Blog
Reflection:
I need to preface this blog post with the fact I am not an alumnus of Wisdom Tree Collective’s Spiritual Direction program, nor am I an employee. Recently I attended the WTC alumni retreat at The Monastery of Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Indiana. My wife, Katie Rea, is both a gr...
I can clearly remember my father sitting down with me when I was only a very young child and sharing with me the story of the Chicago woman, Mrs. O’Leary and her cow.
As the story goes, Mrs. O’Leary was milking her cow when the cow knocked over a kerosene lamp that set her barn blazing and in just ...
Holy Saturday was late this year. It came on a random Wednesday in August. And like the first Holy Saturday, it occurred outside any organized church. But like the first Holy Saturday, thirty of us sat anxiously between death, life or new life in the oncology infusion waiting room a...
Mercy endures forever ~ that which you lost is, and will continue to be, found!Â
I am coming to appreciate Jesus’ use of parables ever more fully these days. The words offered are a pricking of both my mind and heart - an invitation to observe, to wonder, to open up and discover the Reality of Lov...
The Long Work of Becoming
I thought I was beyond being curled up in a fetal position. I thought I had worked past panic attacks and cortisol rushing through my bloodstream in waves that could take down a building. Yet there I was, 47 years old on the floor, struggling to breathe, reliving trauma, a...
My grandmother startled us with her shouting.
“This is my stop! I want to get off. This is it!”
My mom and I looked at her, confused. At the time, I didn’t understand Alzheimer’s or dementia. My mom had learned to ask grounding questions which helped us understand.
Gram, as I called her, stood in...
Reflection
Luke 10:41-42
The Lord Jesus replied,
"Martha, Martha, you have troubles in your mind about many things.
But only one thing is really important. That is what Mary has chosen to do. Nobody will take it away from her."
One Sunday recently I was trying really hard to be productive. There we...
Reflection
I love to garden. When I put my hands in the soil, it’s a spiritual practice. For me, Mother Earth is more than a metaphor. Earth nurtures each seed that is sown and feeds them from her dark, peat-laced womb. Wendell Berry connects the soul of soil in his deeply spiritual poem about plan...
Reflection
Maya Angelou’s unflinching poem “Our Grandmothers” includes the line, “I go forth along, and stand as ten thousand.” Those words capture how I understand companionship these days. Let me explain.
For a few months, we had a pet lionhead rabbit. (The backstory isn’t important here!) Lenno...
A Lighter Way Week Seven: Healing at the EdgesÂ
Reflection
The Lord heals the brokenhearted, the anxious, the hurting, the sick. Woman with the flow of blood (Matthew 9:20–22; Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:43–48)
Recently, I was struggling with intense anxiety, especially at night. This anxiety manifested...
The Sea of New Beginnings
Reflection:
 John Phillip Newell, author and former priest with the Church of Scotland, led my group of pilgrims to the top of a grassy hill on an unusually sunny day. We were on the Isle of Iona, Scotland, facing a rocky beach recognized as the place where St. Columba of...
A Lighter Way Week 5
From the Spirit Wheel by Steven Charleston:
What I Saw as a Child
When I was a child I thought of the world around me
As a magical place
With small spirits darting through my grandmother’s garden
Like fireflies at night
Unseen voices whispering stories
From the branches ...
