Maybe that is the difference between pastoral counselors and spiritual directors. We go to counselors when we want help getting out of caves. We go to directors when we are ready to be led farther in....
If Jesus were in charge of an average congregation I figure there would be about four people left there on Sunday mornings, and chances are those four would be fooling themselves. Jesus would greet ne...
If Jesus meant for his followers to rule the world, then why did he teach them to wash feet?
I was so busy serving the Divine Presence that we never got any time alone anymore.
I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was, in other words, and it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more usefu...
Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish—separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the dist...
Contrary to popular opinion, all religions are not alike. Their followers see the world in very distinct ways. Their understandings of the human condition proceed from different assumptions, leading t...
At the very least, most of us need someone to tell our stories to. At a deeper level, most of us need someone to help us forget ourselves, a little or a lot. The great wisdom traditions of the world a...
As many years as I have been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming l...
As hard as I have tried to remember the exact moment when I fell in love with God, I cannot do it. My earliest memories are bathed in a kind of golden light that seemed to embrace me as surely as my m...
According to a recent article in the New York Times, few parents expose their children to those works in the original these days, and some of their reasons make sense. Who wants children growing up wi...
As she went. Her head bent so far underneath her that I feared her neck would break. Finally the Jeep stopped at the edge of the water. Ed and I helped the ranger unchain her and flip her back over. T...
You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live.
Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is gained by practicing what is right, and noticing what happens when that practice succeeds and when it fails. Wise people do not have to be cert...
What I know and most of them do not yet is that even people who belong to the same religion do not agree about what they mean when they say 'God.
They sounded different from the mouth of a young mother than they did from the mouth of a widow. This was because the words did not come straight off the page. They percolated up through the silt and...
The great wisdom traditions of the world all recognize that the main impediment to living a life of meaning is being self-absorbed.
Spending extended amounts of time inside other religious worldviews has loosened the screws on my own, which is beginning to seem like a good thing. Disowning God has been a great help to me. Owning m...
Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead.
Our shadows are often behind us, where others can see them better than we can.