In our ninth Fire and Light podcast, we share our vibrant experience of the Ninth Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, which focused on freedom and the rights of women, indigenous peoples, and the earth itself. Tessa Bielecki's articulate introduction to our conversation will make you want to hear more. Listen wherever you get your...
Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. —Martin Luther King, Jr.The people I encountered at Chicago’s Parliament of the World’s Religions, speakers and attendees, were tips of icebergs. Returning home and learning more about them and their affiliations, I am amazed at the quiet flotilla of virtue and social transformation that they...
In our eighth podcast, "Before, After, and the Atomic Bomb," Tessa and Dave remember the “before” and “after” of their lives in Sedona, Arizona and relate this to “before” and “after” the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They respond to “Oppenheimer,” the latest film by Christopher Nolan, about the father of the bomb. Hear their...
Tessa Bielecki and I recently visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona. I visited once when I was attending nearby Prescott College in the early seventies. Back then, a gaunt, blackened sculpture of Christ crucified hung above the altar. It reminded some visitors of the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many tourists came to...
In February 1975, I joined the Spiritual Life Institute’s young Carmelite community in Sedona, Arizona. As a college student, I fell in love with the red-rock chaparral beauty near Oak Creek Canyon. I wanted to learn more about Catholic contemplative life, which I first encountered on my occasional retreats at the Institute’s Nada Hermitage....
Where do you place yourself? How does it taste? In our latest Fire and Light podcast, "A Taste of Place," Tessa Bielecki and I share a taste of the Sonoran Desert as we savor picking saguaro fruit with guidance from Tohono O’odham neighbors. We relish the physical act of picking fruit with a traditional tool and preparing it to eat. And we...
It’s not a stretch to say Dave Denny is what Thomas Merton would have looked like today had he lived. Both avid writers, teachers, inter-spiritual pioneers, activists, and...
Tessa’s experience of June was not so carefree, and I suspect...
My brother has a friend who teases him about growing up in a Norman Rockwell painting. It isn’t far from the truth. I suspect few people grew up as far from death and loss as I did. My friend Tessa’s experience of June was not so carefree, and she speaks beautifully and poignantly about this in her recent post, "Rare...
Our Summer Caravans newsletter is now available here. You'll find a description of our lovely weekend in Patagonia, Arizona, where we built an altar, explored what we can learn from scarred saguaros, and how poetry awakens us to contemplative wonder. Caravans includes responses to our Fire and Light podcast, which we launched in January. If...