Month: September 2016

The Willing Wall

  “The Willing Wall” at Saint John’s Cathedral We had so much fun at our Pledge Campaign kickoff! We wrote That was quite a party we had together to celebrate our life as a parish church!  We gathered in our sanctuary, draped as it was with banners of colorful, flowing...

keening

My spiritual director, one of the three crones I mentioned earlier in a recent blog, told me about keening. I have never heard of this ancient Christian, Celtic practice.  She  explained that in the ancient Christian Celtic monasteries, some would have a room set aside for keening.  Women would go...

stepping around small legs

One day, one of the mahout and I went on a longer-than-usual hike together, which completely exhausted the smallest elephant in our camp who had to take six steps for every massive stride her mother and her mother’s friend took. She plopped down in a clearing and slept, while the...

gentle

  It always seems funny to me that the Bible translators translate “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” when in fact the best translation is “Blessed are the gentle.” What so stunned me when living with my elephant was how big and strong and yet how...

chords

“the search for meaning is really the search for the lost chord. When the lost chord is discovered by humankind, the discord in the world will be healed and the symphony of the universe will come into complete harmony with itself.” ― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic...

a nose knows

The elephant I lived with for a few weeks in the mountains of Thailand while on sabbatical liked to look at me.  The other mahout made fun of me and called me a Thai name which meant something like “gazer” though I have a sneaking suspicion that it was a...

a blessing

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses. May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon. May you respond to the call of your gift and find...

night watch

There have been emails recently from the 800 people who sign up for receipt this blog or those who read it occasionally and on Facebook or on the syndicated version of The Daily Sip on Episcopal Cafe.Com each Sunday in “The Magazine.” They have been asking about Christian Practice.  They...

lament

There are times in our lives when things seem very much to have fallen apart. A betrayal, a broken marriage, the death of someone we love, a dissolution of an old but dead friendship, a financial crisis, a diagnosis, a lost job.  The list goes on and on when it...

desktops

Have you ever engaged in a great, huge project on your dining room table, or your office desk, or the kitchen counter and found that you have left a bit of a mess behind?  Have you found your desk full of piles, somewhat ordered perhaps and yet quite full of...