Invitation to Poetry: Blessed Be
Welcome to our 45th Poetry Party! I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. Add your responses in the comments section. Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one) and encourage others […]
Altar for an Unknown God
I am in the midst of the Novena of Grace, a powerful Lenten retreat in everyday life which I coordinate for the Ignatian Spirituality Center. Along with teaching my Lenten E-Course on Benedictine Spiritual Practices and Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Contemplative Practice courses, my days are full of rich reflection. I offer here […]
Saints in Walgreens (Reprise)
Last year I wrote this Lenten reflection on meeting the Saints in Walgreens and I offer it here again in a slightly revised version: ____________________________________________ These have been very full days. This Thursday the Novena of Grace begins, which is a nine-day preached retreat in everyday life hosted by the Ignatian Spirituality Center where I work […]
Ash Wednesday: Practice Truth-Telling
** Stop by this week’s Poetry Party on Entering the Desert’s Fire ** The reflection below is a slightly edited reprint of something I wrote a few years ago for Ash Wednesday which still calls me to respond to its invitation: _____________________________________________________ Today we leave ordinary time to enter into the journey of Lent through […]
Visual Meditation: A Place of the Heart
I grew up in New York City where my father worked for the United Nations. He was half Latvian (father’s side) and half Austrian (mother’s side) and at age 12, during World War II, he had to flee Riga where he was raised to go to Vienna and live with his grandparents. For my entire […]
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 […]
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 […]