She was standing in the aisle as the train bumped along the Hudson. She was looking in her bag, as if she’d lost something important. She just meant to check that it was still there, like when she reached for her wallet the other day, just to make sure she didn’t leave it on the counter in the drugstore. Or like reaching for that small photo of her son who was now gone. Is it there? How could she go... Read more

Confidence is not the swagger or certainty with which we convey what we know. It is the fidelity with which we listen to and relate to the irreducible foundation of all life. For there is a difference between how we carry what we know and how we know what we know. Leon Felipe was a Spanish poet and friend of the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Their personalities couldn’t have been more different. Pablo was outgoing and uninhibited, exuding his... Read more

What is compassion but drifting in the immensity of life with an open heart? We bump into and pass by so many torn and budding lives along the way. Some are like us, many are not—on the surface, but under it all, we remain the same ounce of spirit carried in skin and bone. One of our jobs, then, is to learn how to relate to the cascade of others that rise and fall around us. The practice of compassion... Read more

Our job while here is threefold. First, like a mountain that is steadfast in meeting the elements, we are called to face the wear of time, so we can reflect and endure the truth revealed. Some say this is doing nothing. If so, it is a noble nothing that in time reveals everything. Second, like a river that is relentless in how it carves its path to the sea, we are called to bring what is true into the world.... Read more

As the unseen wind moves from the azalea to the young willow, the unseen force of Spirit moves from you to me and on to those yet born. Still, the azalea doesn’t become the willow, even though they root in the same soil. In just this way, you stay you and I stay me, though we are informed by each other, just by virtue of how Spirit moves through all things. Under the circus of appearance, all forms are knit... Read more

How can I be a bridge to help you cross what you need to cross?   This is finally all I aspire to. To reach across the divide because I have been so divided.   To pick up what is broken because I have done the breaking.   To ask for guidance because I too have been so stubborn.   A Question to Walk With: How can you be a bridge to someone in need? What would that look like?... Read more

We live between the edge we look out from and the edge beyond which we can’t see.   What we see as real may expand when we relax or are illumined and shrink when we are tense or in pain. But always, an edge to what we know: out there, in here.   So the real art is: how to listen where we are blind, how to sense and relate to all that lives beyond our awareness.   Like a... Read more

I happened into the cathedral downtown and heard serious, ancient song in Latin or Greek. Wonderfully, the words had no meaning but the weight the voices carried, the search their eyes revealed.   I was happy to receive no message so beautifully.   It made me want to whittle new myths for our children’s children to lose their way by.   Finding is never as urgent as needing to look.     A Question to Walk With: Describe a sacred... Read more