I confess I have struggled to resist being a blue funk during this interminable election season. After a certain point, I have chosen to do no more listening, reading, and especially no arguing, about the relative merits and flaws of candidates and positions. We are a country deeply divided, as is the Church, as are many organization and many families. But the question of a candidate’s faith is certainly one I want to consider. Some starting points: I have been... Read more
Returning home after a magical and mysterious pilgrimage has left me speechless…at least at first! What can be said about the variety and beauty and surprise in entering into a world so ancient and new as Ireland is? To be a pilgrim there is an experience of body, all of the senses engaged and challenged by beauty, variety and surprise. And to attend to the Holy in an unfamiliar place asks me for sharper listening, more acute looking. That was... Read more
In the last days before a trip, things can fall apart. A rear-end accident, a delayed document, a change in the prognosis of an illness. The size of the shoes don’t fit the size of the feet. The airline server goes down. Someone’s crying, Lord. So I cling to this Gaelic blessing as I go on pilgrimage, for myself and for those who are on a pilgrimage right where they are: Deep peace of the running wave to you. Deep... Read more
It is my season of pilgrimage again! The signs are all around me. The last two books that I read have opened with a reference to John Bunyan’s old hymn, All Who Would Valiant Be: All who would valiant be ‘gainst all disaster, let them in constancy follow the Master. There’s no discouragement shall make them once relent their first avowed intent to be a pilgrim. Then, I read a quirky and poignant book called The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye... Read more
I sat with a companion this week to say farewell to the journey of five years we had taken together in spiritual direction, and I could not keep myself from smiling as we rehearsed the moments and milestones together. Surely there had been disruptions, disappointments, uncharted roads and unexpected turns. But as I listened to her recap the narrative, I was thrilled to hear the change in arc of her storytelling from our first encounter to this closing moment. The... Read more
Telling the old stories can be endlessly entertaining: “Remember the time she said…?” “Did I tell you about the time when…?” “I’ll never forget the moment at which he announced…” At a celebration last night, the stories flowed along with the libations being poured. And there was joy in hearing those old, old stories. Laughter and tears connected us as as a community as we joined memories. Yet as my life continues and I am anticipating a turn into a... Read more
Sitting in the backyard with my Sadie, my youngest grandchild, we notice that one toy, a school bus, that has been in the family since the first grandchild, has a missing piece, a bear for the back seat. Where could it be? I was satisfied to say that it had been gone a long time, and probably had been swept away with old dead leaves and branches. But Sadie was not content. She began to spin out all the possibilities:... Read more
Telling our own story is a great challenge sometimes. Listening for God’s story that intersects our lives can be even more challenging. One of the hopes we share in spiritual direction is to develop the practice of listening for the authentic presence of the Holy One in our lives. The noise fields around us fill so much air space with spurious claims of speaking for God that it can be hard to know how to listen for a Word as... Read more
Summertime is story telling time. Whether it is a presidential candidate intent on “telling the narrative” he hopes to provide for the nation, kids sharing the excitement of a first scuba dive or swim across the pool, or Garrison Keillor at the Hollywood Bowl meandering through Lake Wobegon with his elderly mother, a story captures us. Often it is where we find the truth. I am entranced by stories. That may be why I love the work of spiritual... Read more
This quotation just found me: “In summer the song sings itself!” William Carlos Williams That song-singing-itself is where my soul is perched this first week of summer. Summer is here! In Southern California it’s not quite so easy to track the seasons by the weather; it is more visible, palpable, and audible with changing traffic patterns, new bird sounds, neighborhood hum. And I enter this fallow period of my part of the culture with trust that the Holy One will... Read more
A Musing Amma
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