Reflections

An Advent Tale

An Advent Tale

Children, there was a girl. She lived in a small village On a tall dry mesa the size of ours. She did what you do. But her ears heard more than sounds. You hear me talk And know I am bigger than my words: They come from inside me. This girl heard a word, But it wasn’t inside her. She was inside the word. She stayed as still as the Stone canyon walls, And let herself be spoken. That word, which made The desert and the sky, The mesas and the arroyos, The rain and the girl, That great word of our...

Without Vision

Without Vision

Decades ago I became haunted by a question: When does a war end? The suffering of refugees and veterans endures long after and far away from the hell of war. If not faced, the trauma passes from one generation to the next. Since 1948, Jews traumatized by Europe’s pogroms have traumatized Palestinians, who...

Animal Oh Antiphons

Animal Oh Antiphons

For centuries, Christians have prayed special verses called "Oh Antiphons" during the week before Christmas. Each verse begins with the word Oh and uses images from the Jewish Testament to ask God to come into our midst as "Emmanuel," God-with-us. Tessa Bielecki beautifully introduces the context for the antiphons here and presents the antiphons here in a form that can be prayed either alone or with others.  My own idiosyncratic take on the antiphons, using animal images for Christ, grew out...

A Christian Bestiary

A Christian Bestiary

What does a kiss mean? It means one thing to a baby, something else to a bride, and something different to Judas. We might call a kiss a depth symbol. Depth symbols are not literal. They are fraught with connotations, allusions, memory, emotion, mystery, history. They’re more like chords than single notes. They don’t mean simply one thing....

Big Ifs in Israel and Palestine

Big Ifs in Israel and Palestine

The outbreak of war in Israel/Palestine on October 7, 2023 prompted me to post these reflections based on a visit to the Holy Land in 2007. A look at the conditions then may help us understand the current tragedy. My most recent post on the war is here. May those who have suffered most find a way to future healing.In 2006 I attended a talk by...

Marigold and Leaf Mold

Marigold and Leaf Mold

Here in the North, leaves fall through lightAnd leave last dry scattered whispersAlong the earth. Lives fall like leaves,Out of season some,Torn by storms too soonFrom shuddering branches. I remember them. Lives fall like leaves In autumn.Some rain...

Seriously Silly

Seriously Silly

Shortly after I entered the Spiritual Life Institute’s Carmelite hermitage almost fifty years ago, a friend of mine complained that spirituality is too serious. Amen. Anything humorless is dubious. My mentor at the time insisted that if we take God seriously, then we can take everything else lightheartedly. I noticed that the...