Faith and Imagination

Put Down the Ducky!

In meditation, I practice releasing my grip on something I love for the sake of something I don’t yet know or trust—silence, rest, peace. I pray this exercises my capacity to welcome new loves, because I really need this ability in the real world where my attachments are so hard to relinquish. Especially when I don’t even know I’m attached.

Faith and the “Poopy Growth Mindset”

Ask what I’m learning in the Living School and I’ll blather incoherently, enthusiastically, and at great length about the Christian mystical tradition, the significance of contemplation, and a complete overhaul of my faith. I was doing just that at Easter dinner a few weeks ago. My father-in-law asked, and all eleven relatives at the table …

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The Beauty of Embracing Opposites

Jeanne Audrey, unlike me, thrived on conflict. I remember her at the Re-Imagining Conferences in the mid-nineties, the gatherings by which feminism hit the mainline denominations like a train wreck; Jeanne Audrey sniffed out the conservative infiltrators and press reps, brought them coffee, and engaged them in lengthy, honest, and disconcertingly intimate conversations. By the end of the day they were exchanging phone numbers. Jeanne Audrey was fearsome in her ability to transform enemies into friends.

God as Being, Being as God

A few years ago, I set off on a journey to the heart of Christian contemplation, both in practice and with studies. I began doing Centering Prayer, a form of meditation rooted in monasticism and the teachings of the mystics, and reading works from the mystical margins of Christian tradition—St. John of the Cross, Meister …

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