The Exquisite Tenderness of Bodies
This article also appeared over at Patheos (click on the link and to the right of my piece you can see a whole list of articles for their discussion this week on religion & the body): Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s […]
Invitation to Poetry: Sharing Our Deepest Joy
Welcome to our Poetry Party #42! I am posting this week’s Poetry Party since the third week of Advent begins today! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add them in the comments section and a link to your blog (if you have one). Make sure to […]
Advent: Uncovering What Has Been Hidden
Every year for the first Sunday of Advent we read a version of Jesus’ description of the end of days. In the Gospel reading from St. Luke this week, Jesus’ language is filled with apocalyptic images of fear and trembling and signs “in the sun, the moon, and the stars.” The word apocalypse essentially means […]
Happy Feast of St. Hildegard
Hildegard of Bingen was my doorway into the Benedictine life. While in graduate school I was studying for my “History of Christian Spirituality” comprehensive examination (a fearful and awesome task if there ever was one) and actually had a slight disdain for those ancient monks. My spirituality up until that point had been quite infused […]
Mandalas
My newest article at Patheos on Mandalas (Part 1 of 2): (photo of rose window at Notre Dame © Kayce Hughlett) Mandala is the Sanskrit word for circle and the great psychologist Carl Jung called it an “archetype of wholeness.” Archetypes are those basic patterns and symbols which repeat across cultures and traditions, emerging from a […]
Illuminated Manuscripts
My newest article is up at Patheos for the series on Art and Spirit in the Church: I fell in love with the Cloisters as a child. A branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the north tip of Manhattan, it is constructed as a reproduction of a medieval cloister. Its collection contains art […]
Awakening the Creative Spirit
Spring is the season when the earth awakens after her long slumber. It is the season associated with the element of air and breath. That moment of inhale, of breathing in the fullness of divine life, is the moment of dawn when the sun scatters the long night and the day begins. It is always […]