by David Anderson
Question One: What more did I think I wanted? We don’t think of Ash Wednesday as a time to reflect on happiness. Isn’t it about sackcloth and guilt? But Ash Wednesday is set apart simply as a day to ponder this one fact: We came from dust, and we return to dust. When we accept […]
by David Anderson 16 Comments Filed Under: Blessing, Daily Practice, Faith/Trust, Gratitude, Happiness, Lent, Letting Go, Love, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Reality--trusting it, Repentance, Surrender
In the first blush of the season of Epiphany, I think I had one today. I was talking to a friend on the phone last week. He said, I’m not really enjoying work. My commute to D.C is a bear. My work life is winding down toward retirement. But what am I good at these […]
by David Anderson 18 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Gratitude, Happiness, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing
Today—February 2nd—is a big turning point. It’s a great cross-quarter day, midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. In ancient, agricultural societies it was regarded as the beginning of spring—the time for first turning the soil in preparation for March planting. There were prayers and rituals centered on the fertility of the […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, LIght, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing, Waiting
We expect monks and mystics to tell us how important silence is. Gordon Hempton is neither of those. He is an acoustic ecologist, someone who studies the sound of the natural world and seeks to preserve it. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence, Hempton says there are less than a dozen places left […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, creation, Daily Practice, Listening, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Silence, Uncategorized
If you want to know what beauty is and how it is created in this life, build a simple stone wall. When I decided to build two low stone walls on either side of the driveway into our home in Pennsylvania, I went in search of stone. I wished for a truck that would drop […]
by David Anderson 13 Comments Filed Under: creativity, Nature/Creation, Patience, work
One of the gifts of vacation is to change up one’s prayer ritual. Normally, Pam and I sit for prayer in a corner of our bedroom. There are two chairs, a small table for an oil lamp, a few sacred books, and a timer that sounds a Tibetan prayer bell when our orison is over. […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, creation, Daily Practice, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation
Where I live, the trees are in beautiful death swoons, immolating in falling flames of red and gold, orange and brown. Last week, after I finished my morning run I walked the rest of the way home. A few feet from the front door I noticed—the glory all around me! How had I run through […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Daily Practice, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing
I love to run in new places. At home I run the same loop—it takes me down to Long Island Sound and it’s beautiful, but I know it so well that I can almost run it blind. This morning I am running in Knoxville, Tennessee, where my father lives. I am a little stiff. My […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Gratitude, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing