Making a start

Everything has a beginning. Even in midlife we have beginnings. This is one of them; I've come to a place at which I need to explore the themes I've been given:

 Silence
Submission
Breath

 and the arenas in which they play out, work and family.

Popular posts from this blog

Poverty of Spirit

Ten years of Franciscan education left me with the concept of poverty deep in my consciousness. It was, to great extent, exactly that, a concept. "Blessed are the poor" "Holy indifference" "Live simply that others may simply live" All those words have swirled around my spiritual and practical adult life. Now in my seventieth year I find myself returning to them again and again and wondering if I ever understood the idea at all. In Light in the Darkness Elizabeth Leseur writes eloquently about silence, humility, and renunciation in ways I've never heard them before. Perhaps I wasn't listening. Perhaps as age takes its toll and losses mount, as they inevitably do in life, I understand them better. She even had me with "mortification," an old-fashioned word that would have made me cringe at twenty, but which begins to make sense in marriage or in any life with others when you look at the things life actually sends you. It comes d
Read more

Winter

And perhaps I shall stay or even spend the winter with you, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go . 1 Corinthians 16:6 Sometimes you have to begin again. Late winter, just before Lent is one of those times. My journey never stopped but this blog dropped by the wayside along the way. This seems like a good time to pick it up again. This time I hope to reflect on two topics: 1) what I believe and 2) marriage. What do I believe? I'm a Nicene Christian--and  Roman Catholic.  I still struggle with discerning God's will for my future, but less than before. It isn't really necessary to see the entire road map, only to continue the journey, "wherever I may go" and to trust that he is leading one step at a time. His word is a lamp to my path.
Read more

An Open Letter to the Church in the Face of Abuse Scandals

To: Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo and bishops collectively as the USCCB Denying sin is self-deception. If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.   If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.   If we say, “We have not sinned," we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1John: 1:8-10) This passage slapped me in the face this morning during morning prayer, when struggling, as I have been lately with faith in the governance of my church. Please note I do not struggle with faith in the mystical body, real presence, or the Nicene creed. I certainly do not struggle with faith in our all loving and merciful God. I only struggle with, well, you.  I write in the face of scandals, plural. In spite of revelation after revelation of crime and cover-up, I, like many of the faithful who sit in your pews, have very little evidence of any real change.  Neither slick statement
Read more