A Focus on Paradox in the New Year
Welcome to 2019! The year is less than a week old and already I’m encountering a paradox. Last Sunday I shared how I spent 2018 coming to terms with the continued shift in focus of my business—with less spiritual guidance and retreat leadership and more writing and...
Pausing in the Doorway
We stand at the threshold of another new year. The idea of going through a doorway into something new is a common, yet powerful, metaphor for change. A few days ago, a friend who was my parish priest in Silver City, Paul Moore, posted his reflection on being At the...
Advent Commitments: Letting Go of Expectations
Christmas is just a couple of days away. In fact, many of us will begin the celebration tomorrow evening. I have fond childhood memories of placing luminarias around our house and atop our adobe-style walls and rooftop on chilly winter afternoons. As the sun set each...
Advent Commitments: Letting Go of Results
As I mentioned in a post last spring, I have joined a small group of local spiritual leaders in a writers’ group. We applied for a grant, didn’t get it, and decided we would create the group anyway (we just wouldn’t get the chance for writers’ retreats and such). Over...
Advent Commitments: Letting Go of Control
Henry, my husband, first started getting directly involved in border ministry when we lived in Silver City, New Mexico. Then, and now, we live just a 90-minute drive from the border with Mexico. Henry has begun to volunteer his time, going down to Nogales (both the...
Advent Commitments: Letting Go of Frustration
I’ve made quite a few commitments on this blog over the years. I’ve committed to not eating sugar (that lasted almost three years). I’ve committed to creating a series of online retreats (there’s one up and active right now, with a dozen people signed up). I’ve taken...
My Sister’s Keeper: A Window on the Immigrant Reality
Last weekend, friends of mine came from the east coast to southern Arizona for the School of the Americas Watch Border Encuentro. Over three days and dozens of miles, hundreds of people gathered to witness against “border imperialism” and speak for the voiceless and...
NaNoWriMo and the Perspective of Others
Are you familiar with NaNoWriMo? It’s a virtual challenge group that encourages and supports people who want to write a 50,000-word novel over the course of the month of November. Last year, over 400,000 people around the world participated. It’s mindboggling! The...
On Civic Duty, “Politics,” and the Spiritual Life
Seldom do I struggle to write for this blog, but this week I have struggled. There’s a part of me that wants to reflect on the US midterm elections. There’s a part of me that wants to avoid writing on anything that sounds like politics—even if the focus is more on the...
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