Dear friends, On this ordinary day just a few days past the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I write to share a reminder (in words and in the video below) that faith requires an ongoing commitment to this idea of Thanksgiving — to awareness and living with our eyes wide open to our blessings. Above all, to gratitude. We are called to recognize the holy when God puts it right before our eyes. It should be our life’s work to pay …
Category: Blessings
Yesterday, I presented a day-long retreat on the Parable of the Prodigal Son to a group of friends and alumni of the Aquinas Institute of Theology, where I received my training in spiritual direction and now serve as a trustee. I ended the day with this new prayer of blessing, a reminder of the four important life lessons embedded in the parable that lead to a deeper understanding and experience of God’s extravagant love for us — Stop. Turnaround. Be …
Tonight on our drive from St. Louis north to Des Moines, Iowa (en route to visit friends in Minnesota) we listened to Krista Tippett’s “On Being” interview with Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, of Homeboy Industries, who has worked with gang members in some of the toughest neighborhoods in LA for decades. During the interview he said this: “I read once that the Beatitudes’ original language was not ‘blessed are’ or ‘happy are’…but that the most precise translation is ‘You’re in …
May we take our work seriously and ourselves with a grain a salt, with a growing knowledge that we are only instruments waiting to be played, apprentices under the guiding hand of a master craftsman, young players in need of the maestro’s baton, glimmering pieces of shiny glass and refracted light in search of focus and unity, sparkling moments of inspiration awaiting meaning and purpose, self-knowledge that we are moons, not stars capable of our own energy and light. …
May we come to know that we are known by name by the maker of all. May we find that through and with and in him…all things are possible. …
May this time of waiting bring you unexpected gifts, moments of peace and surrender that arise unbeckoned like mist from the saturated earth and envelop your life in a gauze of sacred presence and veiled knowing. …
May we live today knowing this power we hold to make small dents in the armored lives of others, that we possess in our hands and in our words the ability to make change and draw the attention of the world to the source of all light, the one sun who casts shadows too many to count across the surface of our days. …