Category: Meditation
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The Growing Light of Joy
In the decades of my life I have seen the seasons come and go more times than I care to admit. This time around, winter is quite different from the last five which were spent in the Bay Area of California. Being back in the northeast in what I once would have called the “dead”…
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Good Morning!
When I think of the life I have led, I sense the powerful flow of all that has brought me to the NOW moment. In my sermon this past week, I made reference to the very first New Year in my memory. Early one morning my mother told me it was now 1961, and with…
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Take a Moment . . .
At the turning of this new year, the only celebration I require is the one that happens on this bench just off the Tiburon rail trail. I know a ball will drop in Times Square later tonight, but all I really need is a bit more time to stare at this view of Mount Tamalpais,…
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All In Good Time
I’m not great at waiting. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on the freeway, in line at Target, or sitting in a doctor’s office. I am programmed to get on with it, no matter what “it” is. When people and situations get in the way, I feel impatient, inconvenienced, and maybe even put upon. So, when…
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Back to Center
It had been thirty-six years since I packed things up and moved across the country. With my then-wife and toddler son, I made the trek from Denver to Chicago in a ’79 Chevette, to begin a journey I can only now begin to comprehend. Life has taken me in and out of vocational ministry, back…
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Divine Intention
The turning of a new year is by definition a pivotal moment, the launchpad for detox diets and gym memberships, the reining-in of holiday excesses. A clean slate. A fresh start. The turning over of a new leaf. Such is the DNA of what we call “resolution.” Resolution involves willpower, and if there’s one thing…
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Light and Shadow
There is no shadow without light, nor is there light without shadow. The existence of one requires the existence of the other. The land we live in, the place we call home, has been transformed into a noisy caricature of itself, devolving into a shouting match between people who are always right and never wrong. …
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No Sense of Time
I snapped an image of these lilies on our front lawn five or six weeks ago. As perennials go, they are vociferous. It’s a yearly effort that keeps them from taking over the garden, and each time I see new ones sprouting, I dig them up and move them out to the creekside, where I…
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We Shall Overcome.
These are the times that try our souls, while petulant children masquerading as world leaders duke it out on the playground. The problem is, the world is not a playground. Just ask the people of Guam. The last time we were this close to nuclear conflict, I was in kindergarten. The memories are mostly emotional,…
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Smartphones in the Sanctuary
I took this photo on a blustery afternoon a few years back. This is the roofline of the chapel at Linwood Spiritual Center, home to the Sisters of St. Ursula, and an important place of meditation and learning in my life. Taken in the waning days of autumn just before the inevitable slide into a…
Deeper Streams 