I almost always take the present moment for granted. Obsession with the future or the past seems to take up most of my brain-space. The constant chatter can become too much. When this happens, I’ve found the practice of “resting in the present moment” to be especially helpful. I take a satisfying breath inward, pause…
“We do not emerge from a crisis the same; we emerge either better or worse.” To emerge better, we need to “care for nature so that it can care for us.” —Pope Francis, Earth Day message This week we celebrate as a global community the sixth anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care…
This winter, I slept eight or nine hours a night and still woke up exhausted. My eyelids fluttered closed as I put on eye makeup. By mid-morning, I could hardly keep my head up without the help of caffeine. For several months, my emotional exhaustion presented as physical exhaustion, because they were all rolled up…
“The journey, the sacred journey of the universe, is the personal journey of each individual … The universe is the larger self of each person, since the entire sequence of events that has transpired since the beginning of the universe was required to establish each of us in the precise structure of our own being…
I have this urge to dress in a green moss wrap braid twigs and grasses through my hair wear a dandelion necklace a feather bracelet a clover ring a star on each finger and toe swim in the river follow the sun live in a tree somewhere rest in the shady places sleep behind a…
Do you believe this to be true? You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. What is it that causes some to thrive and others to fall behind? What is it that makes winners and losers? It might be said without overstatement that we are overly obsessed with winning and losing in today’s world. It…
I had written this poem for a meeting last fall of the Women in Interfaith Dialogue, hosted virtually by Prairiewoods. The topic for the day was “spiritual self-care and resilience.” ONE DAY Are these two words—one, day— a triangulation, a trajectory, to one point, to some later day, something we imagine, we hope, to be…
“Even as tiny drops fill the water jug, so the patient ones become filled with good, even though virtue may come slowly.” —Buddha, The Dhammapada Life can change in an instant, but change also sneaks in by tiny increments. When life changes suddenly, it has a profound emotional impact. While steady changes can have the…
Christians throughout the world today sense themselves “called out,” complicit in the suffering and violence of the world. We hear the cries, “Why have you forsaken me?” from all walks of people and animals and Earth herself. THIS Good Friday, perhaps like no other, we see and experience face-to-face the world’s collective shadow through the…
Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, is one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar. Maundy comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means “command.” It refers to Jesus’ new commandment given on this day to love one another as he has loved us, not superficially, but selflessly. On Holy Thursday—the day before the crucifixion…