Our sacred meeting place and essential purpose (29.10.24) Where do we go to find God? The bush? The chapel? The wilderness? An extended fast or pilgrimage? No doubt God will find you in any or all of these places if you engage them with a seeking heart and a soft openness. However, it seems to […]
Event: Contemplative Conversations Dreaming the Gospels a six-week online series (22.03.24) “ … we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?” (John 12: 20-23) The gospels are the dreaming stories of the Christian faith. Christian faith. At their centre, the mysticalGod-Human, Jesus, strides across many situations of human suffering, conflict and need. His life
Contemplative conversations – Dreaming the Gospels Read More »
The Sanity of Love (03.10.24) My recent experience of being on retreat allowed me to take a step back from my entanglements and to review my approach to life as it is, rather than as I would like to manipulate it to be. When I don’t live up to my own mental ideas of who
The grace of re-formation (28.08.24) Recently I was praying with a text from the Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah 18:1-11. In short, the prophet has an instinct to go down to the house of the local potter and to watch him at work. He notices that sometimes the potter will be making a certain vessel and
Celebrating our limitations (08.08.24) “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places” (Psalm 16:5) Guess what? We can’t achieve anything that we want to, because: our time, energy, skills, capacity, situations, and resources are limited. And so, we have to make choices in this life as to what we will attempt and pursue
Naming the pain, paying attention to the blessing (25.06.24) In my practice of spiritual direction, I recognise two primary areas of facilitation. The first is to create a space that allows people to articulate the reality of their lived experience of suffering, loss, disappointment, betrayal, anxiety, and fear. No attempt is made to ‘cheer people
“That’s not fair!” (Matthew 20:13-16) (30.05.24) The story goes that a vineyard owner hired different groups of workers at different times of day (9am, noon, 3pm, and 5pm) to work in his plot. He promised those hired first the usual amount for a day’s wage. At the end of the day (presumably around 6 –
The swift upward glance of the soul (30.04.24) God is near, heaven is a breath away, or perhaps even closer than that: Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries. ― Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) Karl
Heaven is like homemade bread (25.03.24) Jesus told some terrific one-line parables to communicate essential ideas. Check this out: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until it was leavened”. One line with a lot going on. Some observations: Jesus chooses the figure
Event: Contemplative Conversations Psalm 23: a six-week online series (22.03.24) ”He leads me beside still waters.” Psalm 23 tells us that we are not alone in the universe. Its imagery and poetry speak to us of a great companion in life, whose presence and faithfulness heal, restore, guide, comfort, protect, and awaken us to the
Contemplative conversations Read More »
