Writing as Listening
Writing, I suspect, is one way we can inhabit that liminal space right before prayer becomes prayer.
Contemplation
Mystic or Bust
Forget belief. Believing isn’t the point. Nor is following a prescribed set of rules or performing a set of rituals. The point is experience, opening ourselves to transformation, to awe, to becoming agents of change, to loving.
How do we frame these times?
I wish for us that we can look back at this point in history as a time of spiritual awakening, transformative love, healing reconciliation, and powerful creativity. A time where we collectively went through an evolutionary leap.
Seeing Again—and Again, and Again…
When we see something anew, we come to respect it. Each new perspective, each layer of understanding, deepens our regard. Seen in this light, revision is the most respectful approach to our writing—and to much else in our days.
Entering Shadowland
This, I suspect, is the great invitation of entering Shadowland. In the face of real darkness, we can now reorder our lives according to our values, and live these values to the utmost.
Just the Pond
These days, however, I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that being a fish, big or small, is an illusion. What if we’re all really the pond?
Corrective Lenses
I’ve known many miracles, a few even supernatural and profoundly transformative. As ordinary and as human as they seem, today I want to proclaim the holy miracle of corrective lenses.
Enduring the Discomfort of Writing
A writer’s capacity to tolerate discomfort, along with violent busts of elation and anguish, determines how deeply and for how long he or she can reside in the generative state.
What Others Think–What I Think–No Thought
Even an audience of one may be one too many. The self that is vigilant in me is also my monkey mind, and my spiritual practice involves releasing this self again and again. What if the self of my most intimate writing isn’t my real self?
Merton’s Adam
While I utterly reject the notion that I was born a sinner, I struggle daily with the falseness that masks what I’m sure is my real essence.