We know what prayer is, right? The Lord’s Prayer. Petitions. The prayer is in the words that we send up to God. Those are prayers, wonderful ones, yes, but only a small part of praying. Praying mostly consists of opening ourselves up—heart, mind, soul and body—to the presence of God. We can access his […]

  The way of prayer is to be attendant on God in all that we do. This takes a deep listening for God’s “still, small voice” within, a back and forth with God about what we’re to do now and how we’re to do it. It’s a 24-hour a day attunement to the Divine.   […]

An article by Cindy Brandt[1] that I read a few weeks ago reminded me that when Jesus called his disciples, he said to them, “come and see.” He invited them to experience what he was offering. He held out a promise, a potential that they could taste and feel. And, obviously, when they did “come […]

The essential skill for the Life of the Spirit is listening, an inner ear attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. It is an attunement to the voice of God within. Listening by itself, however, is not enough; we must then follow what God suggests. As we practice listening for God’s voice within, we […]

A contemplative life is not as we might imagine it—dull with nothing to do but ponder and reflect. What the word contemplative usually conjures up for us is someone, probably a cloistered monk or nun—who has nothing to do all day long except think about God. There actually are contemplative orders of religious people that […]

For a while my son-in-law owned a trailer park in Florida. He said that inevitably each month at least one of his tenants would come in to pay off part of another’s rent for that month. The reason: “He’s short this month,” or “she needs some help.” People who work with the poor would say […]

How might we summarize Jesus’ teachings and the life he modeled? We need a guide, a condensed version, a rule to compare ourselves to, a standard. Jesus said so many things, but he saw them all as fulfilling the law of the Old Testament which is about love. So in this essay I will endeavor […]

This I know for sure about the rule/reign/kingdom of God: we are in it, under it—always. God is working in our lives—always. We are connected to God—always. Through God we are connected to all people and all life—always. God loves us—always. God forgives us–always. God welcomes us back—always. And we have little awareness of these […]

I will not live in fear!  I say that emphatically to our culture.  I hang up on the recorded voice that starts “The FBI reports that there is a home break-in every….” I say “no” to every sales pitch for a home security system.  I say a more emphatic “NO!” to those who want guns […]

“I am the way and the truth and the life.”[1] It is Jesus’ life and what he modeled for us that interests me in this declaration from the Gospel of John.  I am thinking in terms of lifestyle, a more modern way of looking at it, but we have to go back to the early […]