When we run from darkness, how much do we really know about what we are running from? If we turn away from darkness on principle, doing everything we can to avoid it because there is simply no telling...
When we arrived in this large room, Rockwell put a fluorescent marker down where we entered so we could find the way back out again. When Hurd failed to do that, her teacher corrected her. In a cave,...
Whatever I decided to do for a living, it was not what I did but how I did it that mattered.
This is not a how-to book, but if it were, the only instruction would be to become more curious about your own darkness. What can you learn about your fear of it by staying with it for a moment before...
The problem with every sacred text is that it has human readers. Consciously or unconsciously, we interpret it to meet our own needs. There is nothing wrong with this unless we deny that we are doing...
Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk, regardless of how they got there or whether they know God's name. Some...
Plato once said that pain restores order to the soul. Rumi said that it lops off the branches of indifference. The throbbing vein / will take you further / than any thinking.14 Whatever else it does,...
Maybe you have to be really, really tired before you can answer questions like those. Maybe you have to be deeply discouraged by never having time for all the things that need doing in this world—not...
I have learned to prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place. We are a motley crew, distinguished not only by our inability to...
I cannot say for sure when my reliable ideas about God began to slip away, but the big chest I used to keep them in is smaller than a shoebox now. Most of the time, I feel so ashamed about this that I...
Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.
E. B. White once wrote, I can’t decide whether to enjoy the world or improve the world; that makes it difficult to plan the day.
Ask anyone what she means when she says 'God' and chances are that you will learn a lot more about that person than you will learn about God.
A few years ago, Ed and I were exploring the dunes on Cumberland Island, one of the barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland of south Georgia. He was looking for the fossilized teet...
Who would stick around to wrestle a dark angel all night long if there were any chance of escape? The only answer I can think of is this: someone in deep need of blessing; someone willing to limp fore...
When religious arguments based on the perspective of a single century or culture reach a high pitch, or when people who seem to have read only excerpts of the Bible use it to propose legislation, I re...
We wanted More. We wanted a deeper sense of purpose. We wanted a stronger sense of God’s presence.
This is good, and all good things cast shadows.
The most deeply one sinks into one's own religious truth,' Knitter says, 'the more broadly one can appreciate and learn from other truths.' That has been true for me, both as a teacher and as a spirit...
Sometimes I wondered if it even mattered whether our communion cups were filled with consecrated wine or draft beer, as long as we bent over them long enough to recognize each other as kin.