Articles on Prayer
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Knowing by Heart
Jeremiah 31:31-34 (The Message) “That’s right. The time is coming when I will make a brand-new covenant with Israel and Judah. It won’t be a repeat of the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant even though I…
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Diana
On March 17th of last year, I was awakened in the middle of the night by intense pain shooting through my body. It felt like sharp knives cutting into my muscles. The pain continued until the morning, allowing me only fitful, unrestful sleep. When I finally pulled myself out of bed, I craved even more…
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Boundless Gratitude for Going Deeper
Do not forget that you serve a Mystery that neither you nor your father’s father nor your mother’s mother began. And the laughter and the tears that accompany your labor are not born of your cleverness or your holiness, but are reflections of the Mystery of God in the still waters of the eternal lake…
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Prayer Changes Us
There is an old saying: be careful what you wish for. In a similar vein we might also be careful how we pray and what we pray for. As we practice contemplative prayer things change and that change is mostly in ourselves. Our ways of seeing and acting in the world become transfigured by divine…
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Welcoming God with Open Arms
While Lent is sometimes thought of as a season to give up something, this Lent comes after a year of pandemic and unrest that has many feeling like they’ve already given up a lot. For some it has meant no in-person visits with family or friends for close to a year. Some have lost jobs.…
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Experiencing the Beloved Community
Where did life begin for you? My life started in the womb of my maternal grandmother, Margaret Dunnivant Owens, born in 1908 in Giles County, Tennessee, the birthplace of the KKK. Participants in Shalem’s Heart Longings program listened to stories of my grandmother on January 9, 2021, as I honored her legacy, her struggles in…