“Pray your hardest when it’s hardest to pray.” I saw this quote recently. And it rang true. I don’t know if I remember the last time I really prayed in this way (in the traditional sense at least). Sometimes I don’t know if I remember how, or ever even knew. It’s like I was always… Read More Week 37: prayer
“I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” I do not rest as well or as often as I believe I do. Most “rest” is still activity in some way. Then there are the days we have no choice; we are forced to be still. When our bodies are weary and won’t… Read More Week 35: rest
“…Sometimes I feel like my life / is a wild beast / trapped in an unlocked cage / and it is awfully / afraid of what lies / on the other side. // That is what hell is like; / having something / viciously brilliant inside of you, / but not believing in it enough… Read More Week 34: cages
Some of us may also be saying: “You know I’m not walking away from you. So what am I walking away from? Please, tell me.” He might respond in this way. “You are walking away from all the things that are associated with me, but are not me. The very things that may have once… Read More Week 33: the false/true worshiper (part 2)
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” Am I a false worshiper? A dishonest worshiper? God asks us to be honest with ourselves. Because when we… Read More Week 32: the false/true worshiper
“Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart…” There must be more than the feeling, the experience, the answer. Are you the long longing, the inherent question, the unfulfilled desire? Are you what I am not meant to find though I seek? A door not meant… Read More Week 31: what brings meaning
Why do certain days seem to haunt some deep part of us? A sense of loss pervades. Or of losing something not yet received. The belief that what we desire will never come to pass. How does one cease to feed this beast? Everyone is alone in the world. We are only to have pieces… Read More Week 30: alone(ness)
The story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10 is one of my favorite stories in the Bible; it’s beautiful. This was a man no one liked. He was despised by everyone. Like all tax collectors, he was a traitor to his own people (the Jews), collecting taxes for the occupiers (the Romans), skimming off the top… Read More Week 29: what kind of follower
(Yes, I missed a week.) I couldn’t fall asleep. So I picked up a book that I’m working on–The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand–which I like very much. The protagonist is Howard Roark, a fearless architect, and the archetype of a man who is courageous in his art, without concern for the opinion of others or… Read More Week 27 / 28: courage
Not long ago, I read a short biography of Mother Teresa in 7 Men and 7 Women (by Eric Metaxas). There’s a part that resonated with me. By 1950 [Mother Teresa] had devised a constitution for the Missionaries of Charity–the name God had given her when she first heard her “call within a call.” In… Read More Week 25: thirst (part 2)
a kingdom built of seeds 