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‘Tis the Season!
For both theological and practical reasons, December is a time when many people do a great deal of their charitable giving. Theologically, as we gather for Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice, we celebrate God’s work in our lives by giving each other gifts. We celebrate God’s great gifts to us by practicing generosity to God’s…
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Living with Joy: Spiritual Companions Across the Centuries
When I first encountered St. Francis of Assisi, I was struck by many similarities in our situations despite the 800 years separating us. He lived in a time of war, displacement of peoples, injustice, prejudice, religious strife, and illness, to name a few. Shaken to its core by political and religious conflict, his society had…
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Reflecting on Black Friday
Halloween was not over before I began receiving advertisements for “Black Friday” sales. They arrived daily – in email, social media feeds, and pop-up ads on web pages. Seemingly everyone was trying to get an early start on the biggest shopping day of the year. For some time, our “marketing-industrial” complex has placed a growing…
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How God Works Through the Ministry of Spiritual Guidance
As a spiritual pilgrim, director of Shalem’s Spiritual Guidance Program, and associate of a Benedictine monastic community preparing to welcome a new class of associates seeking to explore their vocations as spiritual guides, I’m wondering about what light the Rule of St. Benedict might shed upon the formation of spiritual guides. What, within the core…
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The Healing Path
The next time I went to see Thomas Merton for spiritual direction, I asked his permission to spend some time each day alone in the loft of the sheep barn. With Merton’s permission, I began my daily ritual of going to the loft of the sheep barn to pray and be alone with God. One…