Smashing Convention

Of course, I had to read the recent NYT article “Kung Fu Nuns of Nepal Smash Convention.” It described how a group of Buddhist nuns are challenging longstanding traditional concepts about what women can and can’t do by practicing Kung Fu, which gives them “inner confidence” and readies them to “take care of others during crises.” And they […]

Luminous Transformation

Transfiguration Sunday. Can it be that Lent is right on the horizon? The lectionary readings have so quickly, perhaps too quickly, punctuated the wondrous intensities of Advent, Jesus’ birth, early epiphanies and now transfiguration. Transfiguration is the stunning summit epiphany* before turning toward Calvary. It is a brief, loaded account, without equal. Jesus goes to a new […]

The Soul Playing Hide and Seek – Feb. 6, 2023

“We may feel some aspects of our self to be difficult, perhaps those associated with our past. Most often we find these hiding or in exile. We may feel proud of other aspects of ourselves, perhaps those associated with where we want to go. These may reveal themselves clearly, or they may be hidden as […]

Exploring the Dark to Become Light

It takes discipline for me to be visible in community. Valuing privacy, I’ve always liked to hang out in the back — in the shadows, perhaps — observing, taking it all in, revealing little of my interior self. A few years ago, I began a meditation practice where I learn to be present to myself, as […]