Walking through the streets of Seattle's New Rainier Vista neighborhood can seem somewhat like a maze. If you don't keep your bearings on Mt. Rainier (easy to lose for non-natives on a cloudy day), you can effortlessly get turned about. As we walked along the sidewalks of this redevelopment, the children picked up garbage; it seemed the only familiar act in which to respond to the ever-present litter lined up along some of these unfamiliar lanes.
Read MoreToday's prayer walk was under cloudless skies, which is a rarity for Seattle in February. And instead of 10 prayerful feet, it was simply my own and Anna's. Funny thing how as soon as you draw your line in the sand around an intention, circumstances immediately set themselves up against it. I've learned to identify this as the Pilgrim's Path, others may call it Murphy's Law; be it as it may, the boys were unable to get in on the practice today. Whatever laws were against our family participating today in our Lenten commitment, Anna had clarity of purpose and firmly directed our route. These pictures represent the prayers for our community, on Anna's Spirit-led route.
Read MoreThe last couple weeks leading up to Lent, my children were bemoaning the Lenten possibility of eating only rice and beans for dinner (as we did last year). While I am really glad we did that practice last year, it didn't seem to fit where we all are this year. Giving up coffee, chocolate or wine are never very realistic options for me for obvious reasons, but on the whole, I'm just not inclined towards the "lack" this year. We all seem to be needing something more....
Read MoreThere are some souls you come across in your life whose imprint they make on your own is more than the hands you hold every day. Richard Twiss (Taoyate Obnajin: He Stands With His People) was such a soul. And today, as the world cries, dances and drums their response to his death, I am humbled and challenged by the deep and lasting impression Richard made on my life.
Read MoreTread in solitude your pathway, Quiet heart and undismayed. You will know things strange, mysterious, Which to you no voice has said.
Read MoreThis has been a day to gather around the hearth-places to find warmth and inspiration. For centuries the hearth was considered an integral part of a home, often its central or most important feature. These brick lined structures were a place of survival from where nourishment and story came; food would be served from this seat of heat with a healthy side of laughter and conversation. This was the gathering place. This is where socks and tears were dried. This was the place that centered and from which one left to go out into the world.
Read MoreOrdinary Time is a God-season, just as much as the holy days of Christmas and Easter are. Look to the signs that are all around you. They won't be covered in Christmas lights or available for purchase from the store. Look to your immediate places, your normal pathways; the plants, people and publications that surround your life could be whispering their own important inspirations for how to find meaning and truth as time passes through the year.
Read MoreOnce our shadows begin to lengthen towards the north and the sun just doesn't quite crest the southern hill behind our home, these lusty heads of summer begin to transform to a smorgasbord of seed. They become somewhat bedraggled looking and I have had more than one visitor ask when I will cut them down to "clean up my garden for the Autumn." Their lost lustre (petal-less, drooping and dismal) is but a facade for this is the season of their true crowning glory; this is when they give!
Read MoreThis Celtic circling prayer, or Caim, is written in beeswax on a wall at Seattle University's chapel. This is a powerful prayer to beseech protection and watching over one's life.
Read MoreMichaelmas is a relatively new seasonal celebration for my family. While I've always grown up with an attunement to the season's shifts from Summer's boisterous bounty to Autumn's slow and silent movement towards interior living, this special feast day and its long-time celebrations were not known to me. However, its themes of harvest and community, threat and injustice and, ultimately, a light that vanquishes all are ones with which I deeply resonate.
Read MoreWhat is warring about you in your life today? Is there something that threatens and seeks to destroy? Our call is to come to that place and redeem it, restore it, reclaim it. Believe in the beauty that is inherent in all of creation and begin to witness the transformation. It will be better than any firework show you've ever seen!
Read MoreThe challenge and bitter truth of coming home from a pilgrimage is that we soon learn that what is a pearl to us is mere pennies to others. How can we even begin to describe the depths to which our soul has traveled? Ultimately, it is our changed life that must tell the story of our journey; no picture slide show or souvenir will scratch the surface of the truth found at the sacred center.
Read MoreI love lavender. There is really no other way of expressing it: I. Love. Lavender. Its fragrant heads have waved in the landscapes of my life since I was a child and for as long as I remember we have cooked, crafted and even healed with it.
Read MoreThe traveler has important tasks upon arriving to their final destination. Because the entire journey has been intentionally marked and prayerfully pondered, so must the arrival. This is the time to surround yourself with prayers, poems and hymns that anchor your place and provide the touchstone for this final experience.
Read MoreThat ultimate sense of wonder within the experience is what drives so many people to engage in [these] rigorous trials. Father Stephen Canny, an Irish priest who leads a parish in Santa Rosa, California, believes strongly in the effectiveness of pilgrimage. He has climbed Croagh Patrick, a popular pilgrimage site and storied mountain in Ireland, three times himself and has seen it work wonders on the devoted. "You are more alive after you have overcome something difficult," he says. "You're changed by the mountain and the fact that you have confirmed your faith. It's a remarkably effective way to answer the question, What is my purpose?"
Read MoreI need to tell my truth, my story, for another reason. Many of you today are journeying through the wilderness and traveling without the knowledge of company or solidarity. That kind of isolation can eclipse all hopes in ever leaving the labyrinth. Those of us who have gone before you would be false if we withheld the shadowy parts of our own lives. We have the power to provide community and comprehension for others when we share authentically about our own story.
Read MoreI'm strongly compelled to interrupt my normal posting schedule to share with you a new magazine that crossed my mother's counter top to mine over the weekend. Taproot is a dedicated printscape of stories; stories deeply rooted in the earth that tell of knowing our earthen HOME. These tales talk about urban chickens and soil under the finger nails, touching your food and children in gardens. It is also ad-free and the kind of collection that calls you to make a pot of coffee or tea, and cuddle up for a read. Please visit their site by clicking on their photo and consider subscribing to this beautiful new venture.
Read MoreAs we journey through life, we each come to, and through, seasons of great challenge and often despair. From the time we are children, we face the fears of monsters-real and imaginary-and the dark. We come up against the things that cause us to cringe and curl away from our castles in the air. And we are reminded that in many ways, we are very much like Max, the cajoling, contrary little boy in Maurice Sendak's story Where the Wild Things Are.
Read MoreThe work of bringing down heaven to earth is no easy task. And it always takes time...and a lot of it. This is the epic work of pilgrimages and journeys, deserts and dreams. There is always such fanfare and exhilaration when one picks up the walking stick and marks, and crosses into, the beginning of the journey. The vision of the destination is so clear, so lucid--it seems you could just reach across a short breadth of time and realize every desired detail. But soon you find your arm is tired from being extended for so long...for so very long.
Read MoreAs soon as you mark your journey as a pilgrimage, you are drawing a line in the sand transforming how you move through the world-how you see, hear and taste the world around you. And inevitably, because of this manner of intention-and because the Powers that Be know what you've done (that whole line in the sand act)-there will be things that go wrong...terribly wrong. That is simply the nature of the Pilgrim's Path; no longer can you just simply curse at an inconvenience or change in plans. There is Some One speaking to you now through the chaos. There is a Force that will derail all your best laid undertakings and ideals for this journey just so you will see things anew, afresh; just so you will see the Holy, the Mystery that is present.
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