Reflections

From a fairly young age, Mary-Clare Carder has had mystical encounters with the spiritual world. In her late twenties, she developed Sjogren's syndrome – a painful, incurable condition which blunted her career and made her life very challenging. This challenging life led her to a deeper spiritual path and an enriched interior life. Along the way, she learned about the wisdom of silence, a form of meditation known as centring prayer, energy healing, and has had after-death communications...

My journey with the teacher named ‘covid’ began with odd symptoms that I did not connect and so for a couple of days worsened until the telltale cough put the lights on and my doctor sent me for a test. Soon I had night sweats, fever, nausea, diarrhoea, body aches, a ferocious headache upon waking in the morning and pain under my shoulders, and I couldn’t stay awake all day. My first reaction was denial quickly followed by waves of panic. My body has a history of over-reaction to virus and I...

The day before Islam’s holiest month Ramadan was set to begin, I received an email from The Contemplative Society. I was logistically and mentally preparing for my fourth decidedly non-traditional foray into this time of fasting and spiritual recommitment. While I am not Muslim myself, I occasionally take advantage of the opportunity to participate in a global joint effort to purify ourselves and reorient to what is truly important: community and charity through what I would call...

This meditation on the Stations of the Cross during the Pandemic has been provided by Rev. Dawne Taylor of Kamloops, British Columbia. We thank her for allowing us to share this beautiful teaching. She suggests this Good Friday service at Kamloops United Church. GOOD FRIDAY STATIONS OF THE CROSS In the Roman Catholic traditions, churches mark Good Friday by walking the 14 Stations of the Cross with a prayer at each station. The stations take the Christian from the 1 st station (Jesus before...

(the background to Instructions, posted on Cynthia Bourgeault’s Facebook page, March 23) I am keenly aware of the irony in all this. Here I sit on my prayer cushion in the remote seclusion of Eagle Island, more than twenty-four hours now elapsed since the island’s only other occupant headed ashore for an undisclosed period of time, taking the mailboat with him. It’s me, the eagle, the deer herd, the communion of saints. And nothing much in between. But I did not come out here for social...