As we come to the end of one season (the spring quarter) and prepare to enter a new one, long practice invites us to release the old energy and acknowledge the lessons learned. It is an opportunity to empty ourselves in gratitude for all we have received, pouring back into the universe the blessings that …
We are very close to the end of the spring quarter in the ancient calendar of the northern hemisphere. Next Wednesday will mark the final Imbolc meditation for 2014. So we are in a transition time, gathering up the lessons and tasks of this part of the life cycle and following our spirits forward on …
Last Wednesday, I suggested that we take a week to consider all the things that fill our lives, and then to consider which ones we are willing to empty from our time, our energy, our focus. I invited you to join me in thinking about what might be able to breathe and grow in the …
Whether we are Christian or not, our sisters and brothers of that faith are moving into the final week of Lent, considering the death of Jesus from many perspectives, seeking to understand his witness on behalf of the vast majority of humanity who live on the margins of power. His teaching (in common with the …
Paying attention takes mental and psychological energy. It is much easier to make habitual choices. In fact, we humans are internally wired to put things in categories and to apply old lessons to new situations so that we don’t need to stop and think – which can be a dangerous activity when one is being …
In Lent – the Christian community is observing Lent at the moment – one of the tasks of the faithful is to realign themselves with G-d, with the sacred within, with the sacred in the earth, and the sacred in creatures of other species. One of the essential tasks is to realign our eyes to …
In the west, the issue of water runs just beneath the surface of our lives. Or, increasingly, is being drained away, insuring that much of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and northern Mexico will be a wasteland in two or three more generations. Already the Colorado River ends miles north of where it flowed only …
Life is a journey. It can be a plodding journey undertaken in inattention. It can be a scattered journey as our attention is constantly pulled from one thing to another. It can be a tunnel journey focused on a single goal to the exclusion of all else. Or it can be a journey of continual …
Henri Nouwen (the wonderful priest, author, and theologian, who died unexpectedly in 1996), lived the last part of his life in the L’Arche communities in companionship with those who have developmental disabilities. In a lecture given at the Scarritt-Bennett Center, reflecting on the experience of living with those the world considers “broken,” he said, “The …