Not Seeing – May 31, 2022
“Not seeing the mountain, being frustrated in one’s quest, can be far more riveting to the imagination than succeeding in beholding what one sought… In Ku His’s classical pattern of Chinese landscape art, the subtle appeal of mountains is rooted in the artist’s skillful craft of omission; the peaks are half-dissolved in clouds. This is […]
Wonder – May 17, 2022
“I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore, the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. So a question is really one of the […]
Greening Power
I am still reflecting on the silent retreat day at Dayspring this week. An unseasonably warm late-winter day, our time began with an overcast sky, a soft, warm breeze and bright birdsong. The cloudy sky was like a vast blanket of cotton balls scudding west across meadow and forest. Hildegard’s poem about the ever-creating Source of all […]
Landscape as Theophany – Feb. 18, 2022
“To experience the landscape as a theophany is to take seriously the way the divine can be revealed through nature and through created things. It means we can join with all of the elements and creatures in singing God’s praise.” –Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening, p. 134
