by David Anderson
After a run of hot days and nights, a cool spell descended. It was early morning, an almost chilly breeze in the air, and Pam and I decided to sit for meditation out on the deck. After the morning reading, we sat in silence—or so we thought. The surrounding trees seemed to teem with birds, […]
by David Anderson 12 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Daily Practice, Grace, Listening, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Reality--trusting it
Did you open the fridge this morning? She asks.No, I reply.Well, then it was sort of open all night.What!I put that pan of peaches on the bottom shelf, she says, because they’re about to go bad—and…But you can see [Here I demonstrate] the door doesn’t close.Yes, but [Here she elbows me out of the way] […]
by David Anderson 15 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Breathing, Choice, Daily Practice, Happiness, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation
I remember the day Pam got off the train, from her increasingly miserable daily commute into New York City, and said, “I am done with this.” We had two little girls and I wasn’t earning much in my first job out of seminary. She made more than I did. How were we going to survive? […]
by David Anderson 15 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Change, Choice, Discernment, Grace, Happiness, Letting Go, Reality--trusting it, Surrender
Our grandchildren, ages eight and four, are with us for a week. All day every day. By about day four an adult reaches a saturation point and becomes, in some sense, a child too. After days and nights participating in play, story, physical and imaginative games, make-believe, general silliness, and the deep need for security […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Awe, Change, Faith/Trust, Family, Grace, Happiness, Healing, Love, Now/ the Present, Reality--trusting it, Surrender, Transformation
We tend to approach whatever’s wrong in our lives with a discrete “fix,” even though what’s mostly called for is something wholistic, systemic. I was reminded of that mistaken tendency when I read an article by the Surgeon General, who has made loneliness a major focus of his work. Loneliness, I thought? With all the […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Community, Healing, Uncategorized
Vincent Donovan, a missionary in Africa, wrote of working with the Masai many years ago. He said the people were all sitting very respectfully listening to him as the priest, and he was teaching them about the Seven Sacraments of the Church. He described a sacrament as a physical encounter or event in which you […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Discernment, Mystery, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing
A few days ago I walked to the rim of the Grand Canyon and looked over the edge. I felt a twinge in my stomach and my mouth dropped slightly open. My first visit—I don’t know what I was expecting. I had seen countless pictures, but of course no flat image, measured in inches, could […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Grace, Nature/Creation, Seeing, Surrender, Transformation
The headlines these days are splashed with scary stories of AI and the end of reality. Soon, the experts warn, no one will be able to tell what images or videos are real and what is generated by an all-knowing machine. The AI threat is merely the latest, most intense form of unreality to wash […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Daily Practice, Happiness, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Reality--trusting it