Reflections

When I was 11 years old, my dad—then a programmer analyst at UVic—told me about this new thing called “the internet,” which he had just started playing around with at his office. (I later learned that the ’net had been around since the 1960s, but only at the dawn of the 1990s was it beginning to gain global traction.) There was this tool called “email” that allowed you to send an electronic “letter” almost instantly to somebody else, anywhere in the world, who also had a comp

And yet for some time now, the Divine has been seeking my hand. I can sense her corporeal warmth, as though the Queen of Heaven is opening her arms to me in invitation.

All photos courtesy of Leslie Sandra Black Fr Thomas Keating taught “ Divine Therapy ” through “ opening to the Presence and Action of God within”.   His core contemplative practice is Centering Prayer; mine is Energy Healing.   As a contemplative method, energy healing helps us connect with the present moment and encourages transformation. With mindful intention, practitioners can support holistic wellness and spiritual growth, following the modelling of Jesus.   Let’s refl

     Discussing the ineffable with the devotedly non-religious can be tricky. For my efforts to engage them, I’ve found that their alternative perspectives can sometimes elbow me out of blind spots. Sometimes unsettling, but ultimately always welcome. That happened at a dinner party I recently hosted. It all started with spidey senses and flying fish.

Be freeway now cascading over sun-bleached hills into the restless city digest the swelter the  glare of glass and steel carry the fast-flowing river of human yearning and exchange the  striving aching gluttonous rush the drive to be anywhere  but here     Be labyrinth now bless the hands that built you  stone by stone no dead ends  your seven circles cruciform welcome the feet of all who venture here seeking the weighted stillness of the oaks consent to crow’s harsh caws, th

As I sit here looking through my living room window in the early morning, gathering my thoughts for the day, I’m watching the birds in my yard—just sitting there, being birds. And I’m reminded again of the importance of beingness, of living from the true identity, the true self we were created to embody.

Revulsion is not my instinctive response when someone confides their image of Love. But when she said, “I think of Love—big, universal Love—as couch grass,” I grimaced. Because I detest couch grass.

Tools for Carrying the Burdens of a Hostile World." By Paula Pryce. photo by Yassir Abbas   Part Two:  Intentional Suffering   Traffic in Boston is mythic. People racing, gesticulating, and jockeying in whatever way possible. Rules are optional, it seems, and civility? Well – I’ve often thought Boston traffic to be the perfect microcosm of the get-ahead society. Here are a few of the images seared into my mind: A father with a carload of toddlers drives onto the sidewalk to j

Every night at 8 p.m., after the war began, Pope Francis called Holy Family Church in Gaza. Every night until he drew his last breath, Francis faithfully picked up the phone and checked in. I haven’t been able to get this picture out of my head. Actually, what I haven’t been able to get out of my head is the image of what happened after the Pope spoke with Fr. Romanelli, the pastor. After the assembled community, listening in on speaker phone, said hello. After Francis asked

Tools for Turning around a Hostile World." By Paula Pryce. photo by Lavinda Weber Part One: Conscious Work, Conscious Play Illuminated by a near-full moon, several women and I made our way along a forested lakeshore across from a Midwestern Benedictine monastery. We had crept out that night to extend our Wisdom School lessons in intentional living to the serious work of play. A half hour of twisting climbs and descents brought us to a rustic altar and wooden benches that the

Letter from Cynthia Bourgeault: I am very grateful to Joseph Azize for his willingness to make five of the Gurdjieff exercises available to us within the cyber confines of our Wisdom School Community. These exercises are powerful tools of healing, cleansing, and clarity, and even when practiced individually or in small groups, they have the power to significantly shift our present planetary atmosphere. They are something you can actually DO: to steady yourself and ready yours

I write to fellow travelers, who, like me, are wending their way into the living heart of silence…to women and men of all ages from far and wide, who are drawn to an inner stability that is not subject to the tempest of these times…  to those opening their lives to a creative force awaiting expression just behind chaos and disturbance.  I offer a few stories (out of untold myriads that could be highlighted) about ways an abiding ocean of latent potential, born in silence, fol

– Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, 16th c.  “If you are searching, you must not stop until you find. When you find, however, you will become troubled. Your confusion will give way to wonder. In wonder you will reign over all things. Your sovereignty will be your rest.” – The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 2 If you are searching, you must not stop until you find:   The Child slept in timothy and alfalfa, shining with earthy brilliance – more luminous even than the blazing star that had

“The Gate of Heaven is Everywhere” ~ Thomas Merton   (Dedicated to the young people who are inheriting the world we have created.) I was touched by how Heather Ruce opened the daily Pause of meditation and Centering Prayer earlier this month.  She spoke of a great wave surrounding us, permeating us, which is itself the flow of God. The name God is shorthand (a nickname) for this unfathomable, ever-present, source of love.  More and more, as the disconnected world we have cons

"A most cruel and horrible dragon issued forth . . .  of various colours, with a beard and hair that seemed of gold, and teeth that seemed of iron, eyes sharp and brilliant as kindled flame." – The Legend of St. Margaret of Antioch   Dragons curling, twisting, encroaching.  Many have said that this Advent feels different. The soft hopefulness diminished, the growing light muted. Instead a cavern of tangled serpents seems to be at our feet.  A roiling world with dragons all ar

As a kid, I used to love finding seaweed on the beach after a big storm. We would wield short strands of kelp like clubs in mock fights, twirl the long ones above our heads so they’d whistle in the wind, and pop the little air-and-slime-filled bladders. Once in a while we’d even find a root-like holdfast. Holdfasts. Such a lovely name; such an unglamorous appearance. By the time a holdfast shows up on the beach, it is dead: brittle and broken, a woody knot no longer holding f

– photo by George Meier Our hands imbibe like roots, So I place them on what is beautiful in this world. And I fold them in prayer, And they draw from the heavens light. – St. Francis of Assisi, as interpreted by David Ladinsky As the forest fires burned a few kilometres away last summer, as dams broke around the world, wars escalated and political rhetoric sharpened, I struggled to find a quiet heart. My practice — reading, scripture, meditation, prayer — was hard to maintai

– photo by Daria-Yakovleva “Do not neglect the Forty Days; it constitutes an imitation of Christ’s way of life.”  – Saint Ignatius of Antioch  The Church has begun the Great Fast of Lent, our Forty Days of preparation for the Mysteries of Holy Week, for our entering with Jesus into the journey of death and resurrection. Our participation includes an outer fast – putting less food into our bodies, if our health allows – to help us listen for the Divine. Within the human being

Bringing together silence and sound, chant offers a contemplative path that leads us through Advent’s winter shadows.  Chants, ancient or contemporary, draw us across a threshold into deeper quiet and give us courage, so that like the shepherds who rose out of fear to peer up at shining angels, we dare to step from familiar dark into unknown light.  Here, Susan J. Latimer, an Episcopal priest and musician, tells us how chant can give us courage, heal us, and help us become mo

“Silence is God’s first language” ~ St. John of the Cross Snowmass recedes. We in the Centering Prayer community are mourning this month’s closure of St. Benedict’s guesthouse, and the apparent dissolution of the monastery. The universe found a vital heart at Snowmass during her few decades among us. Like a sheltering mother, she gathered us in. She encouraged us to see with wonder, find our centre, and give ourselves back to the world. There, we were nurtured and challenged