“They kept each other in contact with a pattern that was very old and endlessly fruitful—the vulnerable pattern of the universe, which is always, it seems, beginning anew.” Richard Rohr As winter turns to spring and Lent turns toward Easter, I am reminded of those endless patterns which traverse darkness and light, night and day, grief and joy. And I am intrigued by Rohr’s coupling of “vulnerable” with “pattern”?! An eternal pattern might be usually associated with certainty or strength but vulnerable?   Perhaps the wonder of the word is in its counter-cultural significance of openness and porousness. Perhaps vulnerability does not indicate non-eternity; rather a vulnerable pattern is one which embraces all creation in all its nuanced variety and holds it, holds us, in a timeless journey toward resurrection life, new, unique and “fruitful”. The pattern is at first glance of sameness but its elements are varied. Sunrise and sunset, count on them to occur and never repeat in ...

  Lent asks this question of us: Who are you becoming in the wilderness? At minimum we might be thinking about this and many questions differently, pondering them deeply. At minimum Lent invites us into a freedom of consideration not experienced previously. Pastor and author A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What we think about when we are free to think about what we will – that is what we are or will soon become.” This challenging sentence presents challenging opportunity. ( I still have to read it at least three times to begin to understand it!) What do you think about when you are free to think about anything you want? assumes we are even able to access such freedom, to cast off the shackles of shoulds! Many of us think this a crazy absurd question. From the moment we are born we are taught to “think” certain things, what to eat, how to act, how to feel. We are bombarded with the should of becoming…or we are becoming the shoulds. Jesus bids us into the wilderness of Lent, or of our lives...

  “Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness…an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can’t control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.” brene brown I rarely think about courage. I rarely think of myself as courageous. Recently, however, I am realizing that one of the most difficult and most courageous things I might be doing is venturing into the wilderness which is me, my true self. Shedding the certainties and securities I once thought were promised and yet disappointed, leaves me alone with myself. At first I scrambled to inhabit another certainty or to manufacture one. But slowly…so painfully slowly, I have, in retr...

  “Suddenly there it is in silhouette - a single, noble winter tree, black against the pale sky. You stop because you must. What is so compelling here? There is a magnificent, creative loneliness in it - the way it stands isolated in the wide reaches of the fields, darkly melancholy. There is struggle in the twisted writhing branches, as if growth and survival have not been easily come by. There is strength in the way it has been exposed mercilessly to the storms. Yet is has endured, taking on dignity with the visitations of frost, snow, and ice. There is acceptance in its open display of imperfection. Most of all…there is honesty in the starkness of a winter tree. Stripped of all pretense and embellishment, nothing is there but the tree’s own truth. Before the eyes of all it lives the way it is - nothing more. In its utter, exposed openness it is a kind of prayer.” Mary Jean Irion This is the image and prayer I contemplating in this wilderness of Lent. It speaks eloquently and res...

  “Sometimes we have to get lost before we find the beauty that surrounds us. It can take going to the hard places, the desolate places, the painful places, for us to find joy. Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we can find the solid ground of our being.” I came across this quotation in my notes and I confess I have “lost” the source, even googling it didn’t get good results so please forgive me as I hone in on what I find to be its wisdom. As Lent begins this year I have been constantly reminded of a few things: mercy, mapless territory, and beauty. I have prayed about how these terms might be speaking to me right now and am trying this on: I am in a wilderness territory as I/we begin a new phase of our lives. The word retirement does not quite describe things as I find myself busier than ever and honoring my priesthood in new and life-giving ways. But mapless does describe it! I don’t have many entries in my calendar at least not familiar ones, though there is a certain ...

  “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil” And so our Lenten journey begins …. again as though for the first time… While I do not believe so much in an actual devil, I do believe that this Gospel lesson on this first Sunday of Lent opens the way to reflection upon the non duality of the wilderness, led by the spirit  and  met by temptation of sin. As such, the wilderness becomes both a story of Lenten preparation: praying, almsgiving and repentance, as well as a metaphor for those times and spaces in our lives when we are cast or venture into unknown territory, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I believe we are meant to journey deeply into the theology of wilderness during this time and at all times as Jesus taught us that the transfiguration into glory comes by way of the cross, not around it. As the couplets in the prayer of St Francis teach us one cannot have life abundantly without death, one cannot have faith without doub...

  As someone fascinated by questions of “identity” I have always thought that one of the most important questions we can ask is “who am I?”.   Upon reading James K.A. Smith’s How to Inhabit Time I realized that the inquiry which further informs the identity question, and is essential to its understanding, is “when am I?”. I will admit it is not a question I have asked myself! We are located in space and time, between creation of all things and some kind of ultimate revelation. Who we are is unique and evolving. When I am brings forth history and legacy and affects our orientation at any given moment. As Smith introduces his topic: “Knowing when we are can change everything. Knowing whether it’s dawn or dusk changes how you live the next moment.”   I am going to adopt an intentional contemplative time to ponder this question of when I am during Lent. I believe that it offers an opportunity to connect to the Spirit and to view myself in the context of that which is not only...

  What blessing do you long for? A reassurance? An affirmation? A realization of sacred wonder?   In an essay on Wonder by Australian writer Helen Garner, she offers this: “‘Go in peace, my daughter. I ope to hear nothing but good of you, as long as I live.’ That’s the blessing I’ve been longing for all my life…”   Her words inspired my blessing ruminations this morning. I believe that years ago I would have opted for a blessing of reassurance of being good enough. I thought love came in words. And now I find myself recalling the abundance of blessings in my life, most of them moments unaccompanied by speech. Most of them indescribable. The peaceful look which flickered in my mother’s eyes as she was dying.   That gaze was from and to eternity. Her life was a blessing.   The photograph of two grandchildren smiling broadly face to face on a white sand beach as sun glistened on the ocean and danced with them.   No words are adequate. I feel a bit disingenuous...

  A place sung for centuries as the common source from which we might drink words fully commensurate with the awe we need to comprehend our world Castalian Spring by David Whyte (one verse) And so the mystic and poet David Whyte writes of the Castalian Spring at the foot of Mt. Parnassus, a spring which carries mythical promises of Apollo and Dionysius and other Greek stories of beauty and power and prophecy. For the poet upon his encounter with a seemingly simple spring near Delphi it was a release of bound classic expectations and an opening to the possibility of finding a quenching for the thirst for spiritual truth. I am struck by the phrase “words fully commensurate with/the awe we need to comprehend our world”.  Not only do I appreciate the tension between awe and comprehension, not to mention the absurdity of it, but I also am drawn to the notion of a source, fresh living water no less, which quenches in the form of understanding. Do we not all thirst for such nurtu...

  Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute? From Emily’s soliloquy in Our Town by Thornton Wilder The quote above occurs after Emily has died and been afforded an opportunity to “see” life, in its beauty and wonder. I was reminded of this soliloquy recently while following a thread of real presence. Real presence is ironically that showing up, as practically nothing physical or egotistic in moments of life; real presence is the ability to simply be in our fullness of love and grace, no encumbrances of expectation or reward.  And so it is with death… Emily’s ability to “show up” in ghost-like lightness of being affords the view of reality in realization of magnificence of creation.  Is this earth too wonderful to realize? Must we die before we appreciate?  I retain a hope that in contemplation, in that stillness at the center of all life, there is an absence of obstructe...