Archive for Friday Blog

Come Away

Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while. Mark 6:31 For the past six weeks our home has been filled to overflowing with the presence of our daughter, her husband and our 19-month-old granddaughter. For several of those days, another of our children, just back from two years in Australia, joined […]

July 07, 2021 by Anita Davidson 2 Comments
Categories: Beloved Community, Breath, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Coronavirus, Discernment, Listening, Loss, Love, Nature and spirituality, Non-duality, Pandemic, Prayer, Retreat time, Self Compassion, Solitude, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: awareness, breathing, children, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, Covid-19, discernment, God, grief, grounding, healing, hope, Inspiration, Jesus, listening, love, Meditation, nature, pandemic, peace, prayer, presence, retreat, silence, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, suffering, and trust. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

Just as He Was

On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to them, “Let us cross to the other side.” Leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was.  Mark 4: 35-36 This story, of course, continues with the calming of the storm, but I found myself stuck on that last […]

June 06, 2021 by Anita Davidson 1 Comment
Categories: Beloved Community, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Discernment, Listening, Love, Non-duality, Prayer, Retreat time, Self Compassion, Service, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: acceptance, awareness, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, discernment, God, grounding, healing, hope, Inspiration, Jesus, leadership, listening, love, Meditation, nonjudgement, Parables, peace, prayer, presence, retreat, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, and trust. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

Evelyn Underhill: Foremother of Contemporary Spirituality

The Book of Wisdom promises that “In each generation wisdom passes into holy souls, she makes them friends of God and prophets.” In our own times we need to be on the lookout for these “friends of God and prophets” whom we will find in unlikely places.  Although they appear to serve their own times, […]

June 06, 2021 by Dana Greene
Categories: Community, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Reading, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Listening, Love, Non-duality, Prayer, Retreat time, School of Contemplative Prayer, School of Prayer, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual direction, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: awareness, Book of Wisdom, contemplation, contemplative tradition, Contemporary Spirituality, dana greene, Evelyn Underhill, Evelyn Underhill 80th Anniversary, Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life, God, Inspiration, Karl Rahner, listening, mysticism, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man’s (sic) Spiritual Consciousness, prayer, presence, religion, retreat, silence, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, and spirituality. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

A Journey of the Heart

When I heard about a ZOOM Pilgrimage to Assisi, I almost spit out my coffee. In disdain. A ZOOM Pilgrimage seemed an oxymoron of the highest order. Nothing could compare to being physically present in Assisi. Nothing could come close to a real Shalem Pilgrimage. After all, on a Newfoundland Pilgrimage, I kissed a cod […]

May 05, 2021 by Anne Marie Drew
Categories: Assisi, Beloved Community, Body Prayer, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, inspirational music, Listening, Love, Nature and spirituality, Personal Spiritual Deepening, Pilgrimage, Prayer, Retreat time, Self Compassion, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual growth, spirituality in community, and Virtual Pilgrimage. Tags: Assisi, awareness, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, discernment, earth, God, grounding, healing, hope, Inspiration, listening, love, nature, peace, pilgrimage, prayer, presence, retreat, silence, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, St. Clare of Assisi, St. Francis of Assisi, trust, and walking. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

Greening Nature and Spirits

One spring morning, sitting at the table sipping tea, I saw green buds on tree branches hanging over the yard just outside the picture window. Those small fists of summer, clenched tight, must have been there for a while, but I hadn’t noticed. Seemingly overnight, the greening buds had swelled and stretched up and out, […]

May 05, 2021 by Mary van Balen 2 Comments
Categories: Breath, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Reading, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Listening, Loss, Love, Nature and spirituality, Non-duality, Personal Spiritual Deepening, Prayer, Retreat time, Self Compassion, Solitude, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: awareness, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, dormancy, earth, God, grounding, healing, Hildegard von Bingen, hope, Inspiration, joy, listening, love, Mary van Balen, Meditation, nature, peace, prayer, presence, rest, retreat, silence, slow work of god, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, spring, and trust. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

