Becoming a Better Listener Some people seem to feel spiritual life is like a long series of meetings which never end. We sit and endure people talking even though we do not understand what difference it makes for us. There never seems to be time for questions. It is almost as if spiritual life is designed to discourage us from becoming a better listener. Many of us experience spiritual life as something we have to do, not something we get... Read more
Spiritual Life is Not For Sale The pandemic has taught us, or helped us remember, many things. Some of us have learned about science, or public health, or history. We may have remembered the significance of spending time by ourselves. Many of us have realized spiritual life is not something we can buy or stockpile. Spiritual life is not for sale. Our lives seem to be full of people trying to sell us things. Whenever we go online, watch television,... Read more
My Mind Carries Me Away There are times when my contemplative practices welcome me into the embrace of spiritual life. They show me how to escape the constraints I place on myself and discover who I am in a deeper way. It is a taste of spiritual ecstasy. Then, at other times, my mind carries me away. My mind is what usually draws me away. I am not usually distracted by following my heart, though it happens on occasion. For... Read more
Start Forming Habits Now For Next Year Today is our opportunity to start forming habits for next year. I am not sure why, but people seem to enjoy sending me articles about how long it takes to form a new habit. Some people believe it takes just over two months of daily practice to turn an idea or intention into a new habit. Other people advocate a combination of 21 days and 90 days. Whichever system you find most persuasive,... Read more
Stillness on the First Morning of Autumn Autumn in my memory is filled with sacred stillness. Now I live in a place where autumn is more of a concept. The temperature may not get colder, even though the hours of daylight grow shorter. Most of the trees remain green. The transition from summer to autumn to winter is measured in tiny increments. Our seasons have more to do with featured flavors than with changes in the weather. We move from... Read more
A Day of Atonement Judaism is not the primary religious background which has shaped me. I have not practiced a day of atonement in an intentional way. My interest in Yom Kippur is fueled more by curiosity than by obligation. Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Yom Kippur is the tenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah is... Read more
Remembered Days of Fear and Hope I do not specifically remember twenty years ago today. Moving to Los Angeles from the Washington, DC area less than a year before, my life was not focused on fear and hope. Then, in less than two days, things changed. I watched the World Trade Center on television. There were people I knew in the Pentagon that day. The stillness of the sky without airplanes was striking. I drove to work in Santa Monica... Read more
Morning Stillness at the Hermitage I spent a few days on a retreat at New Camaldoli last week. The stillness at New Camaldoli has a special quality, particularly the morning stillness at the hermitage. It usually takes me about six hours to drive up to Big Sur from Southern California. I arrived in the afternoon and almost made it to the Vespers service. It may have been driving more miles that day than I had driven the entire year before,... Read more
The Long Road to New Camaldoli I try to spend some time on retreat at New Camaldoli every year. The last day of August is the feast day of Saint Aidan. Aidan was a Celtic missionary monk who journeyed from the island monastery of Iona to establish the island monastery of Lindisfarne. His day is the day I became a lay oblate at New Camaldoli, a Benedictine community near Big Sur, California. It takes me several hours to drive from... Read more
Reading As a Spiritual Practice A healthy spiritual practice of reading is more than simply loving to read. I have loved to read since I learned how to do it. It teaches me about the magic and power of words. Developing contemplative life strengthens our love for words and reading. It is ironic how appreciating contemplation and stillness feeds the ways we value words. Our practice of reading is a combination of the words and the space between them. Some... Read more
Strategic Monk
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