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Reflections

Category: Pilgrimage

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“You own nothing”

The Moment The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this, is the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms from around you, the birds take back their language, the cliffs fissure and collapse, the air moves back from you like a wave and you can’t breathe. No, they whisper. You own nothing. You were a visitor, time after time climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming. We

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The Great Migration

It is the time of the great migrations; wild winged ones fly in ragged formations away from the summer fields of plenty, down from the tundra, up from the tropics, ordinary hearts beating against the winds, resisting the updrafts, into the storms, through the autumnal fogs that hide the hunters and the seductions of rest; wild finned ones turn against the familiar ocean currents to slip through narrow stony channels, leaping against the steepness of the grade, following an ancient invocation of leave and return. Fin and feather, flesh, blood and bone: the earth calls its creatures to leave the

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Instructions for Traveling Lightly

In my last post I wrote to you about the big decision my husband and I have made to move to Vienna this summer. We are going for a year and then will decide whether to stay there longer, perhaps move to Ireland, perhaps come back to the States. We are truly entering this as a time of listening and discovery. We are in the midst of many preparations for that journey.  There is much letting go that needs to happen.  We are selling our home in Seattle and so have been working hard to release everything we don’t absolutely need

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“The way is made by walking”

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the way is made by walking. —Antonio Machado The words above have been a kind of mantra for me in recent years.  As my own spiritual path loosens its grip on plans and certainties and moves more deeply into unknowing and mystery, I am discovering the truth that “there is no road / the way is made by walking.”  Sometimes when I am working with someone in spiritual direction, I hear the longing to know the path God is calling them to, to have some certainty

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Advent: The Road is Made by Walking

Gospel According to Saint Luke (3:1-6) John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” When Luke quotes Isaiah in this

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Taking Flight

As I began this year I had an encounter with a flock of pigeons which lifted my heart unexpectedly and then I found a feather on my doorstep.  And so “Taking Flight” became my image for the year ahead.  On my recent pilgrimage, winged ones – both avian and angelic – were significant symbols for me, appearing to me constantly during my travels and reminding me of that heart-transcending moment months before. The crow in particular became significant.  I have always loved these black “glossy and rowdy” creatures, and since moving to Seattle over six years ago I have become

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