Coddiwomple

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” (Ursula Le Guin) Several years ago, I planned a road trip with a good friend to visit her son, my godson, during spring break. We had only four days to drive out to Idaho, visit […]

April 04, 2021 by Monica Maxon
Categories: Beloved Community, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Reading, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Coronavirus, Discernment, Listening, Love, Pandemic, Personal Spiritual Deepening, Pilgrimage, Prayer, Self Compassion, Solitude, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: awareness, coddiwomple, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, Covid-19, discernment, earth, God, grounding, healing, holy moments, hope, Inspiration, journey, joy, listening, love, Meditation, Monica Maxon, nature, openness, peace, pilgrimage, prayer, presence, retirement, retreat, Shalem staff, silence, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, travel, trust, unexpected, and Ursula Le Guin. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

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
Categories: Beloved Community, Body Prayer, Breath, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Reading, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Discernment, Lent, Listening, Love, Personal Spiritual Deepening, Prayer, Self Compassion, Service, social justice, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: 40 days in the desert, awareness, Barb Kelly, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative prayer, contemplative tradition, discernment, God, grounding, healing, Jesus, justice, Lent, listening, Living in the Presence, love, mercy, ministry, moral action, prayer, presence, radical love, retreat, shadow work, silence, social justice, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, tilden edwards, Transfiguration, transformation, and trust. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

Exhaling My Prayer Breath

On January 29th I received my first Pfizer vaccine shot. On February 19th, I received the second shot. Two weeks later, I could finally begin to breathe deeply again. How long had I been holding my prayer breath? I didn’t realize how long I had been shallow breathing… more than 11 months, beginning when we […]

April 04, 2021 by Westina Matthews Shatteen
Categories: Beloved Community, Body Prayer, Breath, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Coronavirus, Loss, Love, Pandemic, Prayer, Race, Self Compassion, social justice, Solitude, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: awareness, body prayer, breath, Breath of life, breathing, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, Covid-19, Dana Fauds, George Floyd, gratitude, grounding, healing, Heschel, hope, love, prayer, Prayer breath, presence, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, racial equity, racial justice, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, suffering, trust, Vaccine, and Westina Matthews. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

Love, Not Atonement

This year in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, the feast of the Annunciation falls just a few days before Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. (This isn’t always the case since Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.) The proximity of the two feasts […]

April 04, 2021 by Mary van Balen 2 Comments
Categories: Beloved Community, Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Contemplative Reading, Contemplative Spirituality, Continuous Prayer, Covid-19 Easter, Discernment, Easter, Good Friday, Lent, Listening, Loss, Love, Non-duality, Prayer, Self Compassion, Service, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, and spiritual growth. Tags: Atonement, awareness, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, discernment, God, Good Friday, grief, grounding, healing, hope, Incarnation, Inspiration, Jesus, John Duns Scotus, Lent, listening, love, Mary van Balen, peace, prayer, presence, religion, Resurrection, richard rohr, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, Stations of the Cross, suffering, and trust. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.

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 […]

March 03, 2021 by Anita Davidson 1 Comment
Categories: Community, Compassion, Contemplation in Action, Contemplative Leadership, Contemplative Living, Continuous Prayer, Discernment, Lent, Listening, Love, Parenthood, Prayer, Self Compassion, Spiritual Deepening, spiritual discipline, spiritual growth, and spirituality in community. Tags: awareness, Book of Jeremiah, children, community, compassion, contemplation, contemplative tradition, discernment, God, God's Beloved, God's Decree, grounding, Holy Week, hope, Inspiration, Jesus, joy, leadership, Lent, listening, love, nature, parenthood, parenting, peace, prayer, presence, spiritual growth, spiritual practice, spirituality, and trust. Formats: Friday Blog. Interest Areas: Friday Blog.