Naming the Spiritual

Unorthodox perspectives of realistic faith.

Presence in Creation

Silken Tide

“The ebb and flow of Presence is too gentle, too soft, to intrude upon our noises and plans. It slips in and out of the lagoons of morning light as a silken tide.”

Breeze of Mystery

“Pure poetry, of course we need pure poetry. To capture the Mystery prose cannot suffice.”

At the Ranch

“One of the two big black horses was nuzzling the little pigs this morning, on and on before he knew I was watching, licking and grooming, the two little pigs together.”

Frantic

“The robin parents frantically cheep and cheep, or should I say cry and cry?”

Deer and Coyotes

“Deer stand on the trail above the gamboling coyote pups in the valley, a mother and yearling deer maybe.”

Hillside

“So beautiful, this simple hillside. So beautiful in peace and momentary safety.”

Alternative Path Home

“So upset is that little squirrel on the utility pole.”

Flightless Souls on Walkabout

“At the pond, post sunrise, the three Marx brothers ducks at my feet.”

Recognizing Beauty

“The creek is running! Barely, but running! Thank You, thank You, thank You for this symbol of the inexorable return of Life in spite of our destructiveness.”

Seeing Through Our Dreams and Scars

“What would I see? I’m not asking to see anymore. I will see what I’m supposed to see. I see blessings.”

Small World

“The world looks small this morning, the thinness of the atmosphere somehow evident, the rippling geology only a thin crust, the burgeoning population compressed into an acutely finite area.”

Intention of Attention

“Glorious. Critical angle sun spotlights the willows on the opposite side of the pond. The ducks’ iridescent green heads shimmer in the low-angle sun.”

Stillness

Stop for a Moment

“There is good reason mystics seclude themselves in monastic retreats.”

Currency of the Soul

“Shadows race down the hill toward our lives, making it all the more imperative to soak up the sunshine.”

Faith by name: prayer, scripture, angels

Question Revealing Truth

“Each experiences the Christos by the name they were taught.”

Accept What You Want

“Why do we not get answers? Why do we have to invest time in contemplative prayer if we want a little conscious experience of Communion with God?”

Personalized Scripture

“I think back on this week’s Lectionary study group meeting.”

Boring Angels

“Relationships with angels lack reciprocity. You cannot help the angel.”

Conversation with an angel

““Fear not” is the most common admonition/directive/command in the Bible, appearing dozens of times, by some counts more than a hundred.”

Defiant faith

Temporally Senseless

“Maybe after recent thefts I better understand Yeshu (Jesus) saying “the guy takes your cloak, give him your coat too”.”

Our Ancient Birth

“I call this temporal world the place of our spiritual birth and the time of our Choice.”

Defiant-Subversive-Seditious Christmas

“Christmas carols at Lessons and Carols! How I love singing those traditional religious carols!”

Palm Sunday Anti-Climax

“The world can’t help but notice the Christ, and aspects of the Christ, in whatever loving form they may appear.”

Do Not Cling to the Light

“Stay, stay in place for a moment, hold your ground as long as you dare.”

Powerless Triumph

“We will never lack for kings and queens, by whatever title.”

Following the Unseeable

“There are always ways to give. There are always ways to give more.”

Indefensible Hope

“Take heart. Take no faith in this world, but take heart in its moments of beauty.”

Reality’s Lessons

The Death of Personal Growth

“But personal growth requires change, and change is a form of death of our existing self.”

Successful Disaster

“Worldly disasters entangled with spiritual miracles….that’s about the best you can hope for in following the Spirit and Purpose.”

Life Adrift or Navigating Life

“As we go through life the shallow waters of a familiar lagoon seem safe and pretty and warm.”

Heart Blindness

“Such madness besets this poor blinded humanity! Dear God, such madness!”

Collapse of Worldly Wisdom

“In moments of fear and panic and distress our worldly wisdom breaks down and we are left without a clear course of action.”

Did We Love?

“We each leave our legacy, whether an empty and unnoticed void or a towering chrome and steel corporation.”

Role of a Life in the Purpose of Life

“How are we to understand our roles in the unfolding Purpose and ongoing Creation?”

From the Garden to Home

Knowledge of Good and Evil

“To have profound knowledge of good and evil you must be inescapably trapped in a situation out of your control.”

Would We Miss Death

“What would we do without the immense overhead of our physical maintenance?”

Terrifying Passage from the Garden to the Kin'dom

“Imagine what existence would be like without fear and pain.”

Ontological Meaning of Salvation

“In this life we are forming as individual and unique identities.”

Heaven With a Little Help From Me Friends

“Joe Cocker, dead?! That is of course preposterous. Surely it is time to dispel this cruel illusion of death.”

Inexorable Life

“Ultimately, what is Life? Life is the creation of our essence, we the children of God.”

Love Out of Madness

The Scrum of Perfection

“Life is a scrum, an unfair – odds stacked – guaranteed to lose – struggle….and from the grime and blood and dung arise the Light of Beauty and glimpses of Love.”

Ghost of Perfection

“What new can be said? What new can possibly be said?”

Beauty in the Madness

“On a recent sunrise contemplative walk, I experienced a most curious peaceful insight.”

Combat and Compassion

“People are generally as programmed in their behavior as any cat or dog.”

Conveniently Rational Munitions

“The world, unremittingly harsh. The world, unchangeable.”

Faith Madness

“Living in faith means of necessity living in contradiction to the world.”

Fledging

“This world is merely a launching point. To understand the Purpose and Reality of the stew while just looking at the iron pot is impossible.”

Storm of Creation

“Let the thunder into your life, let its peels of threat shake your soul.”

Apprenticed to God

“Oh, to not be productive, to be liberated from the need to be productive!”

Consciousness

Unlocked Door of our Solitary Confinement

“Where am I in all this writing? I fear I am at the center.”

You Will Be Touched

“The human spirit, or is it soul, or do we have no name for it, something individual, something lost, or was it forgotten?”

Stream of Consciousness

“There is of course only consciousness.”

Overlapping Projections of Gods

“In that place of Light, each individual conscious being projects a soft reality, strong but flexible, without the cutting, sharp, jagged edges of the clashing, conflicting, colliding individual realities of this world.”

Pachinko Minds

“Our minds rattle through their pachinko (a Japanese vertical pinball game) path of development, bouncing this way and that.”