The Power of Ritual
Last winter, I listened to an episode of the podcast On Being featuring Katherine May, in which she discussed the importance of ritual in our lives– to mark the passage of time, to give us hope, to bring communities together at regular intervals. I found the interview so compelling that I’ve been thinking about ritual ever since. […]
The Contemplative Life – Mar. 3, 2022
“The contemplative life is more than Christian prayers or rituals or sermons. It is all of those things but more. It is about the experience of God on the individual level. It is the fullness of the Tradition come to life again in us as the personal sensibility of what it is to realize that […]
How Can This Be? – Dec. 22, 2021
She had been a child who played, ate, sleptlike any other child – but unlike others,wept only for pity, laughedin joy not triumph.Compassion and intelligencefused in her, indivisible. Called to a destiny more momentousthan any in all of Time,she did not quail,only askeda simple, ‘How can this be?’and gravely, courteously,took to heart the angel’s reply,perceiving instantlythe […]
Annunciation
by Denise Levertov We know the scene: the room, variously furnished, almost always a lectern, a book; alwaysthe tall lily.Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,whom she acknowledges, a guest. But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentionscourage.The engendering Spiritdid not enter her without consent.God waited. She was […]