Individuals
Swimming Dreams
I went down in the afternoonto the seawhich held me, until I grew easy. About tomorrow, who knows anything.Except that it will be time, again,for the deepening and quieting of the spirit. Mary OliverIt’s been a year; a year with its own particular labours of spirit, mind, and body. Each one’s weight shared with the others. Each…
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Glittering Pandemonium
Opening to Pentecost Spirit lets in grief and joy. On Friday I watched the news of the shooting at Santa Fe High School as many of us did and felt the spirit of despair lapping at my heart like a cold tide. In the midst of my sorrow, for those who experienced the violence of…
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Maundy Thursday: A Hand-Washing Ritual
Find a bowl large enough for your hands to find space in and also, a towel. Partially fill the bowl with water. Set these in a place where you can sit quietly. This ritual was created for Maundy Thursday but you can listen any time you feel the need to ground yourself, to discern where…
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Giving ourselves like alms
Weeks into Lent, some of us may be dipping into those books of Lenten reflections more sporadically than we had hoped. We may feel a bit untethered from whatever observance we had intended. What do we do? Give up? Begin again? Or something else. It’s long been important to me, as I inhabit Lent, to…
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Christmas at Home
I’ll wrap him, warm with love,well as I’m able,In my heart stable. Luci Shaw Pause before all that may wait for you today, whether a massive amount of cooking or a solitary meal, a journey, or settling in with a good book or a favourite show. Now, is the moment just after. All during Advent…
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The Candle of Peace
There’s been talk here and there this past week of leaving the Advent candle for peace unlit. There is a desire to do something extraordinary in the face of the horrifying violence being visited on the people of Gaza. But for me, leaving the wick of peace unlit seems an act of despair, a signal that we have…
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A Child Can Lead Us
Over and over this summer I’ve experienced the ways children bring us into an awareness of the presence of what is holy. Whether you spell Spirit with an ‘S’ capital or lowercase, children slip into ours hands small and treasured and take us wading. They splash us with the serious and the surprising. With their imagination, their wonder,…
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Stars and The Breathing Land
Last week I gathered with a group who had come together from many places to imagine landscapes old and new. We did that by recalling our ancestors, those who had inspired us, but also those who had knotted the rope of our past, those who had wounded us or gone astray. We opened to the…
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Wildfire Rain
Rain is falling,thrumming, steady on the deck boards as I wake in the dark. Rain has arrived, like a nurse,in rooms of exhaustionplumping up the hard pillows of dry earth,tenderly touching the burnt boards of dreamsAnointing their fallen doorwaysreleasing the love they surrounded,to soakdeeplyinto the aching hearts of those who are bereft. It is like…
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Holy Week and Easter: Prayers on the Breath
May you risk the road and be graced by what you haven’t planned ~ I am travelling away from home during these marked days. I will be travelling to enter the delightful, loving chaos that days with children and grandchildren offer. I’ve chosen this travelling gratefully, but it opens questions in me.
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Epiphany and Lent speak to one another
Tomorrow is the last day of the Epiphany season; those days of wild stars and journey, of new sight, sometimes beautiful, sometimes painful, sometimes a poignant mingling of the two. If you’ve read my two earlier posts, Bending Into Advent and Portals to Joy, you’ll know that sight has been much on my mind during…
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