Dec252020

Merry Christmas!

The ancient story retold again and again and again through the centuries, conveyed via comic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeVDOu2_Fuc) and cosmos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMMkWvGz9jI and https://www.actionnewsnow.com/content/links/Watch-Live-See-the-Great-Conjunction-Christmas-Star-of-2020-573451941.html), enlivens us anew THIS Christmas Day, 2020! The very energy that stirred people over 2000 years ago to travel to see and celebrate the radiant birth of Jesus still fascinates and animates us today.…

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Dec242020

Finding the Light of Christmas

I’ll admit it—I love the over-the-top-ness of Christmas. I love finding—or even better, making—the perfect gifts for family, friends and coworkers. I enjoy watching cheesy holiday movies on the Hallmark channel as I wrap presents in shimmering paper, ribbons and homemade gift tags. I love seeing the light displays in my neighborhood as we take…

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Dec232020

Appreciation of Gifts

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. —Christina Rosetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter”   How silently, how silently The wondrous gift is given So God imparts to human hearts The…

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Dec222020

Christmas Carols & Conversation

Do you have a favorite Christmas carol? Or several? Do you have fond memories of singing with others? I would answer yes to all of the above! I love singing Christmas carols and have memories of the olden days when we used to go door to door in a group singing, usually on Christmas Eve-Eve,…

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Dec212020

Ghosts That Haunt Us, Ghost Stories That Make Us Whole

The idea of ghosts may give us goosebumps. “Ghosts” are spirits. The etymological derivation is interesting: Ghost < Old English gast, breath, and < proto West Germanic, gaistaz; source also of Old Saxon gest, Old Frisian jest, Middle Dutch gheest, Dutch geest, German Geist “spirit, ghost.” This is conjectured to be from a PIE root gheis-, used in forming words involving the notions…

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Dec182020

Abiding in God

This beautiful time of the year, we celebrate and ritualize lots of wonderful endings and new beginnings. Some hearts are comforted by the scripture story of the Nativity scene, the birth of a new baby to a man and woman accompanied by resting sheep, donkey and “lowly cattle” enveloped on a beautiful starry night. Jesus…

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Dec172020

Word of the Year

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Each December as one year comes to a close and another is just a glimmer of possibility, I try to encapsulate the outgoing year—and how I experienced it—in a single word. The year I regained my health by losing weight, went skydiving and took a pilgrimage to Italy with my mother, my word was Joy.…

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Dec162020

A Prayer for Your Wild Soul

John O’Donohue encouraged us to not only pray, but to create or fashion a prayer that expresses the longing and beauty of our hearts. I wanted to share this powerful guidance as an invitation to create your own prayer with intention. Even if you do not go so far as to memorize the prayer, the…

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Dec152020

The Light in Everyone

The winter solstice is coming up on Monday, Dec. 21. This is the shortest day and the longest night of the year and the first official day of winter. As I ponder this special time of year both seasonally and spiritually, I am holding a beautiful song in my heart called The Longest Night of…

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Dec142020

The Sign of the Babe

“And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” —Luke 2:12, New American Bible The signs of the times are all around us. They offer a message that’s open to interpretation and they also call us to respond in some way. Sometimes it…

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Dec112020

Milkweed

I have a lot of milkweed in my wildflower garden and around my yard. Milkweed seems to exhibit a kind of faith growing where they go, persevering, relinquishing what is not needed, and bringing joy like caterpillars and butterflies! My plants had their start with one of the FSPA sisters, and I would like to…

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Dec102020

Move In

“People are hard to hate close up. Move in.” —Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness Abandoning hatred allows, or rather, demands a look closer at the lives and experiences of people who have beliefs much different than our own. Can I really be a good person because I’m compassionate and then decide that someone else is…

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Dec92020

Live Under Hope’s Roof

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.” —Barbara Kingsolver This may sound strange, but 2020 has been a year in which…

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Dec82020

The Golden Hours of Your Day

What are you doing later this afternoon? Around 4:30ish. Would you like to watch the sunset? Wherever you are, let’s look to the west and meet at the evening golden hour. Let’s say shortly after 4 p.m. we’ll settle in and stay until shortly after 5. We could be outside on a hilltop. We could…

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Dec72020

Seeking a sign—but which one?

We’re emerging from a darkening, liminal space in the last month of 2020, when it seems crucial to read the signs of the times. Advent is a natural retreat opportunity to reflect on the many signs presented to us and to determine which ones we need to see and hear with new eyes and ears,…

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Dec42020

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light

As many begin the season of Advent and, together, we rest in our longing to celebrate the Winter Solstice, we pray this blessing encouraging one another to bear the light. Blessed are you who bear the light in unbearable times, who testify to its endurance amid the unendurable, who bear witness to its persistence when…

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Dec32020

Emotions in the Body

Emotions are energy, moving in motion through our physical and spiritual bodies. As we learn to work with both positive and negative emotions without grasping to one or the other too firmly, we are aligning our energies to support the emergence of our highest self. So, with sore backs and open hearts, we pray, meditate,…

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Dec22020

Surprised by the Gifts of 2020

Dec. 5, the eve of St. Nicholas’ Day, was special in my childhood home. My five siblings and I would be in front of the television set or otherwise engaged in the family room when the door into our kitchen would be thrown open and a shower of candy tossed inside. All six of us…

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Dec12020

Writing Our Gratitude

One of my favorite ways to hold gratitude is by writing it down! I’ve kept a journal since I was a ten-year-old kid, but seven years ago I dedicated one whole journal to gratitude. This was my special “Gratitude Journal,” and I even wrote that intention on the cover page. It has been meaningful to…

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Nov302020

Embracing Our “Wild Twin”

Prophets, storytellers, sages, spiritual writers, poets and artists are calling us to the wild side! It is time to launch ourselves into the arms of the Beloved, to allow our full sensorium to embrace the numinous world (David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World, 1996). Spiritual author Cynthia Bourgeault has reminded us…

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