Note the difference between the way most people normally discern and this radical way that Ignatius is proposing. Most lead with the wrong foot: they allow the tools of the false spirit to drive the bus: fear and anxiety…ambition…pride…jealousy…But for now I allow my great desires to drive the bus. I imagine the greatest potentialities … Continue reading
Beholding prayer…takes prayer out of the small pockets of conscious mental dialogue and makes it a life lived out fully in the Trinity. Strahan Coleman, Beholding Conscious mental dialogue. That’s it in a nutshell. And I am in awe at the brilliance of its simplicity. Three words nail me, illuminating how I default to measuring my … Continue reading
Soul dislocated. That is what it has been. Soul dislocated from body, no place to stand, to be. And so it has fluttered, endlessly. Like butterfly, alighting only briefly before airborne again. Ever pragmatic, I bought chairs. Several. I bought chairs because perhaps to alight somewhere physically would mean also soul alighting. And, four months … Continue reading
Spaciousness. Every year, I play that game charismatics play. You know the one. Where you choose a word for the year as if somehow you think it’s going to characterise the months ahead. Or act as a reminder for you of the person you want to be. Kind of like new year’s resolutions for the … Continue reading
Dislocated, soul from body. It’s what I said this week. My soul has become dislocated from my body. It has no place to stand, to be. And so it flutters, endlessly. Like butterfly, alighting only briefly before airborne again. My soul has become dislocated from my body. For my body moved. Only twenty miles or … Continue reading
Light sparkled as we drove. Filtered through the trees, shafts of golden green. Air seemed almost misty in the paleness of the September early-evening glow. And, light falling on grassy field by my side, heart clenched. With joy, with pain. Joy because beauty. Joy because this, the Haunting.* Enchanting by One who calls from beyond … Continue reading
I started 2022 chasing joy. Now, eight months later, I’ve got to thinking about it again. I’ve become inured to the daily reminder to count my joys, app dinging its encouragement each night at 9. And, mostly, I ignore it. Because joy takes too much work. Joy, if I’m honest, takes too much work. It’s … Continue reading
…humbly ask one wise person one question: ‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’ Tod Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience I’ve been working on a particularly fun project this summer. I’ve been meeting spiritual directors with a view to recommending some to students. I begin by asking them about who they are and how they understand … Continue reading
You are calling me deeper into prayer. But I don’t know what you mean. What I thought you meant lies dashed on rocks, guts spilled out of it. And I can talk about intention and attention: the practices by which we attend to you repeatedly, in order that our lives might intend you. I can … Continue reading
Like Martha, we may prefer to work rather than feel. Bonnie Gray, Whispers of Rest Her words skewer me. Last of the pins by which butterfly wings laid out for display. Emotion has been offline, feeling its pain a risk I dare not take. First of pins came in January: priest’s suggestion that John’s dark … Continue reading
The Art of Steering 