A Companion That Walks Beside Us …

Empathy is connection … Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance. … … Empathy is a strange and powerful thing. There is no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting and communicating…

No One Ever Told Me That Grief Felt So Like Fear …

Grieving is a journey that teaches us how to love in a new way now that our loved one is no longer with us. Consciously remembering those who have died is the key that opens the hearts, that allows us to love them in new ways.— Tom Attig from The Heart of Grief   Heavy…

Blessing for Paris …

May you be blessed in the holy names of those Who, without you knowing it, Help to carry and lighten your pain. May memory bless and protect you With the hard-earned light of past travail; To remind you that you have survived before And though the darkness now is deep, You will soon see approaching…

Patient Trust (Prayers For The Unemployed And Those In Transition) …

Don’t you see how everything that happens is again and again a beginning, and couldn’t it be His beginning, since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful? ... these very days of your transition are perhaps the time when everything in you is working at Him, as you once worked at Him in your childhood,…

The Winters Will Drive You Crazy Until You Learn To Get Out Into Them …

But for me, winter has an even greater gift to give. It comes when the sky is clear, the sun is brilliant, the trees are bare, and first snow is yet to come. It is the gift of utter clarity. In winter, one can walk into woods that had been opaque with summer growth only…

Advent Meditation: Widening Our Circle Of Compassion …

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts. — Pema Chodron from When Things Fall Apart Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This…

Desert Day 46: Tearing Of The Temple Veil (Good Friday Meditation) …

There are so many haunting lines in the passion narratives. Who of us, for instance, is not stirred in the soul when the passion story is read in church and we come to the part where Jesus takes his last breath and there is that minute of silence, where we all drop to our knees?…

Desert Day 42: Children Of God …

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." — Matthew 19:14 Vulnerability Vulnerability is something we instinctively reject because we are taught from kindergarten on that we must protect ourselves, control our behavior and our lives. But in becoming…

Desert Day 02: Blessing The Desert . ..

Hope begins in the dark: the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work. You don’t give up. — Anne Lamott from Bird by Bird Blessing the Desert Ask me what this blessing sounds like and I will…