Articles on Community
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She Weeps: Leaning into the Spiritual Guidance Program
John 11:32b-35: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.“Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. I am a new associate of the…
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50th Anniversary of Shalem – 50-Hour Vigil of Prayer
How often do we have the opportunity to be connected in Holy Silence for fifty hours, joining our prayers and offering them to one another? How often are we invited into deeper presence with the Divine from which we may, with compassion and courage, faithfully live God’s dream into the world, into all of creation?…
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Fifty Years of Longing
Fifty years ago, Tilden Edwards gathered a small group of people who longed to go deeper in prayer, seeking to recover the Christian contemplative tradition. As they met and prayed, they discovered that God longed for them as much as they longed for God. They were drawn deep into the heart of God. As they…
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Keep Walking
One morning about halfway through my pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, as I was standing outside the hotel in my walking gear, a mother with two young children – a boy and a girl – emerged from the hotel. The mother smiled at me and asked if I was walking to Santiago.…
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Perfect Imperfection
As a course name, Heart Longings, perfectly evoked the sense of excitement and possibility I brought to the class. The phrase also conjured in my mind a heart-led journey toward something long-awaited, hoped for, yet never quite obtainable. Those were the images that stirred in my heart and mind when, in 2022, I encountered Shalem’s…
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Responding to Divine Initiative
“Those of us who were part of the Vision Coalition and worked on Vision 2025: Our Ongoing Hope have been asked to write reflections on the Guiding Principles of Vision 2025. The Guiding Principles are statements that remind us of who we are and who we are becoming — a place where both the present and…