Nicholas Fournie

"Pater Noster o Il discorso della montagna" (1895) Domenico Morelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Prayer has not always been a practice of words. The natural world has long invited people to pause, pay attention, and encounter the sacred through light, weather, living things, and landscape. This contemplative path is known as Terra Divina, meaning “Divine Earth” or “Sacred Earth.” Rooted in the tradition of Lectio Divina—prayerful, receptive reading—Terra Divina invites us to “read”...

The human world is driven by story. We have the unique ability to enter other people’s lives through word and image. In doing so, we condense the vastness of a life into highlights, and those highlights have a way of gripping our hearts. This is as true of the story of Jesus of Nazareth as it is for each of us.

To the stars, we are no more than an asteroid striking Earth: a momentous force of nature playing itself out. Life will shift, adapt, and go on without us. But we are not indifferent to the pain of Earth. We grieve because we are Earth, made of dust and breath, spirit and soil.