journal and reflections

The universe is a single reality—one long sweeping spectacular process of interconnected events. The universe is not a place where evolution happens; it is evolution happening. It is not a stage on which dramas unfold; it is the unfolding drama itself. . . . This...

Christianity is all about being who you are. That’s what Jesus was trying to tell us: Orient your whole being to the sacred, he insisted. Not because I’m telling you to, not because it’s what Scripture demands; do it because it’s who you are. It’s who God created...

We all desire to make effective change in our communities and political systems. We do good better when our active lives are rooted in contemplative spirituality. Contemplative prayer dismantles our illusions of difference, prejudice, pride, and fear and allows for...

I met a man once who’d had a near-death experience, he almost drowned. He was very happy going down the tunnel of light into the great embrace of love that he perceived to be drawing him. Presumably he was thrashing around in the water physically trying to survive,...

For the command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote from you. It is not up in the sky that you should say, "Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it that we may carry it out?" Nor is it across the sea that you should say,...

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place … The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as...

One morning the mystic, monk and poet Thomas Merton realised, to his surprise, that contemplation is not about the acquisition of a consciousness emptied of everything except thoughts of God. It is the opposite - not movement towards a distant God but a sinking...

Fascinated by the fact That the flame of a burning candle Casts no shadow, I begin to wonder If we, too, are meant To be living flames. If so, then how do we Rid ourselves of our shadow selves? Watching the candle longer I see that the wax sides Must be burned away...

It is perhaps the most breathtaking and recognized line in the Book of Revelation; “Behold, I make all things new.”  It’s easy to see this scripture verse coming to life all around us these days.  The forsythia branches are bursting with flowers, Hosta’s are rising...

The old news about Easter is that it is about resurrection. The new news may be that it is not so much about the resurrection of Jesus as it is about our own. Unfortunately, we so often miss it. Jesus, you see, is already gone from one tomb. The only question now...