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Showing posts from 2016

THE PRESENT AND COMING LIGHT

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Dear Friends,         Every once in a while, I get stopped by an image.   Most often, I am reading or looking for something else when such an image seems quite simply to call my name.   It insists I pay attention. It says, “look here,” or “this is important.”   or “I’m what you were looking for.”           At least that’s what the image above said to me--when I saw it.   Yet I didn’t stop.   Because of course I was too busy. It’s December for heaven’s sake.   There are concerts and teas and parties and gifts to be bought and wrapped.   There’s traditional food to be made and cookies.   Don’t forget the cookies.         Yet this particular image was persistent, so as is my habit I simply hit COPY and SAVE and it ended up in my bottomless folder of images that try to speak to me.   The ones I save for someday. And some of them have been there a long time!         But as I read the first Chapter of John she called to me again, and I went to that folder with all those images

Gate to the Path Ahead

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Dear friends,          For more than half of the voting public of these United States, it has been a rough week. My FB page is filled with disbelief, tears, rage, and horror expressed from across the nation— folks who are somewhere between uncomfortable or outright afraid.            I’ve read too much already.   Said too much already about this election.   I went from a sleepless Tuesday, to a tearful Wednesday, to an angry Thursday and a numb Friday.   By Saturday I felt like those drivers who slow down to see the crash…I just couldn’t stop watching, listening.   I woke up for the 5 th night in a row at 2:00 a.m. staring at the ceiling, my mind racing.   And I thought to myself, "think of something beautiful.   Picture something beautiful."            So this is sad, but for the longest time I couldn’t.   I couldn’t pull up an image in my mind of one sunrise or sunset.   I couldn’t find image of (one of all the photo’s I’ve taken) trees, or paths or birds.

LESSONS FROM THE GAME

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        So as I sit down to write, I’m a little bleary eyed from staying up to watch the final two games of the World Series where my long-suffering Cubbies finally brought it home .         But as the photos and comments continue to fill social media, it occurs to me that there are lessons in this historic win for all of us--lessons we may sense but have not put into words.  So I have a quartet of options—you likely could add a few of your own.   ·          The plan was new.   ·          The key players are young.   ·          The leaders prepared. ·          The playing field, hostile. PLAN.   If you were listening, you heard over and over again that Theo Epstein was trying something new.   Building from nothing (indeed 108 years without a championship is pretty much that). He did not look backwards to a glorious past…to old ways, old rules, old outcomes. He was writing a new chapter looking forward and creating a never-seen-before path and future.
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Any religion, philosophy or world-view that does not begin with an understanding of all creation existing in God and God in all creation, is part of the problem. "Let us love one another, for love is from God" Scripture tells us. Let us live so. Peace upon you and your house. thecelticmonk

Learning Atonement Anew...

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                                                                                                                                                                                              AT ONE MENT      Just after breakfast a Mourning Dove perched on my window ledge three stories above her earthly comfort zone.      Upon seeing her there almost instantly ‘atonement’ came to mind. Not the bloody kind theologians and scholars have steadily tried to convince us of over the centuries…      Instead, the at-one-ment of sensing her not afraid of me, now only a foot away with a camera in hand that whirrs and buzzes.   Nor me afraid of her, flapping and fluttering on my ten-inch wide window ledge calling to her children or her mate in the familiar “hoo – hoo - hoo.” Rather, we’re here together face to face without fear.     She and I are one it seems; her purpose and mine the same. Both of us learning to be and to become who God made

REFLECTED BEAUTY

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Chapel at St. John's Abbey Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be sharing some of the poetry I wrote while away this month along with some of the photo's I took.  Hoping you will be blessed by it.    ~  KLW Reflected beauty          Clouds gliding effortlessly across mirrored sky-scrapers.        S herbet, rose and pale lavender skies Long after the sun has set on Siesta Key.        T he silhouette of your beloved on the steamy glass shower door.       Sun-drops on the wind blown ripples of my favorite pond that look like a million points of light.       All of these are reflected beauty.       To which I could add the depth in the eyes of my grand-daughter in which I can see her ancestors three generations past, including me.        Or simply the essence in each and every being…        for isn’t all beauty reflected beauty really? Profound mirroring of the creator in every molecule of creation.        It’s only the terminall

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME

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No matter where I live, I am a Chicagoan. It's sights and sounds (and sound-bytes) are in my head. This week I listened to Chris Fabry Live, a radio call-in program that addressed the topic of Lent: who practiced, who didn't, why some did, why others did not.  Callers lined up with their very nice sounding rationalizations for what they had already decided was true. I find most people who call in to talk shows don't do it to listen or learn, but to share their already made up minds ;-) It was an amusing use of my 'car time'. But it seems that the conversation has stuck with me.  So while putting my k-cup in my coffee machine this morning a metaphor came to mind regarding what I heard and it was simply this: "for the love of the game." For the love of the game, that's why we observe the season of Lent.  It's all about Love... and the game (sorry if it seems irreverent) is our relationship with/to God.  We keep Lent, we observe it, we do it,

LENT and MY 178 FACEBOOK FRIENDS

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     It woke me this morning out of a sound sleep.We've been in the season of Lent for three days and I've still not decided how to observe these 40 days. Yes, I've made myself some promises of rearranging some things in my day to make more sense.  Things I probably have been putting off for too long.  But what might I do... proactively? Over the years I've had my share of "giving up"  chocolate, movies, soda, ice cream [for me a real hardship] facebook, whole day fasts once a week, and for several years fasting all of Holy Week. This last one ruins Easter dinner, because that is no way to come off of a fast. I'm already meditating in the morning before checking email WOW!  I'm already reading the Lenten devotionals from Laurence Freeman and James Martin.  But how to reach out.. how to touch? So this is what really woke me at 3:53 a.m.  I feel led to pray for my "friends" on facebook. It will come as no surprise that its not somet

An Opportunity to Consider Your Life: Past, Present, Future

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        During my middler year in seminary, a classmate invited me to a workshop she'd decided to attend at Loyola University.  It was both a time and financial commitment for an unemployed student...but what I read about it was intriguing enough to go along.  Now, twenty-five years later, I have the opportunity to offer a similar invitation.  I'm going to "At a Journal Workshop"...  do you want to come too?        A couple of questions you might be asking yourself right now.  Do I really need a workshop to teach me how to journal?  I don't even want to journal!  Why would I spend the time?  What is it I can hope to gain?  Is it really worth it?  Is this really something I should consider doing?  These are just a few, you can add your own.        But, my invitation--based on my own experience--is sincere.  Over the past twenty-five years I've gone back to what I learned about my own life at my first workshop, again and again.  I've used Dr.

PROPHETIC

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As I came to the blog this morning, to check the date of an old story from last year I paused, a little amused, that since my post THE SOUND OF SHEER SILENCE in July--I haven't written.  And it occurred to me that that previous title was to be PROPHETIC... as there followed a six month silence.  Many of you already know that just weeks after that post I suffered a three part fracture of my left humerus.  And that there is nothing humorous about it.  Being left-handed only doubly disabled me. Until quite recently, I dare not even use a key board because as the song goes... "the wrist bones connected to the arm bone... the arm bones connected to the..."  You get the point.  The repetitive movement of key strokes caused intense shoulder pain. And so there has indeed been in many ways in my life, the sound of sheer silence.  My learnings, which still continue are many, varied and deep.  I quickly realized that I could not live my 110 percent life with only 40 percent