Our Hidden Easter Reveals Itself It might be obscured by many distractions, but our hidden Easter reveals itself to us. When I was growing up Easter came hidden behind new clothes and candy and, often, new squirt guns. It was obscured by our focus on the earliest days of spring and bunnies and looking for hidden eggs. It took years for me to realize Easter was as hidden as the eggs for which we searched. For many of us, Easter... Read more
The Wisdom of a Spiritual Fool Today we celebrate the apparent foolishness of wisdom and the wisdom of a spiritual fool. It is important, before we each launch our elaborately planned practical jokes, to remember the meaning of fools. Fools have a long history as privileged people of responsibility. Throughout their history, fools have held protected positions in royal and noble households. They had license not only to amuse but also to criticize people in power. Fools were authorized to... Read more
A Year of Death and Resurrection This is a week full of death and resurrection. Of course, every week is when we pay attention. Our last year, the year of the pandemic, has immersed us in death. People have died all over the world. More than 550,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States alone. Many other people have died from many other causes. How we experience and see the world around us has been shaped by all... Read more
Morning and Evening Prayer I follow the practices of morning and evening prayer as a lay oblate at a Benedictine monastery. They were not practices I was following before I started discerning my relationship to the hermitage. I had done them occasionally, particularly when visiting other communities. They were not practices which I found objectionable. When I tried to begin practicing them I often found I forgot about them after a day or two. I felt I probably should follow... Read more
Saying Goodbye and Saying Hello It is a challenge for us to let go and start again. Saying goodbye and saying hello are not things we do easily. Sometimes it is people. We find ourselves in relationships with people and do not know how to get out. It is easier for us to hold on, wanting to avoid the pain and loneliness which come with saying goodbye. Most of us can share the story of a friendship or another relationship... Read more
A Neighborhood Pilgrimage Each day is a series of new steps on my neighborhood pilgrimage. We often think people make pilgrimages to special places with significant histories. Some people make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, or Rome, or Mecca, or Canterbury, or into the desert. It is easy for us to begin to believe a pilgrimage is about arriving at a particular destination. Sometimes we get turned around and assume our pilgrimage is about following a path on a map. My neighborhood... Read more
Uncovering Truth in the Stillness Where do we go to search for truth? How do we know if we find it? Can we uncover truth in the stillness? We find looking for accuracy easier than looking for truth. Our culture seems to value being accurate and specific more than uncovering truth. Some of us assume we need to grow old in order to appreciate truth. We like to believe experience will automatically help us uncover the truth. We might try... Read more
Our Actions Reflect Spiritual Truth I belong to a liturgical church. We practice acting in ways which reflect spiritual truth. For example, the ways we worship together remind us of the community we share built on spiritual truth. Together we remember our shared story, and each of us reflects on our own contribution to the story. Some of us assume it is what we do when we are together which most reflects spiritual truths. As I was growing up it... Read more
Becoming Contemplative What does it mean to be contemplative? How do we go about becoming contemplative? Are there steps we need to follow, a manual we need to read? It is easy for us to assume being contemplative is like being an introvert or being left handed. Being contemplative is something we can choose to do. We are not able to choose whether we will be introverted or extroverted or which hand we prefer to use. What exactly do we... Read more
Living One Moment at a Time The year since last March has seemed, at different times, both like an eternity and almost no time at all. It is a challenge for us to recognize we are living one moment at a time. Some of us feel as though time has stopped for us. We get up at the same time every day and do the same things until we go back to bed. Many of us have sacrificed the practices... Read more
Strategic Monk
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