Aligning with Grace

  Grief is a funny thing... This is what I texted a friend this morning. Today marks a year and a half since my father died... A lifetime ago, or only yesterday - depending on the day... There is no timetable for grief. It takes as long as it takes. It looks different for everybody. No two experiences are the same... And there is no right or wrong... This morning, I donned my new "Blessed" hat I picked up at Lidl and went for a morning walk. It was cool and overcast. A perfect day and reflection of how I felt. And then, unexpected and lovely things happened... I ran into a woman walking a small, scruffy white dog and three cats - none of them on leashes, just slowly ambling about, and I struck up a conversation with their mom. The cats, she said - think they are dogs. They literally walk with her and respond to her commands. They don't run off. She rescued one of them from a dumpster. The little dog was old and one eyed, and re-named Pearl. She was all bark and no bite a...

Like many of you, I began this new month, new year, and new decade, full of expectations. But so far, this year of 2020, is all the more significant because I had cataract surgery. What I came to realize is, that even though my sight seemed better the day after the first surgery, there have been many fluctuations, and that perhaps the idea of seeing 20/20 was more symbolic of seeing in a different way. Perhaps it was about seeing more deeply.  Not on the outside. But on the inside. Since reading is very difficult for me at the moment, I have had to make some adjustments in my daily schedule, such as in making time to listen to things more. Luckily, I have a vast arsenal of podcasts, recorded lectures, and so forth to keep me entertained. It also means I need to sit, or recline, and close my eyes and rest more often. It's all good. I never realized how sight dependent I am. Or how much reading I actually do on a daily basis. But here is the thing. For near...

Advent: Emmanuel - God is With Us (A Repost) This is a time of year when there are songs we only listen to once... I like to pull out old Advent and Christmas classics and new ones as well, and allow their rich melodies to fill all the corners of my heart and soul... A friend recently asked me what kind of music I had on my ipod. I proceeded to describe the wide variety of genres and playlists I had so carefully organized - spanning from folk rock, to classical, to jazz, and to mantras and liturgical music. My friend stopped right there - totally surprised - though in the seventies - when we were in our late teens and early twenties, she and I earned our spending money by playing liturgical music in several parishes... I love classic Advent songs of awaiting like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," and my favorite rendition is by Mannheim Steamroller. I wait all year to hear this song and enter into the deep longing and stillness it calls me to. I also love an or...

ADVENT - A Season for Forgiveness (A Repost) Today, I send out a few Christmas cards, and in many of them, I simply wrote: "May the blessings of this Sacred Season inviting Stillness and Silence be yours. I am grateful for the gift of you!" Advent, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Diwali - all more or less intersect - and echo and invite the celebration of light - and at heart are joyous occasions. It is also a time to set right things that aren't, and I found myself reflecting on this yesterday, as I read through the readings for the day. This weekend, I went down to the basement to retrieve and dust off my Lectionary - a remnant of the days I was a liturgist and responsible for worship services. I was moved to add the liturgical readings of the day to my morning reflections. Today, for example, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception... In my morning meditations, I read from the booklet "Walk With Me," that I picked up at St. Mary...

"May I be kind and merciful. May I be humble and compassionate. May I be loving and forgiving. " Twelve years ago this week, I began this blog. It has taken many shapes and served many purposes throughout the years. This morning, on this Thanksgiving week, I went down to the river to do a gratitude practice. I was reminded of a "Gratitude Litany" I had created a few years ago as a 90 second meditation. As I did my practice, I found myself voicing these words out loud into the blue expanse before me as a white egret floated quietly on the river: "May I be kind and merciful. May I be humble and compassionate. May I be loving and forgiving. " Practices do not have to be elaborate. They need not consume hours of our time. Just a few minutes of our time to be mindful of those in need that we know - and those we don't - is all that is required. Just a few moments of presence and of gratitude will go a long way to changing us, our lives...

