The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance. ~ Thomas Merton For this third week of Advent I invite you to consider the element of water as an inspiration for your prayer and a way to grow in intimacy with creation.

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Advent Practices: Following the Fire (Week Two)

This is the second reflection in a weely series I am writing for Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: Every being is praising God The fire has its flame and praises God. The wind blows the flame and praises God. In the voice we hear the word which praises God. And the word, when heard, praises God. So all of creation is a song of praise to God.   -Hildegard of Bingen In the first week of our Advent series we focused on the scriptural image of awakening and the gift of breath as our connection

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Advent Practices: Tending to Creation (Week One)

For the season of Advent I will be offering a weekly column at Patheos on practices for Advent to nurture our intimacy with creation: As we enter these four weeks of Advent, we cross into a holy time when the scriptures are filled with images of expectancy as we await the coming of a God who enters into the heart of this world. I invite you during these next four weeks to embrace this season as a time to tend to your relationship to creation. As we anticipate the way holiness becomes enfleshed, we are called to reflect on the

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Spiritual Renewal in Times of Crisis

Patheos periodically offers a theoblogger challenge to respond to a question in 100 words or less.  I wasn’t able to respond in time to be included in their list, but offer my response here.  Stop by their website to see the other responses.  Here is the prompt: Faced with an unexpected personal crisis, each of us is propelled on a unique journey through grief, without a clear road map or how-to instructions. With the recent release of the movie Eat, Pray, Love, about one woman’s spiritual quest after a bitter divorce, we’ve been thinking about the ways each of us seeks

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God in 100 Words or Less

I was invited to be a part of Patheos‘ new Theoblogger Challenge – God in 100 Words or Less.  (Patheos is a multifaith website where I occasionally write for the Catholic and Mainline Protestant Portals.) One of their regular features is the Public Square, and this week the subject is God.  They decided to reach out to a handful of theobloggers (those blogging about God online) and launched their first-ever Theoblogger Challenge inviting a dozen bloggers to answer the question: *Who/What is God? … in 100 words or less.* Here is my response: ***** God Is… The One who pulses

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