“Each one...has to be God’s microphone.” - Bishop Oscar Romero (Canonised 2019).

The full body sensation of an emotional trigger requires the Welcome Practice writ large, extended in real time to the real world. Sitting in a board meeting, I can usually do the mental work to attend to what’s being said. I can usually do the wisdom work to let go of my preconceived ideas and consider things non-anxiously. But holy hell, to be aware when bodily sensations are hijacking me? That’s hard work.

"Just as a flower unfolds in silence and its scent worships its Creator in silence, the interior soul must do likewise.” - Sister Marie-Aimée de Jésus OCD in The Twelve Degrees of Silence (P54).

On Friday, I went for a walk in Mary Young Park, a lush oasis on the banks of the Willamette River in a suburb of Portland. Well-trodden paths meander through tall coastal redwoods and sitka spruce, big leaf maple and western red cedar, ponderosa pine and a small stand of old Oregon white oak. The river flows wide and deep at this time of the year...