BEGINNINGS ARE IMPORTANT. They set the tone for everything that follows, like an overture. In the book of Genesis, God said, “Let there be light.” God spoke light into being. “In the beginning,” the Gospel of John proclaims, “was the Word.” And through this Word came the life and light of our lives. At the beginning of Lent, I’m thinking about speech, words and their power. God speaks and it comes to be. We exist through a primal Word. Confessions I hear often revolve around words: taking...
I am sorting and evaluating decades of my writings. It’s encouraging and embarrassing to look back! But certain threads persist, fibers of what William Blake called a “golden string” that, as we wind it up through our lives, leads us to glory, to “heaven’s gate.”We celebrated one of those threads on February 2, the Feast of the Presentation. That is halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox. And around that time, I entered monastic life in 1975. Fifty-one years ago! I took the name...
I spent most of my adult life preparing for Christmas either in the snowy lakeside woods of Nova Scotia or the snowy arid expanse of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Both landscapes were wild and silent. Maybe that’s one reason I still love Christmas. It was preceded by weeks of starry nights and...
A recent article by Lynn Casteel Harper on the Commonweal magazine...
In summer, mesquite pods and Saguaro fruit husks cover the Sonoran desert floor. Symbols of desert fecundity, they even litter city and suburban yards where locals tend these native plants. You can read about this special season in Tessa’s post from two years ago when we harvested Saguaro fruit, guided by...
My friend Adam Bucko has written a beautiful reflection on our human capacity to imagine a way of life that revolves around solidarity instead of capital. He describes ours as a world “where profit overrides life.” As I grow older, I feel this more keenly. I have made very little profit in my life. I was a volunteer for thirty years. So now,...
In 1980, Poland's Solidarity movement became the first labor union in Soviet bloc countries. The "Solidarność" banner became iconic. In November 2024 United States citizens elected a president who relishes chaos and vengeance. My anguish over the suffering this administration’s wrecking crew inflicts leads me...
A source of joy is my discovery of Fix the News. Mainstream media still run...
When I think of gratitude, pilgrims are not my first thought. Nor even my grandmother’s deliciously unhealthy Thanksgiving dumplings. Instead, I remember the voice of our old friend Bro. David Steindl-Rast, with its melodic Austrian accent. He insists that true gratitude can become a constant state of mind. It isn’t that I’m grateful for this...
In our August 2024 Fire and Light podcast, we offer a guided meditation on a “soulscape” that changed your life. If you prefer reading to listening to a meditation, we post the reflection here. Take your time as you read; feel free to stop at any point and let your memory and imagination ponder,...