The Abbey is collecting collect prayers for our Election Day Vigil, and we would love one from YOU! Never written a collect? It's not difficult! You follow a prescribed pattern or formula to "collect" many aspects of prayer into one, short, poetic, offering. 1. Address God 2. Name an attribute…
By Rebecca Hall The landscape of the spiritual life is a series of peaks, valleys, and plateaus (not to mention other things like desert, wilderness, water, and sometimes milk and honey…). With the exception of crucifixion moments, the most difficult time for most of us is when we have to…
By Joyce Palevitz OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA 2:30 am. Dark. Dry desert air. We walked towards the yard where the camels were. I had been told that a Bedouin would take hold of my arm and use its circumference to select a camel that would be the right size for me.…
By Diane Davis On a couple of Zoom platforms from St. David’s lately, I have found myself uttering the phrase “the pandemic is my monastery.” It came to me after reading about a prisoner who said “the prison is my monastery,” and that got me thinking. Here’s what I mean…
By Irit Umani, Monday September 28 It is Yom Kippur day, 2020, and as I do each year, I use this sacred day to reflect and to commit. I woke up this morning and three words came to my mind. Courage, equanimity, compassion. The world is on fire. In California…
By Laura Hernandez Ehrisman I Go Down to the Shore I go down to the shore in the morningand depending on the hour the wavesare rolling in or moving out,and I say, oh, I am miserable,what shall—what should I do? And the sea saysin its lovely voice:Excuse me, I have…
By Sally Miller I inherited a Christmas tree skirt which was hand stitched by my mother in 1956. I know because she stitched her initials and date into the skirt. In 1956 I started kindergarten. The skirt was made of white wool felt. My mother embroidered 7 sequined poinsettias which…
By Janet Davis “Our job is to look (at our children) and say, “You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ... Brene Brown, TED talk: the Power of Vulnerability With nearly 50 million views since 2010, Brene Brown’s message…
Over the last year, I have learned that three practices help me to get unstuck: opening my mind and heart to God, being of service to others, and becoming more self-aware of the thoughts, emotions, and stories that drive me. Lately, I have been pondering about the third practice. In…
By: Doug Bell When I was a father of three young girls, they would ask me, “Daddy what is the purpose of life?” Why are we here on earth? I always said “we are here to love others and be loved. They accepted that, but I realized they wanted something…