Foreboding Joy & Gratitude
When we lose the ability or willingness to be vulnerable, joy becomes something we approach with deep foreboding. . . . We’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop. . . . The concept of foreboding joy as a…
Living in the Tension
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It…
Union with God
Some who are tediously metaphysical might worry that all this talk of union with God blurs the distinction between Creator and creation. Far from blurring this distinction it sets it in sharper focus. John’s Gospel says we are the branches…
The Healing Power of Silence
Silence heals. . . The healing of Silence does not carry a medical intent; that is, its function does not centre on the rapid removal of symptoms. . . Silence is self-healing. It is a process in which a direct…
Silence in Relationships
In attending to our relationships, we can also learn the ways that Silence enters, and we can cultivate its presence. . . . Speaking that takes the form of narration, which tells about experience rather than speaking from within it,…
Entering the Silence
Silence is a true phenomenon that consists of far more than stillness and quiet. . . . Silence is experienced bodily. . . . We feel the presence of Silence throughout the physical world as a kind of touch, like…
The Guardians of Silence
There are two ways we can look at the many distracting forces that keep us from Silence. One way is to see them as they have been seen in the spiritual tradition – as beings that intend to pull us…
A Meditation on Silence
We have a strong tendency to imagine Silence as the absence of sound. This imagination deprives Silence of being anything in itself and makes it an emptiness, a void in what should be the norm. But Silence was here before…