Journaling has been a part of my life in some format or another for as long as I can remember.  I have a small book shelf with journals going back to my early teens. I have poetry manuscripts. Notebooks of prose. I have scrapbooks of favorite quotes and passages from books. I even have autobiographical collections - journals of spiritual experiences, of dreams, of pregnancy and my son's first year of life. The point is, journaling can take on all different kinds of forms depending on your needs at the time. You can even have several journals running concurrently! A few months ago, as the year was drawing to a close, I decided that I would write as often as possible in my main journal, which is the one in the middle in the picture below. But I also found a need to establish two others. The one on the left is my "health" journal so to speak. I just simply jot down the things I did that day that contributed to greater health of mind, spirit, and body - not to judge m...

"You never step into the same river twice." ~ Heraclitus Nothing is ever the same. Everything changes. This river, that I have visited - at times nearly every day - over the space of a decade, is not the same. But then neither am I. I came to this river, suggested as a meeting place by a friend during a time of neediness and great pain and impending transitions. I came back, many a morning, feeling alone, having hit rock bottom, in the throws of deep depression, to do a rosary of spiritual practices: Lovingkindness meditations, Reiki chants, actual rosaries, prayers both traditional and spontaneous, the offering of blessings, and whatever else arose from the depths of my soul. For several years I came, almost daily. One morning, while sitting on a boulder by the riverbank, the river beckoned me to come inside. And so I did. I bought a kayak without even thinking about it, and spent a few years paddling upstream - repeating mantras, reciting prayers, while receiving...

Re-entries from vacations are always hard. At least for me. I spent two weeks visiting loved ones, walking several beaches for hours, generally disconnected from the news and media. It was heaven! I lived in an alternative universe. One where all was well... I came back to a generally quiet week of doing laundry, catching up with household chores and getting re-acquainted with my previous rhythm. I relished the silence and lack of appointments and commitments to slowly gather my bearings, coming back to a very different plane of existence. I had a week to re-adjust with a lot of time to walk, reflect, write, and meditate - gratefully living the life of a true contemplative. Luckily, I have one more week of relative quiet, and then I hit the ground running with a flurry of activities as the summer fades and I head into the fall. I reminded myself almost hourly to breathe. Every day as soon as I awoke, I expressed gratitude for the experiences and connections I was able to make...

I am halfway through an incredible journey, of visiting life long friends and family, and making many connections. Many moving pieces came together easily and quickly. A dear one said to me recently, that this trip would be a time of great significance. She was right... I am so happy to spend days walking the beach, grounding my feet in sand and salt water. It has been years since I've had that opportunity, and this time I will spend time on three beaches and two coasts. A few days ago, as I walked along the shore and looked at the crashing waves, waiting for the sun to peak through clouds every now and then in the early morning, I was struck by the luminosity and the clarity of the waves - how very silvery and radiant the water looked, how I seemed to be able to capture every little detail in the dancing foam. Mind you, I cannot see very well. And yet, in these moments, I was so present, I was able to "see" with a different sight - that went beyond the physical...

I begin a journal of writing down 1000 things I am grateful for - 1000 reasons to give thanks and to touch the sky and kiss the earth... I am moved to do so, after reading Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are... We miss so many of the opportunities we could be grateful for - for they are truly the simple things that fill our quotidian life and endeavors - a smile, a touch, a good cup of coffee, the sunrise, a walk through the woods, or your neighborhood, precious time spent with a loved one... There is such beauty in simplicity and often, it is so easy to miss... And it takes a snow storm - no - a blizzard - to slow me down - to show me the way of simplicity, of gratitude, of the exquisite beauty of a storm raging without any checks and balances, with nothing to corner it in... When it ends, everything is blanketed in stillness... There are no paths or streets - and no demarcations between one dwelling and the next... A...

This morning on my walk, I thought about a conversation I had with a dear friend yesterday who had just had surgery. My friend and I spoke of the fragility of life as she has experienced it in her volunteer work in hospice. And late last night, I found out that another friend and former student, herself in hospice, had transitioned. I felt sad I was not able to say goodbye to her.  One of the things my friend noted in our conversation, is that we all prepare for death in different ways. And I suppose, it is not unlike the way we choose to live our lives. In many ways, this year has been transitional for me. It feels like an "in-between" time - somewhere between "what has been" and "what is not yet," whatever that may be. Sometimes the longest and deepest journey is the one we take within. As I stand on the threshold of 60 years, I have been contemplating and reflecting on many things: What I still want to accomplish and experience, what no longer s...

