Reflections
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One dark night, kindled in love with yearnings
I like to pray outside. It’s been a challenge when the temperature has been in the twenties, and the ‘feels like’ is 14 degrees! I’ve been starting a fire. Since my feet were the only thing getting warm, it’s been my “dark night of the sole”. In all seriousness, “One dark night, kindled in love with yearnings” is the opening stanza of Saint John of the Cross’s masterpiece, Dark Night of the Soul. In it, the saint provides a beautiful metaphor for divine healing. It’s like a fire that transforms a log of wood. He says the transformation takes place in several stages. First, the fire forces out the moisture. …
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Discovering A New Chapel of Ease in 2025
Jesus said, “When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.” (Mt 6:6) I wonder. As Jesus and his disciples traveled through the Judean countryside, where were they going to find this room? It’s not a stretch to think that the inner room Jesus mentions is not a particular prayer spot, but somewhere deep within our heart where God abides, that place Teresa of Avila calls our interior castle. I recalled a recent trip to Saint Helena’s Island, near Beaufort, SC. I visited the ruins of a Chapel of Ease. Chaples of Ease were built so people in remote locations would have…
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Focus on the Now, not the Next
When my son was in fifth grade, I joined his class on a field trip to the Biltmore House. It’s a mansion in Asheville with over two hundred rooms. In the months before Christmas, they elaborately decorate the rooms with poinsettias, Christmas trees, ornaments, and garlands. I was assigned a group of six boys to chaperone, including my son. With boys that age, however, I had no time to ponder the impressive decorations in each room. The boys would enter a room, hastily look around, and then race to the next room at the first opportunity. It became a competition to see who would be the first to see something…
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Not this way or that, but something much better
“I have two possible job offers,” a man sprung on me as we met for spiritual direction. “One has a longer commute. The other requires more travel. Both reduce the time I can pray and spend with my wife.” As his spiritual director, neither sounded appealing to me. After a deeper exploration, he saw the fear behind his urgent desire to switch jobs. His industry had certain expectations for career advancement, and he feared that if he didn’t jump ship, the technology would pass him by. In the end, he decided to stay put. Months later, God laid out a completely unexpected trajectory for his life and moved him to…
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Advent: A Time to See the Incredible in the Ordinary
Advent is a time to lose our skepticism and see ‘incredible things’ every day.
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How to change regular waiting into holy waiting
I volunteer as a case manager at a Strong Life Rescue Mission one day a week. The non-profit assists the homeless with their basic needs. One of my assignments is to help them acquire proper identification and a social security card. These are often the first steps to help a person transition from homelessness into a job and ultimately find adequate housing. As such, I frequent the DMV and the Social Security offices, two governmental agencies synonymous with long waits. I sometimes wait for an hour or more. The check-in process is modernized but still involves lining up to get a number, watching the screen, and anxiously waiting for your number…
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How to prevent spiritual erosion during the holidays
I’m spending the week on the coast of North Carolina with my family for Thanksgiving. I love being with friends and family, but it takes its toll on my spiritual life. It’s hard to maintain my normal rhythm of prayer and meditation. I hear many who meet with me for spiritual direction say the same. This week will be especially challenging. In our travels, I’ll be sleeping in three different locations. On my first walk down the beach, I saw sand fences. They are built to prevent erosion of the sand dunes. As I considered the week ahead, I realized that I might need some spiritual ‘sand fencing’ to avoid the…
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How to steal the heart of Jesus
I saw an interesting tree on my hike around Lake Norman State Park. A portion of the tree was growing horizontally, about eye level, probably bent over as a sapling by a fallen tree, now long gone. It provided a perfect woodsy billboard for someone to carve, “He stole my heart.” This is a term of deep affection. The ‘thief’ has caused another to fall madly in love with him. In the beautiful love story described in the Song of Songs, the term comes up again: You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eye. (Song of Songs, 4:9, NIV)…
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An unusual scripture to find hope
What’s the point of apocalyptic writings? To give hope. It is specially written to provide hope to people undergoing some trial. Apocalyptic language is written for the dispossessed, the oppressed, the persecuted, the suffering, the people crying out for relief. There are two hopes – one future hope and one present hope.
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Extending God’s Care to the One in Charge
Last week at the Lanteri Center for Ignatian Spirituality I completed training to learn how to be a supervisor of spiritual directors. In spiritual direction, a supervisor is not what you might think, i.e. a ‘boss’ to oversee and critique the spiritual director. The supervisor is more like another spiritual director, there to help the actual spiritual director explore and deepen his or her awareness of God during a particular spiritual direction session. Having a supervisor is a ‘best practice’ for all spiritual directors. In the opening remarks, the instructor said something that stuck with me, not only as a spiritual director but as one who spends a lot of…
