Stranded on the Mainland: Inner Pilgrimage and Living Alone as a Spiritual Path:

Inspired for a particular reason I google--  What are the origins of my surname? Given my draw to and history with Northern and Southern beaches, I am delighted and sort of validated to discover my surname is  possibly derived from the word "beach."  It is also an Anglicized version of the Gaelic personal name meaning "life."   So now all those " Life's a Beach"  t-shirts I collected make more sense. That said, in this third week of Advent (joy) moving towards Love, I remember standing on a fragrant night beach in Mexico decades ago, and someone telling me,  "It is the Life that is important, Carolina."  It is only now I have words for the feeling and fragrance I breathed back then-- it was "radicalized presence." Next. When it comes to the uncertainty that lies ahead in 2025-- including where to go with my blog and faith, among other things, I think of lines in the poem  Little Gidding  by T.S. Eliot: " For last year's wor...

In this fourth week of Advent I am deep into shadow-work in our Falling Upward: Life as a Spiritual Journey course . That said, this morning I think I sort of solved the mystery of my many years stranded on the mainland. I couldn't leave the mainland without my shadow. And it couldn't leave the mainland without me. We had to leave together. This realization dawned on me during the final scene and accompanying song from one of my favourite British Tv shows,  Death in Paradise . Both scene and song brought closure to the end of my marriage. I'm still singing a line from the song in the last scene when the ferry pulls away from the island-- It's the morning of my life . Not a Christmas song, but I think it's close enough. It's only morning, and you've still to live your day! song morning of my life by john holt - Google Search Cb Amen

With Advent on the doorstep I want to share a short poem I wrote in our Falling Upward course with Fr. Richard Rohr (CAC Fall-Winter 2024). Today I put the star at the bottom of the Christmas tree. Is this hope-- Falling upward? For me, "trusting what is needed right now" is having the star at the bottom of my Christmas tree-- It's like hope has fallen this month with the result of the U.S. election but it's closer too. In feeling powerless to change anything happening in politics, family, and the whole wide world right now-- I feel a S ecret Garden kind of " agency, surrender, and embracing of life's unfolding journey " by moving my Christmas tree star to the bottom of the tree.  Amen! Someone observed this is "mystical hope." ... "Of course there must be lots of magic (and mystical hope!) in the world... but people don't know what it is like or how to make it.  Perhaps the beginning is to say nice things are going to happen until y...

Freedom has cut me loose in a way I did not expect.  The U.S. presidential election literally and instantly cured me of my cable news addiction, opening up more time and space for contemplation.   This makes me think of something Merton says about TV: "It could become an unnatural surrogate for contemplation and should be used with extreme care and discrimination by anyone who might hope to take interior life seriously." With that said, if Kamala Harris had won the presidential election, I would be glued to CNN (right now) watching every political moment play out... for potentially years to come.  But now that a result I absolutely do not want has been thrust on me, I wonder if it could be an invitation to let myself be led consciously into the second half of life?  (Falling Upward 2024). Next. A current guide writes something startling to me that I want to pass on.  I've edited the guide's reply so it speaks to the U.S. election result and not to a past pe...

For a week now I have tried to write something about the results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.  I've posted twice, deleted twice.  I can feel no peace or joy in anything I've written.  I only feel frustration, sadness, and disgust. I dig out my "go to" Merton book to look for a quote I'm thinking of: "If you write only for yourself you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead"   (New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton, 111). Appreciating some monastic drama and perspective:) Cb Amen

I want to end October 2024 on a hopeful note before the U.S. election next week. So "picture this"-- as one of the Golden Girls  used to say:   Ibrahim's Shawarma Place , October 30th 2024, it's a beautiful Fall day: I walk into my favourite shawarma place. There's a new woman behind the counter cooking. Arabic's her first language, English is mine. We're trying to have a conversation with each other. We're not having much luck with words, but we're smiling. I learn she is from Algiers and speaks French. To my surprise I start speaking to her in French-- I thought I'd forgotten all my French. Who thought an Arabic and English-speaking woman would be able to communicate because each of them shared a common foreign language? Now here I am at Ibrahim's speaking French not " parfaitmently"  but confidently and joyfully!! And momentarily feeling better understood by this woman than my own kin. She passes me my  piquant   poulet  shawar...

A few days ago I  did a double take to see the  Benedictine Sisters of Erie PA  and their monastery on CNN.  I've been to this monastery.  So it blew me away to see (now prioress) Stephanie Schmidt being interviewed by a CNN reporter on claims of voter fraud against her community. How can I ever regret all the places my religious life search has taken me? Including to places like Erie PA-- where sister Stephanie loaned me one of her own t-shirts so I could go swimming.  I don't remember St. Benedict's Rules for monastic life, I remember the t-shirt.     What will I remember from the 2024 U.S. election? What will others remember? And how will it all turn out? "But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting." --T.S. Eliot Cb Amen

Liz Cheney said something to republicans gathered in Michigan yesterday that I hope catches fire in the next couple of weeks.  I'm paraphrasing here:  "You can be a conscientious objector-- you don't have to let your friends, family, and colleagues know that you're voting for a Democrat."   Hint Hint republican party (I feel Cheney saying)-- you can shut down Donald Trump in secret! Which makes me think of the bible verse, "Whenever you pray (vote), go into your room and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:5-13) My prayer in this political-vigil time before the U.S. election in November is that a whole bunch of republicans (and new wave of young men) will vote in secret for Kamala, propelling democrats to a victory that will bless us all. I make the same prayer for the upcoming Canadian national election.  Maybe we don't throw out a prime minister a whole bunch of Canadians might be se...

