My definition of a saint, a spiritual giant, is someone who makes other people holy, just by their presence. Someone who engenders peace in other people’s hearts, who calls forth beauty and goodness and faithfulness in other people’s lives. Nurturing your own holiness, your own peace, calling forth your own beauty and goodness and faithfulness […]
Surrender
“Succession”: The Incredibly Shrinking Children
Everyone loves a deeply flawed hero or heroine. Hamlet, King David, Emma, Gatsby, Scarlett O’Hara. Despite their dark sides, we are attracted to these people because there is something good and beautiful in each of them. The tragedy is always that their goodness just isn’t strong enough to prevail. The popular TV series “Succession” appears […]
The Agony That Sparks Ecstasy
in every breathif you’re the centerof your own desiresyou’ll lose the graceof your beloved but if in every breathyou blow awayyour self claimthe ecstasy of lovewill soon arrive in every breathif you’re the centerof your own thoughtsthe sadness of autumnwill fall on you but if in every breathyou strip nakedjust like a winterthe joy of […]
Labyrinth Lessons
No, no—that’s not how you do it. That’s what I was thinking as the group began to walk the labyrinth. They were here for one of the retreats that Pam and I host here at Copper House. The leader asked if the small group of six could use the labyrinth for one of their sessions, […]
The Power To Fall
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? […]
The Return of Innocence: A Week With Two Children
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 […]
When Home Isn’t Where You Left It
I think of South Dakota, the place I left on my way to college, as Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone: “The little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve.” But, as I found on my visit last week, time has not unremembered my old home. It’s both the same as ever, and yet dramatically […]
Struck By Awe
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 […]