If you say “Christmas tree” to me or utter the words “Christmas decorations” I immediately become like a 5-year-old and see lights in my mind. I see twinkly, sparkly, dazzling colorful lights all around me. This is one of my most favorite things - the lights at Christmas time. The other night I turned off [...]
THE SEASON of Advent is about something unknown emerging on the horizon, something we have never seen before. The word “advent” comes from the Latin adventus – to come. There is wondrous and expectant feeling about the very word ‘Advent.’ In the northern hemisphere, Advent takes place during the darkest and coldest time of the [...]
Did you ever listen to the announcements at the airport about claiming your baggage? In case you didn’t know it, there is baggage claim etiquette: Make your bags easy to find, so buy a suitcase that is neon green or has purple polka dots. My favorite is the one with bright police-crime-scene tape wrapped around [...]
Rarely do I think about the spiritual journey as something fast. And yet, how often do I hear the phrase “a quickening of Spirit?” Just saying the word quickening, I can sense the energy ramping up inside me. Sometimes this energy feels frenetic, while at other times it feels lighthearted – like the easygoing innocence [...]
Every year ministers, pastors, priests and the like spend time working on a talk for Easter Sunday, which seems like it wouldn’t be a big deal, right? I mean the story is already written, what’s to think about? Well for me, there is plenty to think about. Throughout my life Easter has evolved from the [...]
Far back into the unknowable past, even before the beginning, stretching out into the incomprehensible, unfathomable depths, dark and void of infinite eternity behind and beyond all history, the Christpower was alive. This was the living, pulsing, generating, creating, smoldering, exploding, fusing, multiplying, emerging, heating and cooling power of life itself: Christpower. And it was [...]
“We lost a great soul yesterday.” How often have I heard that? How many times each and every day do you think these words are spoken around the world? As I ponder this question a smile spreads across my face because I imagine the millions who have spoken these words have had the great joy [...]
“To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.” -William Blake Whenever there has been a snowstorm I love to awaken early and sit quietly looking out the window at a world of white that [...]
Act always as if the future of the Universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that whatever you do makes any difference. – Buddha This sums up 2012 beautifully for me. It is the quintessential paradox for my life, an inescapable infinity loop that is always at work as I [...]
Some of my favorite characters from the Christmas story are the wise men. Even though I know the stories aren’t historically true, I love that each character represents a part of me. As I have mentioned in the previous two articles, the narratives we have for the birth of Jesus are found in two of [...]
The other day I was talking with a friend who lives in Germany. It was already nightfall for her and she was sharing with me the beauty of their first snowfall this season. She described the scene outside her window with such clarity, that I couldn't help but close my eyes and imagine it for [...]
Christmas holds a special place in my heart, not because of any religion or theological beliefs, but mostly because it was my dad’s favorite holiday and because it’s a time of year for many family traditions and rituals to be played out. Every year we know the traditional frustration of hanging lights on the house [...]
A little while back, Todd Akin, (R) Congressman from Missouri, stepped in doo-doo in a major way with his comments about rape and pregnancy. And yes, if you know what I am talking about, you know “doo-doo” is likely a much more gentle way of describing things than perhaps other words floating around. Here’s what [...]
About every six weeks I like to stop at a McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin. There I said it, I confess. It’s one of the VERY FEW fast food things I enjoy. I have to take half the English Muffin off, otherwise it’s just too much bread, but in the nutrition scheme of things, it’s [...]
As I sit in the quiet of my morning self-connection practice, I listen inside for the place to enter the flow of silence, the place of mystery. I don’t have to seek, it always finds me, and today it scoops me up leading me to the world outside myself. I hear the rhythm of the [...]
