• Barb Kelly

    • I am a 2000 graduate of Transforming Community: Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups & Retreats Program and a 2017 grad of Nurturing the Call: Spiritual Guidance Program.

Prayer as Action: Loving the World

Does it ever seem that not much is happening when you pray? When that’s what it seems like to me, all I need to do is look back at the tracks of prayer in my life. The psalmist’s astonishment and relief at being “lifted out of the miry bog”- in all the bog’s various guises […]

April 04, 2021 by Barb Kelly

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 […]

March 03, 2021 by Barb Kelly 2 Comments

What Do We Think We’re Doing When We Pray?

One of the readings assigned for my first program at the Shalem Institute, the Transforming Community: Leading Contemplative Prayer Groups and Retreats program, was an article by Ann Ulanov entitled, What Do We Think People Are Doing When They Pray?  I have often returned to that question, both in my own practice and in my […]

February 02, 2021 by Barb Kelly

The Sacredness of Time

As 2020 draws to a close and a new year opens before us, I’d like to offer some words that invite us to reflect on the sacredness of time. This year has been so hard, in ways unimaginable to us at the start of it: deepening climate crisis with both drenching rains and severe drought […]

December 12, 2020 by Barb Kelly

Between Us There Is No Between

Today’s blog is taken from the reflection and prayer offered during Wednesday’s Prayer for the World by Shalem graduate Barb Kelly. Over the past several weeks I have been pondering and praying the question, “What obligations do we have to one another?” I have a heightened awareness of the question of obligation during this time […]

July 07, 2020 by Barb Kelly 1 Comment

Breathe on Me, Breath of God

Today’s blog is taken from the reflection and prayer offered during Wednesday’s Prayer for the World. Shalem graduate Barb Kelly guided the time from her home in Empire, Michigan. Although we can’t see each other, we can join together in prayer with love and compassion for all humanity and for all of creation. During this […]

June 06, 2020 by Barb Kelly 1 Comment