Calming the Storm
November 1, 2024
The row boat, the motor boat and the helicopter…
Hello friends!
I imagine many of you are, as I am, feeling an underlying sense of anxiousness as we count down the days towards our country’s unknown future. As a survivor of Adverse Childhood Experiences, this uncertainty triggers a deep sense of danger. A pervasive anxiety that is coloring my ability to find ease in the simple pleasures of life, let alone my grandchildren dressed in their lovingly handmade Halloween costumes giggling with delight at the anticipation of tonight’s festivities. Am I alone?
Would you like to dance?
October 25, 2024
Giving thanks for Dr. B…
Hello friends!
It is comforting to be in community with you as this past week I was quite grieved by the passing of Dr. Barbara A. Holmes, Core Faculty member of the Center for Action and Contemplation, President Emeritus of the United Theological Seminary, spiritual thought leader, activist, lawyer, writer, podcaster, and scholar. Her writing and teaching embodied a deep wisdom and grace that both challenged and grounded me.
Searching to Find Purpose
October 18, 2024
Soulfull Reconnections…
Hello friends!
It has certainly been a while since my last post. It doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thinking of writing, or even trying to multiple times, but, honestly, life got in the way, and I got out of the habit of sitting down to share whatever it was that moved me. So, I don’t know if this is the start of a new string of Finding I posts or not. But here goes…
One August morning, I sat as I always do, at the round glass kitchen table in the muted light deep in prayer. It was four in the morning. I like to believe that at this hour I am in unison with thousands of others around the world contemplating the mystery of our beings and the desire that love will prevail.
Trust The River
June 12, 2024
Grace-fully Release Your Worst Stories…
Franciscan friar and founder of The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque New Mexico Father Richard Rohr, encourages us all to “Trust the River.” In a recent Daily Meditation, he says the following:
“Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves or about one another. Please do not get caught in your small stories; they are usually less than half true, and therefore not really ‘true’ at all. They are usually based on hurts and unconscious agendas that allow us to see and judge things in a very selective way. They are not the whole You, not the Great You, not the Great River. Therefore, it is not where your big life can really happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as ‘flowing water’ and as ‘a spring inside you’ (John 4:10-14) or, at the end of the Bible, as a ‘river of life’ (Revelation 22:1-2). Strangely, your real life is not about ‘you.’ It is a part of a much larger stream called God.”
No Place Like Home
May 31, 2024
Seeking what is within…
Welcome back, friends. Last week I encouraged you to sit in stillness as a way to find your way to a homecoming deep, deep inside of you. Were you able to hear through the quiet to that still small voice calling you home, wrapping you in a knowing? As Sufi mystic, Rumi, so beautifully addresses:
“If light is in your heart,
You will find your way home.”
I have been thinking this past week about the process of finding and returning to that inner home.
The Odyssey “Home”
May 17, 2024
An inward path back from adversity…
I have felt like Odysseus in Homer’s The Odyssey for the past six weeks or so, navigating a myriad of medical tests, anxiety, loss of sleep, physical depletion, setbacks, loss of way, and a whole bunch of hurry-up-and-wait. For Odysseus, during the sack of the city of Troy, the Greek army desecrated the temples and altars of the gods, angering the gods. Upon the departure of the Greek army, a fierce storm caused by the gods scattered the Greek fleet. Odysseus and his men were blown off course, and this began a 10-year struggle to return to Ithaca, his home. To the place he most desires to return, as it represents home, love for his family, his queen, and the end to a long, arduous journey.
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