Weekly Word

Grief is that slice of life that takes us beyond the boundaries of our mind and makes us see life anew again.

There are two ways to be holy.

Confucius may have said it best: “Everything has beauty,” he taught, “but not everyone sees it.” Seeing it, the spiritual person knows, is the task of a lifetime.

Of all the attitudes we bring to prayer, presence is at once one of the simplest and one of the most difficult.

Once upon a time, an ancient story tells, the main tributary of a mountain stream became polluted.

Once upon a time, there was an elder who was respected for his piety and virtue.

Once, a brother committed a sin in Scetis, and the elders assembled and sent for Abba Moses. He, however, did not want to go.

Amma Syncletica said, “Just as a treasure exposed is quickly spent, so also any virtue which becomes famous or well-publicized vanishes.

“O snail, climb Mount Fuji/ But slowly, slowly,” the haiku master Issa writes.

“Never, ever, throw anything in the water,” my father taught me when we were out fishing, pop bottles and sandwich wrappers all over the bottom of the little skiff.

The fact is that all the great spiritual models of the ages before us found themselves, at one point or another, plunged into doubt, into darkness, into the certainty of uncertainty: Augustin

Friendship is a holy thing, but it is not an easy thing. Love and friendship take us out of ourselves, yes. And that is certainly a good thing.

Unfortunately, the vision of Jesus the Prophet has become quite domesticated over the centuries.

Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time.

The nice thing about the human body is that it wears out. It wears down.