Spirituality

Goldfinches and God Arrive

Steve · June 10, 2018 · 12 Comments

IMG_8991 copy copy — A Lesser Goldfinch, photographed a few years ago in Jerome, Arizona. SJG photo.

“Beauty is the harvest of presence.” David Whyte

I have been up early the last few mornings enjoying the cooler early day before the heat and humidity of St. Louis summer kicks in. You have to grab the cool while you can get it these days.

Bird-watching and listening from my screened porch (where I seem like the one in the cage and the birds are free to fly) are especially fruitful in the morning, for the birds know what I know about the cool of the day. About a week ago I put up a new feeder just outside my backdoor for the American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) that I occasionally see in the neighborhood. I hung it where it can be easily viewed from where I sit to read and pray and write, a place where I wait for God to show up just as I now awaited the arrival of my first visitors. Sure enough, yesterday morning I caught sight of my first pair of goldfinches.

Pondering as Prayer and an Act of Faith

Steve · June 2, 2018 · 4 Comments

Givens - Inspired by Spring — Waiting to Burst Open to the World. Newfields Museum, Indianapolis. SJG photo.

“The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.” – Abraham Maslow

A bright red male cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) just came to rest on a post outside the porch where I sit praying and writing this. It immediately grabs my attention, of course, because of its radiance and beautiful angular lines. I know its trilled, two-part call, for it’s a prayer of its own, a hymn of praise to the new day: cheer-cheer-cheer-purty-purty-purty. (Translation: Yay! It’s a beautiful new day!)

Unknown Blessings

Steve · April 7, 2018 · 10 Comments

St. Francis of Assisi, New Harmony, Indiana. SJG photo.

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.” – Native American Proverb

Earlier today, I drove from my home to St. Gabriel the Archangel (St. Gabe’s) parish in South St. Louis to take part in a Cancer Resource Fair, talking with people about my workshops and retreats and selling my book, Embraced by God: Facing Chemotherapy with Faith. So I got to hang out for a few hours with good people who are fighting (or have already fought) a battle with cancer, as well as caregivers, organizers, family members and others who serve this community.

[Read more…] about Unknown Blessings

A Psalm for a Day of Waiting

Steve · March 31, 2018 · 6 Comments

Today’s the day we wait. Tucked in at the end of Holy Week, after that final meal together, after that scene in the garden, after betrayal and arrest, after trial and denial, after splinters and nails and thorns and death…we wait for something else. It’s the end of a bad week and we “just wanna feel reborn, you know?”* So we wait for the new day, for a chance to begin again.

And that’s what Easter is for. But here’s the important part. It’s not just about tomorrow. If we live for the new hope of Easter one day a year we have missed the point of everything. The hope of Easter is not just about Jesus rising from death, although that is where we begin. We begin outside of Jerusalem, huddled in a small room somewhere, hiding from and for our lives. We begin in absolute darkness, both waiting for the light of day and afraid that when it comes it might leave us exposed.

Within This Holy Quiet

Steve · February 25, 2018 · 10 Comments

leaf — Leaf in the Meramec River. SJG photo.

Sometimes, the quiet we seek is not mere silence. Rather, it is silence enough to hear a whisper, the voice of God calling out to us in the sounds of the earth. For this sunny, warming Sunday morning, I offer a poem about what we can hear if we dare silence ourselves.

Within this holy quiet
I hear your word in the wind
blowing through trees
in the caw caw caw of crows
(always three times, it seems)
in the rat-a-tat-tat of a singular distant woodpecker
in the slap of water against a mid-stream rock
at the bottom of the hill.