The sacred container of sisterhood holds a community in an atmosphere of safety where sisters (members) feel confident to share their stories, embrace silence, pray, create, celebrate beauty, and break bread. It could be said there is a sacrament within the spirit of sisterhood. The Way of Belle Coeur: A Woman’s Vade Mecum by Sibyl Dana Reynolds Women have gathered in community throughout the centuries. In the Middle Ages when many  “took the veil” and became nuns, a movement emerged... Read more

Throughout the ages women have gathered to share their personal stories and spiritual/creative wisdom. Circles of women have met in secret attic rooms, church basements, on wind swept beaches and in one another’s living rooms. The intentions for “sisterhood” circles are as diverse as the women themselves. In today’s world circles of women (spiritual sisters) meet to listen, learn, and most of all witness for one another what it means to be a woman of wisdom and prayer in the... Read more

For the past several weeks I’ve been observing nature’s unpredictability as the weather, continually changes course. Wintry local temperatures have run the gamut from last week’s cold rainy day registering a mere nine degrees to today’s spring-like and sunny, sixty-eight degree record breaker. God’s call for my life’s journey also seems to be ever changing. Recently I received an invitation that has (not unlike Nature’s sudden turn in mid-season) surprised my spirit and called me to step forth from retirement as... Read more

A mysterious event happened in my garden Friday night. Outside my bedroom window there stood a beautiful white stone statue of Mary. She once blessed the courtyard at my home in California and she traveled two thousand miles with me when I moved to Texas. Every morning and evening when I opened and closed the draperies she awaited, a blessed and familiar sight reminding me to be grateful for the day that was either beginning or ending. The simple statue... Read more

A small globe on a bookshelf in my workspace catches my eye. I pick it up and feel connected with the realization that all of humankind is fastened to the earth, a whirling sphere suspended in the inky black universe. We are tethered to our world composed of forests and deserts, mountains and plains, water and ice. We are souls, alive at this time in history and herstory through God’s grace. We are star stuff, space travelers, and pilgrims on... Read more

From the pages of my journal this morning a few spontaneous thoughts on what it means to serve through a ministry of Love… Seek ways to fearlessly express God’s Love. Be love. Preach love. Celebrate love. Serve love as a Sacrament. Express love. Inspire love. Reveal love. Seek love. Serve love. Embrace love. Nurture love. Live in love. Die to love. In this time of economic, political, and religious polarization on our earth the spiritual invitation is to seek to discover... Read more

I recently returned from leading a pilgrimage to Chartres Cathedral. For one week my colleague and I and women pilgrims from the U.S. and Canada, were immersed in the sacred history, architecture, story, and beauty of the ancient earthly reliquary, the living shrine, dedicated to Notre-Dame de Chartres (Our Lady of Chartres). This was my fifth pilgrimage to Chartres. It is a place that lives in my heart and feels encoded in my DNA. My passion for this most sacred... Read more

In this sacred time of Holy Week I am contemplating the themes of death and resurrection. It’s as if there are particular seasons in my life when it becomes painfully clear that certain ways of living, being, or doing are not serving what God is calling forth. It’s as if suddenly I am shaken to my senses by grace to understand that it’s time to let go…to allow old patterns to fall away, in essence, to allow them to die.... Read more