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. […]
Now/ the Present
Those Empty Adirondack Chairs
You’ve seen them, no doubt. Down by a little pond in the front yard sit two Adirondack chairs, side by side. The perfect place for two people to relax, look out over the water, maybe notice a frog on the bank and a sparrow in the tree overhead. The settings for these two chairs are […]
Alone With My Thoughts? Just Shock Me.
All mankind’s troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly in a room. -Blaise Pascal When I leave on vacation later in August, I am leaving my smart phone at home. There should probably be some version of methadone for those who stop doodling with their phones […]
Narrow Your Options
Creativity is kin to spirituality. As a writer and a pastor, I am always intrigued by how the creative process—for any artist—tracks so closely the movement of the Spirit. The key to creativity, I find, also fits the lock and opens the door of the soul. And that key is: limits. Everything about our world […]
U.S. Marines are Meditating? That’s Right.
How strange is it that the U.S. military is spending millions to teach Marines how to meditate? Still within churches and religious institutions we find enormous reluctance or suspicion around meditation. It’s an “Eastern” thing. To many American Christians, the notion of sitting there and “doing nothing” seems almost dissolute (even though Jesus praised […]
“I Expect Him Today”
Advent pulls in two directions. It recalls a “first coming” but only to awaken our senses so that we will not miss the “second coming.” I don’t go in much for the Second Coming. That’s almost completely because as a child I was taught to look for the Second Coming in literal form. Christ would […]
Waiting for the Bus
I am sitting at a bus stop in Hellertown, Pennsylvania. I am not the one hoping to board a bus, it is my son-in-law, Andy. Andy and Maggy have come out to our home in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Today, though, it is time to head back to New York. Maggy is staying the day since […]
Helen Keller and F-a-l-l
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 […]