I am practicing nature photography as a prayerful experience and I’ve learned so much from two wonderful books by Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred and Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice. Both books are excellent. I’m also deepening my contemplative photography practice…
What is hope? We often think of hope (or the lack thereof) as a feeling we experience as we move toward a desired outcome. Valentin Tomberg, a French mystic, scholar and hermeticist, asserts that hope is not nearly that limited. In his view, it is more like “a light-force which radiates objectively and which directs…
The content of today’s blog comes from Bob Engler and Carol Nilles, great friends of Prairiewoods. They are using this Gratefulness.org video, A Grateful Day with Brother David Steindl-Rast, for daily prayer. Its opening question, “Do you think this is just another day in your life?” invites us to be mindful of all of the…
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. —John 14:18 There is a wonderfully songful prayer chant inspired by the scripture passage from John 14:18 called “I Will Not Leave You Comfortless” by Jan Phillips from her album All the Way to Heaven. This song is such a comfort and can be…
The following is a dipping of the toe by a perpetually novice wisdom seeker with early onset overly active mind syndrome who has several wonderful teachers and countless others. I have been thinking a lot about the term self-isolation recently. The question I ponder is why, when combined, these two terms (i.e., self and isolation)…
Ahhhh! Breath-taking! Breath-giving! “We breathe in. We breathe out. We breathe in. We breathe out.” We’re meditating with this image today, a bit of visio divina, with a touch of soulful jazz. What do we see? What is the image revealing? What is emerging in the interpretive space between us and the observable “other?” What…
Hello, dear Prairiewoods family! The other morning, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a monarch butterfly caught in a spider web in the corner of my window. I was both excited to see the monarch and sad that it had been caught in the spider’s web. I wasn’t upset with the spider; I…
“Conversation is perhaps our greatest hope not only for healing the rifts in human understanding but also for restoring and reinspiring our relationship with the natural world, which is our first and most profound home. Care of the world is always essential, and care arises from conversation.” —Thomas Dean, Introduction, Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of…
A few years ago, I saw a woman standing on the side of the road, asking those who passed by in a little Prius or a huge Durango for some spare change and a little compassion. I took a break and sat down with her, this kind, well-worn woman named Dawn. I learned that Dawn…
“Love and say it with your life.” —Augustine of Hippo A recent Saturday afternoon found me driving along gravel roads in rural Benton County, hungry for sites other than the four walls I’ve been staring at for weeks during this spring of self-isolation. I was listening to a podcast called Snap Judgement, and an episode…