#adventapertures2025: day 18

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who knew a thing about maps, by which life moves somewhere or other used to tell this story from the war, through which history moves somewhere or other. ‘The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Alps sent out a reconnaissance unit into the icy wastes. At once it began toContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 18”

#adventapertures2025: day 3

To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim. Mark Nepo from Christine Valters Paintner, The Love Of Thousands, (65) Why begin a journey, especially when one has no idea of whereContinue reading “#adventapertures2025: day 3”

day 23: for gratitude

If you find yourself half nakedand barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,again, the earth’s great, sonorous moan that saysyou are the air of the now and gone, that saysall you love will turn to dust,and will meet you there, do notraise your fist. Do not raiseyour small voice against it. And do nottake cover. Instead,Continue reading “day 23: for gratitude”

watchnight 2020

The water is one thing, and one thing for miles. The water is one thing, making this bridge Built over the water another. Walk it Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone Rising just to find a way toward rest again. We work, start on one side of the day Like aContinue reading “watchnight 2020”

day 9

What I fear and desire most in this world is passion. I fear it because it promises to be spontaneous, out of my control, unnamed, beyond my reasonable self. I desire it because passion has color, like the landscape before me. It is not pale. It is not neutral. It reveals the backside of theContinue reading “day 9”

day 6

I could not predict the fullnessof the day. How it was enoughto stand alone without helpin the green yard at dawn. How two geese would spin outof the ochre sun opening my spine,curling my head up to the skyin an arc I took for granted. And the lilac bush by the redbrick wall flooding theContinue reading “day 6”

psalms for passiontide: Easter Sunday Psalm 66.5

Whether it be in revisiting the victory song that is Psalm 118, or hearing the legends of exile recapped in Psalm 105 or 66, all of the Psalms the Lectionary nominates for Easter Day invite us to: Come and see what God has done (Psalm 66.5 NRSV) These psalmists also agree that all God’s deedsContinue reading “psalms for passiontide: Easter Sunday Psalm 66.5”

be the epiphany

A miraculous event unfolds when we throw the lead of our personal story into the transformative flames of creativity. Our hardship is transmuted into something golden. With that gold we heal ourselves and redeem the world. As with any spiritual practice, this creative alchemy requires a leap of faith. When we show up to makeContinue reading “be the epiphany”

advent apertures 2019: day 23

Light and darkness, night and day. We marvel at the mystery of the stars. Moon and sky, sand and sea. We marvel at the mystery of the sun. Twilight, high noon, dusk and dawn. Though we are mortal, we are Creation’s crown. Flesh and bone, steel and stone. We dwell in fragile, temporary shelters. GrantContinue reading “advent apertures 2019: day 23”

advent apertures 2019: day 20

A moment when sound and vision were inverted themselves, torn inside out and filled my attention to capacity.  A moment when everything else dropped away and the experience of seeing, of sensing, became so overwhelming, so all encompassing, that the very idea of interpretation did not, could not, exist. Uta Barth   Sister Maggie RossContinue reading “advent apertures 2019: day 20”