Whole: day 18

Every breath is a resurrection. Gregory Orr (from “Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved”) I am known by God.   I am being known by God.   I am knowing me with God.   I am knowing God with God. Seeingdarkly and knowingdarkly is not a one way street.  It isContinue reading “Whole: day 18”

whole: day 14

The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise. Jerry Sittser dazzle gradually One of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems begins ‘Tell all the truth butContinue reading “whole: day 14”

whole: day 12

It is the whole of nature, extending from the beginning to the end that constitutes the one image of God Who Is. St Gregory of Nyssa, On the creation of Man The language of God is life itself, and I live with the unquenchable need to take my life in my hands and try toContinue reading “whole: day 12”

whole: day 10

Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes. There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body. All I was doing was being, and the Dancing Energy came by my house. His face looks curiously like the moon, I saw it from the side,Continue reading “whole: day 10”

whole: day 9

IT IS ONLY BY PUTTING IT INTO WORDS THAT I MAKE IT WHOLE. Virginia Woolf If seeingdarkly is my shorthand for ‘for now we shall see through a glass, darkly’, then my shorthand for ‘now I know in part’ (I Corinthians 13.12 KJV) is knowingdarkly. There are so many days when I do not knowContinue reading “whole: day 9”

whole: day 7

There is a crack in everything God has made. Ralph Waldo Emerson  I am moved by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, both for its own sake, and as a profound spiritual metaphor.  Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken teaware, by reassembling the ceramic pieces in such a way that the broken/repaired/remade piece is perceivedContinue reading “whole: day 7”

whole: day 5

Little Kay was quite blue with cold – nearly black, in fact – but he did not notice it, for she [the Snow Queen] had kissed his shivering away, and his heart was nothing but a lump of ice.  He spent his time dragging sharp, flat pieces of ice about, arranging them in all sortsContinue reading “whole: day 5”

whole: day 2

Who speaks the sound of an echo? Who paints the image in a mirror? Where are the spectacles in a dream? Nowhere at all – that’s the nature of mind! Tree-Leaf Woman (8-11thc. Indian female practitioner of Tantric Buddhism) What is it that I think I know of myself?  I may not want to lookContinue reading “whole: day 2”

whole: Sunday 1

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight  I got from looking through a pane of glass  I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough  And held against the world of hoary grass.  (from ‘After Apple-picking’, Robert Frost) For the last few years I have been trying to change the way I think and talkContinue reading “whole: Sunday 1”

a monk in the world of 2021

I am honoured to have written another guest post for the Abbey of the Arts, which was published yesterday: As a contemplative photographer I thought I knew quite a bit about light and brightness, shadow  and darkness.  It appears I was wrong.  During 2020 and 2021 a series of COVID-19 ‘Lockdowns’ have been offering meContinue reading “a monk in the world of 2021”