The following is written by a perpetually novice wisdom seeker with early onset overly active mind syndrome, ever and always a student with several wonderful teachers and countless others. The importance of community seems to be especially relevant today. How is it defined and what has it meant, means and will it mean in our…
“What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself. Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to. That was many years ago. Since then I have gone out from my confinements, though with difficulty. I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart. I cast them out, I put them…
Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.…
Acknowledging that most if not all of us have experiences of deeply entrenched racism in our personal lives, in our family story, is a first, fierce step toward spiritually, practically and creatively practicing nonviolence. In attempting to embody nonviolence in her own life, Minnijean Brown-Tricky began by tracing her personal narrative of nonviolence and “the…
Picture this: Last winter, my husband and I spent days decorating our house to look like a grand ballroom in the heart of New Orleans. We cooked a four-course dinner, complete with jambalaya, shrimp with remoulade sauce and beignets. We got in Mardi Gras costumes and donned our masks and beads. And then our eight…
Three years ago, Sister Helen Prejean, a tireless advocate for abolishing the death penalty, came to speak at Coe College and stayed with us at Prairiewoods. It was an honor to both meet and spend time with Sister Helen, whom I have admired for years. Today, following the execution of Daniel Lee by the federal…
Many Iowans relish and quote the lines, “Is this heaven?” “No, it’s Iowa!” from the iconic movie Field of Dreams. The film is a baseball lover’s paradise in which an Iowa farmer hears a voice that inspires him to plow under his corn crop and build a baseball field. Who would do that? Despite the economic…
We long for a peaceful and just world. Shortly after the catastrophic event of 9/11, a beautiful poem of Judyth Hill’s circulated. All were invited to “Wage peace with your breath / breathe in fireman and rubble / breathe out whole buildings / and flocks of redwing black birds …” Challenging the violence then, Hill’s…
Last week on our PanDeepening blog, I talked about the Kindness Rocks project that is filling our world with color and kindness. You’ve likely seen cute rocks that people are painting and leaving in the community for strangers to find as an act of generosity and kindness. Now I’d like to invite you to paint…
Music brings resilience and strength. A story, an invocation or a verse shared in song travels beyond reaches of rational thought to make its home in the soul’s memory. In his 1964 book Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King Jr. said that song was the soul of the Civil Rights Movement. Hope and determination…