I’m enjoying a few days of quiet downtime before my life picks up speed on Monday. That’s the day I officially step out of retirement and take up the mantle of being a pastor again (for the next three months). I’m actually excited for the challenge, but just for...
17 days ago I drove away from my home in Colorado and headed west. I was embarking on a new adventure. Beginning on August 15th I will be stepping out of retirement and back into the pulpit for three months. The destination was Spokane, but I decided to take the...
In the Dances of Universal Peace we sing and dance sacred phrases from the faith traditions of the world. And because the original inspiration for the Dances was the Sufi tradition, many of those sacred phrases are in Arabic. One of my favorites is “La Ilaha...
In college I had a crush on Olivia Newton John. (I’m pretty sure I was not alone in that regard.) Having a crush is an odd sort of phenomenon. You don’t actually have to know someone to have a crush on them. In fact, it probably helps if you don’t know them. And...
I recently spent a week at a Dances of Universal Peace camp with friends old and new. We sing and dance sacred songs from all of the world’s major faith traditions. It is a profoundly powerful experience. Because of Covid, it had been two and a half years since the...
I like to walk! And I walk a lot! One of the gifts of being retired is the freedom to spend lots of time walking. I usually walk four miles in the mornings before the sun comes up. Which means that over the last year I have probably walked about 1,000 miles. When I did that bit of mental calculation this morning it left me a bit stunned. It really is a powerful experience to just be present in the moment, putting one foot in front of the other and seeing where you end up.
When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts...
525,600 minutes 525,000 moments so dear 525,600 minutes How do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife In 525,600 minutes How do you measure a year in the...
Today on my morning walk I saw four of our five planetary neighbors that are currently hanging in the eastern sky like diamonds on a string - Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus (plus the waning moon standing in for Earth) all in order. Mercury was hiding down near...
On a recent "Morning Edition" on NPR they played an "Audio Postcard" from Brian Mann ("Spending a day on a forest path in the Silh River valley" - Click Here to listen) It was a beautifully edited piece that offered a lovely walk in the woods of Switzerland. I...