Today, is a day for being grateful, for giving thanks. And there is so much to be grateful for. I often marvel, that as a nation, we set aside a day to give thanks. Not everyone does this. And yet those who live here, even temporarily, often continue this practice when they return to their places of origin. So today, take a moment to give thanks - wherever you might be - whether you normally observe Thanksgiving or not. And here are two offerings to help you in this endeavor: A free 90 second meditation I post daily on both Facebook and YouTube , and an inspirational quote posted daily by Every Day Spirit. Enjoy! "There is Nothing too Small for Gratitude" Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meditationpureandsimple YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bURrHn6wqEs&list=UU2XjLZ3NY9cLLPRMj_Bi0sw Every Day Spirit: https://www.facebook.com/everydayspirit1

I go down to the river on the first free morning and day I've had in a while... The fall season has been gently ushered in by forces unseen and the air is cool and crisp... I have been brought here by the urge to do both - Loving-Kindness meditation and a Gratitude practice, in thanksgiving for prayers answered and blessings received... In the coolness of the air, insights come to me about what the greatest gift we can give another soul might be... Certainly to be present to them. To pray for another and their well being - whether through the offering of traditional prayers, or something as simple and yet equally challenging as a Loving-kindness meditation can be - especially if offered for an estranged person in our lives... There is much I have wanted to share here, but a cranky and failing computer on its way out is presently impeding it. Simple sentences arise in my soul. And I share them here... Today, and every day, strive to be more fully present. As you do so,...

I awaken to a gentle falling rain and go down to the river to give thanks for the gift of life and another year of life as well. In many cultures, it is very auspicious for rain to fall on one's birthday. Though it is cold and windy, I do my river ablutions and step into the river, allowing my feet to get wet as a sort of baptism and connection to the spirit of this body of water. I say my river meditations and prayers and take in the broad expanse of the riverbank now almost totally denuded by the fallen leaves... It is a special day I am told - for this year my birthday falls during a total solar eclipse, as well as a New Moon - in addition to occurring during the celebration of Diwali - the Indian festival of lights. It is a time heralding transformation and change and I am also told, that a birthday on such a day brings abundance on many levels as well... In a year of so much change and transition I look forward to new beginnings and a change in direction, for as I h...

While my immediate area managed to skirt the worst of what Hurricane Sandy had to offer - particularly when it merged with a couple of winter storms - I cannot say the same for friends in the New Jersey and New York areas that were simply devastated... As I watched a lot of the news these last couple of days, many referred to these extreme weather situations as the "new normal." We have indeed witnessed things pretty regularly that are both extreme and catastrophic. I think of the earthquake here last year, and the "Derecho" storm this summer that wreaked havoc in scorching heat and left us without power for days. In the midst of all these situations I cannot explain, I simply choose to have a grateful heart. I am reminded of Meister Eckhart's often quoted saying: "if the only prayer you ever say is thank you, it would be enough." To begin and end every day with a grateful heart is a practice - and its fruits are a blessing. I went down t...

They say, you don't need much to be happy... They say, that happiness is a choice, or a state of mind or being, but I can't seem to wrap my mind around that today... In a few short hours, I will attend the wake of a young woman, a beloved former student, cut down in the prime of her youth, at the same time that I await to hear if a nephew will be hospitalized... And somehow, in my heart of hearts, I know that all these things are true - happiness is a choice - it comes from living more fully in the present and accepting all that is - as it is. And I know that it is gratitude that opens the door... I have tried to learn this lesson this year. I have tried to embody it - and yet it still eludes me. I know that illusion occludes this reality from being fully understood and embraced... I have walked this last week or so - listening to these lyrics by Mary Chapin Carpenter - hoping that every day, in every way, they become more firmly woven into the fabric of my life: Don’t need muc...