Vacation Texts

Biblical verses to ponder on vacation:

Pico Iyer’s Journies To “Nowhere”

I was given a beautiful little book recently. It is really more an extended essay bound in hardcover and delightfully illustrated with enough space to embody the author’s thesis.

Children And Meditation #3 of 6

Here are two more skills that might encourage children we influence to adopt a meditation practice.

The Prayer of Silence

John O’Donohue in his book Eternal Echoes has some profound observations about the place of silence in the spiritual life and it relationship to the life of prayer.

Retreat from the Internet

As we prepare for a five night stay at Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey, I am preparing for one of the great crises of our monastic retreats.

Guadalupe Fall 2013 Themes #3 – Silence and Stillness

It is not that the monks of Our Lady of Gaudalupe never speak. They talk when necessary and, at times, even chat, or occasionally tell a joke.

Hurt

I have been thinking about hurt – not the hurt in my knee that is my faithful companion these days, but the more vague, unfocused, psychic emotional pain that grinds somewhere between my head and my gut. This is the hurt  I can carry for years. It is the hurt that can poison every hour of my day. It almost always relates to people.

The Value of Stillness

In his 2011 year-end article in the New York Times, Pico Iyer shares evidence of the disturbing impact technology is having in our culture.

“The Joy of Quiet” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=opinion

Responding To Life-Threatening Illness

He is facing a life-threatening illness. There is no point in pretending it is not true, no advantage to any pretense that I may not know or that he may not be aware that I know. We talk about the uncertainty, the possibility of pain, and the fear, not of death itself, but of the process of dying.

Good Works

Most people in the chronically over-active modern western world suffer from hurry sickness. We struggle under the paralyzing illusion that the meaning of life resides in packing more activities into each day. We believe that the more we get done, the more worthwhile we are as people.