the sensation of life
TIME AFTER TIME I came to your gate with raised hands, asking for more and yet more. You gave and gave, now in slow measure, now in sudden excess. I took some, and some things I let drop; some lay heavy on my hands; some I made into playthings and broke them when tired; till … Continue reading The gifts and the giver
How’s it going in surrendering yourself to the Mystery that has intimately accessed your heart and has brought you to this place that it might translate you into itself?James Finley If you ask me just precisely how one is to go about doing the contemplative work of love, I am at a complete loss. All … Continue reading 8 ways to be with thoughts in prayer
The truth is that we are always home. On this retreat day, we will explore coming home to our bodies, to ourselves, to the present, our own presence and The Presence, and to our place and purpose in the world. I will offer what I consider to be some important landscapes for exploration, but the … Continue reading Retreat day: Coming home (last call)
When we take up occupation of the site of our bodies in stillness before God, we are granted a place to be, simply in virtue of being there as material beings made by God. Rowan Williams: Lear and Eurydice The truth is that we are always home. On this retreat day, we will explore coming … Continue reading Retreat Day: Coming Home
Sunday morning: sitting, praying. I have taken to moving my chair to face the window so I look out on the simple morning light. I tend to alternate between journaling and a still and silent awareness of being this body. I say ‘praying’ but really I am pondering what I want to do today: what … Continue reading Coterminous
Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. Mary Oliver: In Blackwater Woods I was listening to Radio 3 over breakfast on Wednesday. Bryn Terfel was interviewed and … Continue reading Lass auch Dir die Brust bewegen, Liebchen, höre mich!
What God is waiting for is not a right conclusion to a matter but for our suppleness in falling into His hands for Him to work in us. Benedicta Ward, Discernment: A Rare Bird Where shall the word be found, where will the word Resound? T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday Spiritual direction at the end of … Continue reading Spiritual direction at the end of the world (4)
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.Luke 12.6–7 If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save … Continue reading Spiritual direction at the end of the world (3)
July 2018: I go with family to the observatory at Herstmonceux. We listen to a talk about the telescopes. We are shown pictures of starry skies from when the telescopes were operational. One photograph has a patch of dark sky. Or so it seems. More recently, the story goes, the Hubble space telescope was trained … Continue reading Molecular loneliness, molecular belonging
I've been through the desert on a horse with no nameIt felt good to be out of the rainIn the desert you can remember your name‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no painAmerica, A Horse With No Name (Todd Terje edit) Newberry Springs, CA I went to the desert. It was not … Continue reading Desert