the sensation of life
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!
There a just a few tickets left on the Retreat Day: Lent in lockdown. I am offering it on Friday 19th and Saturday 20th February. Please contact me if you would like to come. Here are a few more details. The shape of the day 0930 Arrival, housekeeping, and introduction1000 Prayer 1: Home1200 Prayer 2: … Continue reading Retreat Day: last call
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world … Continue reading Retreat Day: Lent in lockdown
a review and an invitation Since lockdown, I have been hosting prayer together using Zoom on Mondays for silent prayer and Wednesdays for prayer that I lead in what I hope is an open, meditative, and contemplative atmosphere. My aim is to help people become present to God who is always Present. Breakup In September … Continue reading Praying together
This time of plague is a desolation for many: loss of work, loss of income, loss of health, loss of life; traumatic, dangerous front-line work; and decimated support services. Those of us not so endangered still suffer desolation. There is overwhelming uncertainty: where will we be next year, or next week!? How are we to live now? What is God’s call now? … Continue reading
Christ is risen. Alleluia. This is my third offering of recorded prayer. It is a version from the post, “The only 3 prayers you need,” in which I suggested that presence, gratitude, and kindness comprise the three important prayers. This audio file is longer than the others. Here it is one complete recording. Presence - … Continue reading Audio Prayer: Presence, Gratitude, and Kindness