Reflections
Weird Stuff I Love
All my life, I have heard the adage: “Count your blessings.” It works for me. And our friends at Grateful Living offer myriad ways to cultivate gratitude. Romanian novelist Petru Dumitriu witnessed and did some terrible deeds in his life. Yet he was still amazed by a beam of light striking a staircase or a jumble of kittens playing on a...
Blessing Candles and Celebrating John Lewis
In our second Fire and Light podcast, we explore the beauty of candlelight and the Feast of Candlemas. In honor of Black History Month we reflect on the spirituality of the late civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis. We celebrate the universal appreciation of candlelight and blessing candles in spiritual ceremonies. We suggest a...
Mother of Candlelight and Sorrow
I grew up in a Protestant family, so I learned about Roman Catholic feast days such as Candlemas when I was in college and began going on retreats at the Spiritual Life Institute’s Nada Hermitage in Sedona, Arizona. I discovered the feasts that followed Christmas and loved the reading from Isaiah that accompanied the Epiphany mass. With its...
Martin Luther King and Chicago’s Living Memorial
In 1966, Martin Luther King, Jr. marched in Chicago in support of fair housing. As about seven hundred people joined him, the march was threatened by angry white people, one of whom threw a rock at King, hitting him in the head. He dropped to his knees, got up, and resumed marching. I heard this story from Eboo Patel, the founder of...
Welcome to Fire and Light Podcast
We are very excited to announce our first Fire and Light podcast. Head over to tessabielecki.com to listen. Just click on the host of your choice and you’ll be directed to our list of episodes. Here’s what to expect in our...
Christmas: A Lot Goes On in a Gourd
Christmas will be all the merrier this year because our little “community” of four in what I call the...
The Miracle of the Oil
Two Prayers for Hanukkah Hanukkah focuses on the miracle of the oil, which allowed Jerusalem's Jewish community to keep the Temple candelabra burning for eight nights while having barely enough oil for one. The feast commemorates the rededication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against Greek oppression in the 2nd century BCE. During each evening of Hanukkah, a candle is added to the menorah. Here is the blessing over the...
Caravans: Advent Tidings
Our December 2022 Caravans newsletter is now available here. Catch up on our fruitful autumn and the vision behind our new web sites. We offer a lovely...
Advent Starlight and Stillness
When I think about the weeks preceding Christmas, I feel a swell of gratitude for the years I spent in wilderness monasteries, keeping still in Advent starlight or bundling up in Nova Scotia to venture out into the silent moonlit snow to walk beneath towering white pines and...
Vitality Out of Emptiness
Contemplify.com recently did an interview with Fr. Dave Denny and titled it “Vitality out of Emptiness.” I’ve heard Dave’s story many times and can almost tell it myself. But in this interview, I heard it as though for the first time. I was fascinated as Dave described moving contemplation out of the monastery into...