I often wear a silver cuff bracelet with the words “Anam Cara” on it, Gaelic for “soul friend.” Brigid of Kildare said that a person  without a soul-friend is like a body without a head. And Jesus told his disciples that they were his friends. When we find that  person with whom we connect in things of mystery, with whom we can have sacred conversations, we have encountered a soul  friend. I find myself deeply grateful and, sometimes, lost in... Read more

Some weeks all the blocks come tumbling down: a mission to which I have been committed is being shut down for lack of funds; the reality of death comes closer to those I love; the cracks in the institution of the Church seems to be driven deeper; the rebellions and riots around the world proliferate. I am amazed how my first interior responder question is: what do I need to do? how can I fix it? how can we rally,... Read more

Loving another can be demanding work; paying attention, listening deeply, holding your tongue, ladling cups of cold water. So I need and long for holy laughter to lighten and energize the work of love. And laughter abounds in the world! In my world laughter came this morning when I went out to pick up the paper and looked up and saw a perfect crescent moon with a bright star just off its cusp. It came yesterday as my daughter regaled... Read more

The image of astronaut Captain Mark Kelly shown by the hospital bedside touched my heart this past week. It is impossible to know what he is really thinking, but very easy to imagine the love, the hope, the tenderness and compassion as he is keeping vigil over his wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, after the shooting in Tucson. Keeping vigil is a holy spiritual practice. I am keeping vigil this week. Beloved ones of mine are living in what may be... Read more

In these days following the horror of the shootings in Arizona, I have been almost paralyzed: surely there have been too many words, but there has also been too much silence. Too many words in the face of devastation demands our silence: a grieving silence, too deep for words a thoughtful silence, pondering in our hearts what these thing can mean a respectful silence, without presuming to know what the first circle of loved one are experiencing an attentive silence... Read more

I have loved Christmas, but more of my life is like the Epiphany story. It is a story that lives with me all year long. The Wise Ones gathered the wisdom available to them. For them it was in the stars. Where I live the stars are not always so readily visible; too many city lights and  pollution keep them blanketed. But wisdom is available for those who seek it, and for me. It comes in ancient texts, in the... Read more

This week between Christmas and New Year has felt extraordinarily gloomy to me….like John Henry Newman’s “circling gloom.” Was it the five straight days of rain that came down in Southern California where it “never” rains? or the pain of the people I know who are suffering so severely with disease, surgery and loss during this “most wonderful time of the year”? Maybe it’s the memories of the way Christmas used to be, when I was a child, when I... Read more

Christmas was imprinted in me by my mother. A naturally ebullient and gregarious whirlwind, Marguerite leapt at the chance to express her true self when her world joined her in acknowledging and celebrating the joy and the good news of the coming of Jesus, God-in-person, to human persons and systems. She had permission to sing, decorate, bake and give thoughtful tokens to those who were important to her. As I come into the season and celebration each year, including this... Read more

My spirit is longing for you, my God; my spirit is waiting in hope.         -Taize What a time of darkness in the world! Whether I am tracking politics, worlds conflicts, religious strife or life journeys with those  l love, it is bleak and fraught and painful.  “Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone,” say Christina Rossetti. And so we light the candle for Advent Four, the last one before the Christ candle is lit at Christmas. Surely the... Read more

Wait for the Lord, whose day is near; wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart!        -Taize Community The darkness of Advent has seemed more opaque to me this week as we light the third candle- more illumination, but thicker and heavier fog. A third candle: in some traditions this new one is pink to pay attention to the up close and personal story that Mary brings to Advent and Christmas. But even a pink candle has not dispelled the... Read more