I am the living breath in a human being placed in a tabernacle of marrow, veins, bones, and flesh, giving it vitality and supporting its every movement. ~ St. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias I 4:4 The feast day of Hildegard of Bingen is 17 September. She was a 12th-century Benedictine abbess, who was also a theologian, visionary, musical composer, spiritual director, preacher, and healer. For centuries monasteries have been centers of healing and herbal medicine. Monks would grow the herbs... Read more

Editors’ Note: This article is part of the Patheos Public Square on Slow Living. Read other perspectives here. Modern life seems to move at full speed and many of us can hardly catch our breath between the demands of earning a living, nurturing family and friendships, and the hundreds of small daily details like paying our bills, cleaning, grocery shopping. More and more we feel stretched thin by commitments and lament our busyness, but without a clear sense of the alternative. There is... Read more

Ash Wednesday marks a threshold when we leave ordinary time to enter into the journey of Lent through the desert. The desert is that uncharted terrain beyond the edges of our seemingly secure and structured world, where things begin to crack. We begin this desert journey marked with ashes, the sign of our mortality. There is wisdom in these ashes. If you have ever been near death or had a loved one die, you know the clarity that an awareness... Read more