A New Year is a ripe occasion for spiritual practice, a chance to look back at what the past year has offered, and a chance to dream and to hope about what could be in the year ahead. The look backward is sometimes called the Examen, a prayer practice that asks these questions: “where is the last year did I experience the most freedom?” and “where in the last year was I most constricted?” Those focused lenses help me name,... Read more
And now the Light for which we have been waiting dawns! I am so glad! I have longed for that Light this year, maybe more intensely than I ever have, because the darkness has seemed so opaque. I am looking for the places that the Light reveals itself, with my prayer that the eyes of my heart and understanding are wide open and receptive: I am seeing Light in immersing myself in sacred text, familiar words going deeper and deeper... Read more
The last Sunday before Advent gives us all the Light we will get before the Coming of the Light on Christmas. It is so much brighter than it was when we began four weeks ago, but we still are in semi-darkness. I can’t quite see everything that is there for me in the light. So I wait, and it feels like I am on tiptoe in anticipation for gifts of the Spirit. What I am in Hoping to see this... Read more
This year for the first time in a long while, I am observing Advent and celebrating Christmas with a community of which I am a part. It is a lovely gift-instructive and comforting. While I cherish the solitude that is part of my every day routine, I am swept up in the shared wakefulness that is part of Advent. I love being directed to notice a sign of life and light that someone else has seen first: “Look! over there.... Read more
Second week of Advent, and the the words keep popping up: Wake up! Watch! Keep Alert! To which of them am I supposed to attend? There are so many sounds, sights, aroma, textures in the air, on the ground, all around. The glut of son et lumiere overwhelms me and makes me soporific. Which sign informs or directs me toward to the coming of Christ? I want to listen to words that bring peace and hope. That means I need to... Read more
For what am I waiting this first day of Advent? for what do I long? If I am honest, there is almost always something a little “adventish” in my spirit,” a little place where I am all too aware that not everything is as it should be, that somethings are still amiss, that something remains to be completed. I will let myself know some of my longings of Spirit this week: I long for the long lists of hurts and... Read more
It is Thanksgiving day, an unusually quiet one, with family strewn around the hemisphere, feasting delayed to another location. I am grateful for the chance to pay attention to the simple gifts that are part of the Presence of the Holy in my life today: a visiting English bulldog continuous nourishing music a new mystery from the library texts from loved ones a pantry with ingredients for comfort food a rain washed sky almond & aloe hand lotion hand drawn... Read more
It’s a big city in which I live, in a big nation, in a big world, many, many people populate it. But so many encounters and images that come to me are with and of people who are lonely–old people and young, married and un-partnered, active and retired. I wonder if there is something essentially lonely about being a human being. Once we leave the protective nurture of the mother that bore us, we are in many ways on our... Read more
It doesn’t rain much here, not enough they say. But after it does, the earth shimmers and shines with the glory of God. The greens and blues are brilliant. The roses, fuschias, and camellias glisten. The clouds billow and scud across the ether. The ocean returns to a place of tranquility. I am awe struck. An older translation of the Hebrew Scripture describes the model of a just, spiritual leader as having the qualities of morning after rain. He that... Read more
For thirty years I was deeply connected to seminary life: a student, a pastor supervisor, a trustee, and a faculty member. In each of those roles, at each of those times in my life, I was given gifts and I was left with longings. As the discussion about what and if a seminary should be and do swirls around this website, I remember a quotation I read once about good parents: “There are two things we can give our children:... Read more
A Musing Amma
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