Antonio Machodo who gave me the line “the wind one brilliant day called”, also assists healing with this poem: Last night as I lay sleeping,  I dreamed”oh blessed art!”  of fountain water leaping  and flowing in my heart.  “Where is the hidden channel,”  I cried, “that was equipped  to bring to me this spring of life  from which I never sipped?”  Last night as I lay sleeping,  I dreamed”oh blessed art!”  a hive of bees was reaping  its nectar in my heart.  The worker bees so golden  were filling up the cracks  with sorrows they converted  into honey and white wax.  Last night as I lay sleeping,  I dreamed”oh blessed art!”  a burning sun was steeping  the blood within my heart.  I know that it was burning.  I felt its heat inside.  I know that it was sunlight.  It shone, and then I cried.  Last night as I lay sleeping,  I dreamed”oh blessed art!”  that ...

  Another word which I have been pondering, indeed living, is “crucible”. Webster’s Dictionary offers this third definition: “a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development.” Many of us picture a crucible as a vessel or structure in which heat creates chemical reactions, in which things are forged or shaped or changed. This third definition facilitates a more metaphysical not to mention psychological and spiritual image. The crucible which keeps creeping into my mind is a numinous space in which forces act on one’s psyche and soul causing transformation. We have all been living in a crucible this past year. Even defenses such as denial or projection cannot ignore this state of “concentrated forces” influencing change on our lives. We can engage in this process and live into it or we can try to construct another narrative. The problem is the other narrative only offers temporary escape.  I don’t think of a crucible as an i...

  Sometimes I realize that certain words have come up repeatedly in prayer, reading, conversation and song. Upon this realization I like to pause and gather some thoughts about these words and ponder significance; there are no coincidences as my mother used to tell me! Recently these words have been reverberating and while not necessarily together in a sentence or phrase, they seem to be knocking on the door of my brain: essence, freedom, crucible and exquisite grace (yes another couplet really!). And so I asked what is it about “essence” that I am learning? I think about essential ingredients, essential truths, the essence of the matter, and the essence of life... Almost immediately upon pausing to reflect, these two quotes found me: “the spiritual  essence  of nonviolence as a tool for liberating” Barbara Holmes referring to Martin Luther King’s contemplative liberation theology “Into every duty a God-fearing heart must be put, a heart constantly permeated by the t...

  Blessed be God who animates our lives and knows us and calls us from our fig trees to live full meaningful faithful lives. AMEN It is very significant I believe that we go from the mystical prologue of John’s Gospel at Christmas to this passage of call of ordinary human disciples later in the same chapter.   John’s Gospel is certainly known for its reverberations between heaven and earth, between the cosmos and the universe. And in the passage today, in the calls of Philip and Nathanael, the cosmic christ touches the ordinary earthy experience of two men and by extension all of us and launches a conversion program! It has been said that at this point in John’s Gospel the foundational theme which bursts all human expectations and appears early in the narrative is laid bare: “God’s very own eternal Word is made available to us wayward creatures in the life of a human being from Nazareth, particularly in that life’s mysterious coincidence of descent(crucifixion) and ascent (exa...

  Annie Dillard asks and answers: “What are we here for? Propter chorum, the monks say: for the sake of the choir.”     The Writing Life All God's critters got a place in the choir. As someone who cherishes, no craves, solitude and silence, I often startle myself when I turn up the volume on Kings College Choir or find myself misty with remembering the joyful noise of children when I was a nursery school director! Annie Dillard helps me to understand the relationship between purpose and execution thereof, between solitude and community, between ego and true identity in something beautiful and eternal. The beloved community, not to mention the great cloud of witnesses, are the choir toward which my solitude ought to point. I am newly blessed by a sense of commitment to facilitating the joyful voices and sounds of the choir, even if it is stage manager or costume cleaner or page turner! Ultimately we are listener and participant at onc

  A shimmer of something by  Brian Doyle Well, the aged mother of the woman who married me died, And there are so many stories both sad and hilarious to tell, But let me tell you just one, because it is little and not little. At her Mass, after the miracle, but before the electric bread Went into every soul, as people are shuffling slowly toward The altar, everyone in the line on the left side, as they came To the front pew, touched my wife. Some bent down to hug Her. Some touched her hair gently. Some just placed a hand On her shoulder. One woman reached down and cupped her Face in her hands for an instant. Sure I wept. We touch each Other when we have no other way to speak. We speak many Languages without words. We are so much wilder and wiser Than we know. There are so very many of us without words, Speaking the most amazing and eloquent languages; we sing With our hands. I have seen it happen. You have seen it, too. It's a little thing, but there's a shimmer of somethi...

  “If a storm should holler and range and shake the skies, walk out in it, let your body be blasted by an energy that knocks you sideways, emptying your limbs of all resistance.” Coming to Water, Nicola Slee Please indulge me being stuck on this poem. It is such intriguing comfort in this time of multiple griefs. In a commanding or authoritative voice it summons me to a margin, an edge, which is still tethered to the Center.  Many of us remain in the center or what we think is the safe place, shielded from the uncertainty and even threats of the edge of all being. On that margin, though,  reside the poor, the oppressed, and the broken hearted. That is where holy binding takes place. The binding of wounds and breaks. Similarly, these lines from Nicola Slee are counterintuitive at first. I was taught to take shelter in storms. But some storms, the metaphorical type, might require immersion and embrace. It is at first frightening to think of being “blasted” until one thinks ...

  I have missed writing and sharing with you. I have realized in the last weeks how important this space is, how sacred. Begun in the first pandemic of coronovirus it now continues through the pandemic of racism and oppression and violence, through storms and illnesses and elections and deaths, and now gathers all our fears and hopes into this liminal space as our nation cries and laments and despairs and prays.   This is a beloved community. It is safe and sacred. It exists in love and prayer. It is more about spirit than intellect. It continues whether I write or not. Because our beloving and belonging is about a connection realized.  I confess to a desire to isolate and retreat during these last few weeks, to deal with my grief alone. I realize that was not only improbable but also unrealistic. In sacred space measurement and comparison ceases as all sorrow, all griefs, are gathered up in love. So in my learning about and missing this community I return with this: Some...

  Blessed be God who animates our lives and assures us in baptism we are God's beloved and to God we belong. AMEN Today we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. It is one of the holiest of days. It is, I believe, not only important because it underlines the holy sacrament of baptism which Jesus models for us, but because it is the quintessential story of our belovedness. Jesus and we are God’s beloveds.  And that is the single most important sign of blessedness which we never ever lose or destroy.  That which accompanies and energizes that belovedness is belonging. When we are so loved as God so loves the world, we also belong. This dynamic of beloving and belonging may be noted and renoted, remembered and restored, when we come to water. Water washes away the filmy stuff which hides or distorts God. Water reflects our identities in God. Water reflects our purpose within God’s mission in life. Water brings us renewed to the source of our love and desire, as well as to o...