Reflections from Our Directors
Search for Meaning
The desire to find meaning in the middle of so many changes, is natural and healthy. In this short post, Dan Johnson offers a story from Ignatian spirituality and a simple prayer as a way for new meaning to be shaped. These past two months have shown just how...
Be Kind to Yourself
“Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between...
Practice Gratitude for the Good in your Life
“Gratitude is the memory of the heart” -French proverb You may be puzzled at the picture that introduces this article; a pile of disorganized and random pictures and boxes on top of my dining room table. This was my early response to “what am I going to do...
Honor Your Feelings
Life during a pandemic brings unexpected, unwelcome feelings. What if we were to meet those feelings at the door and graciously “welcome and entertain them all” as Rumi suggests in “The Guest House?” This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A...
Acknowledge the reality of the pandemic as well as your grief
Consider: All earthly life together is one being. “Everything that is in the heavens, and on the earth and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness” -Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century Christian mystic In her forest home, Hildegard...
COVID 19 and the Transformative Gift of Grief
I am on Richard Rohr’s email list and receive daily opportunities to reflect on his wisdom and faith. In a recent Daily Meditation, Richard Rohr talks about “our current global crisis as a collective initiation experience…In a time of global crisis, it may be that...
Easter Rocked with Fear and Great Joy
8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. -Matthew 28: 8-9 Happy Easter! He is risen! He is risen, indeed! ...
The Examen helps us look for God’s presence
Dear readers, I am writing to remind you of the Examen, that crucial daily prayer Ignatius said never to neglect. This is an important time to rekindle the Examen in your daily life or begin it for the first time. Staying centered in body, mind and spirit is...
Holy Week during a Pandemic
We have all been living an extended Good Friday through the challenges of the Coronovirus with all the fear and uncertainty and a myriad of additional emotional responses to it. We have watched people’s income be significantly impacted, we have additional concern for...