Today I want to share a poem I wrote after shopping for Thanksgiving supplies this weekend; a shopping trip which first involved making my way through a new maze of construction pylons, dust and trucks to catch the 54 bus to the grocery store.  While navigating through noise and traffic chaos, a line in an Emily Dickenson poem comes to me: " whistling past the graveyard "-- I add, and whistling by climate change. Next. I wonder how much Co2 is emitted at just this one intersection in Toronto?  A new poem of my own begins: Whistling past the graveyard of climate change-- What doesn't want to be heard in the silence ? Maybe that it's 75 warm degrees in October-- In the northern hemisphere. I think of the looming election south of the border. Long gone are the suffragettes who won the right vote. We'll see if they can ever win the U.S. presidency? (pause, deep breath) I chat with a young woman cashier  at the local grocery store-- She tells me she's training to b...

Reflecting on  Turning to the Mystics with Jim Finley, Season 10, T.S. Eliot: Dialogue 2: East Coker, October 7, 2024: T.S. Eliot's East Coker poem is about a town. Parry Sound-- where my parents live is a town. It strikes me T.S. Eliot's town  East Coker  could be the town of Parry Sound . A memory surfaces while I'm listening to Turning to the Mystics : I'm in my grandmother's dining room in Parry Sound in awe of seeing the huge velvet tapestry of the Last Supper  (or maybe it was of the Wise Men and Camels?) hanging on the wall. Anyway, reflecting on T.S. Eliot's East Coker poem, Finley explains that tapestries were hung to cover alcoves in houses in Eliot's time. What secret alcove does my grandmother's tapestry cover today? Maybe like the people in Eliot's poem who are dead now, the tapestry covers all my dead relatives who sat around my grandmother's table?  And like the disciples at the Last Supper, maybe it covers the table we ate at, fou...

This Sunday I'm thinking of the beautiful movie The Way with Martin Sheen. Specifically the scene near the end of the movie when the pilgrims (before entering the church) put their hand into what is said to be the imprint of St. James the apostle's hand. This said, I place a journal on a bookcase near the (entrance) front door of my apartment.  On the cover of the journal is written  The Best is Still to Come .  Now when I pass the bookcase I place my hand on top of the journal repeating the words on it's cover-- The Best is Still to Come . Around the same time as I make the connection between The Way and my journal on the book case near my front door, I have a session with my spiritual director:  We talk about being "ghosted"-- emails blocked, ignored, that kind of thing.  This leads to a rich conversation about how Jewish people of the old testament must have felt ghosted by God (exiled, years spent wandering in the desert with no answer from God). Continuin...

It strikes me I've been a sojourner with the Sisters of Life. What is a sojourner?  A pilgrim, a refugee, a child (born and unborn), a traumatized person, a grieving person? A sojourner is described as,  "a person residing in a land temporarily without the full rights and privileges of a citizen.  The idea of hospitality towards sojourner's is emphasized throughout the old testament, and it is a moral obligation for God's people to be kind and generous towards them.  Sojourners are often portrayed as people who are living in a land that is not their own and are, searching for a permanent home" (Bing) . I wonder if as much as we think we find "home" in a person, place, family or community-- we do not?  And if as much as we think we are a just a "sojourner" we are discovering a permanent home within?  I think this may be so? Next.  With abortion being a major political issue in the 2024 U.S. election, I'm thinking of my sojourner relationship...

Tonight I listened to  Turning to the Mystics W ith Jim Finley, Season 10, T.S. Eliot, Session 1. Afterwards, I knew I had to un-delete my last post. Thank you Jim-- I am in awe of this session, it's timing and effect on my heart.  Gratitude and love won-out over fear and doubt, amen. Here is the post I deleted reposted below: BEFORE I reflect again on the presidential debate between Harris and Trump this week, I stop and watch my fur baby:  She has just finished her breakfast, she's leaning up against the balcony screen door, a breeze is blowing soft curtain scarves back-and-forth close to her.  Undisturbed-- she licks a paw/cleans her whiskers... licks a paw/cleans her whiskers. That said, in the days leading up to the Presidential Debate between Harris and Trump this week,  I began to fear what might happen to Harris at the hands of Trump-- I feared to the point of becoming overwhelmed by memories of men with power-- my father, political and governm...

"For me, the poems arrive with their wisdom.  I retrieve them, and they become my teachers" (Mark Nepo). So all those poems I wrote-- They are my teachers, and I am their assistant? Fast forward: In the middle of composing an email to my mother, I struggle saying it's not okay how you speak to me, My laptop freezes. I'm seized with fear. Lord, don't let my computer be broken. I press escape, ctrl/alt/delete. I perform a forced shutdown. Have I done these things with myself? With my mother? Nothing works. I accept I may not be able to fix it. So I take a break and stop trying. After some time it unfreezes. The message "restore pages" appears. Now my cursor starts moving-- a knight in shining armor, riding across my screen. The email I was writing to my mother -- It doesn't seem so important anymore . I know this is Grace-- an email  becoming a poem. Cb Amen

"I have journaled for my whole life" Mark Nepo. After a tough week nine in our  Divine Exchange Wisdom School course (CAC), I discovered a teacher I didn't even know I'd been waiting for-- Mark Nepo; poet, philosopher, author. He explained my journaling poet self to me-- from the single digit numbers to now. What a joy to be explained rightly, kindly. When the student is ready, my God how the teachers they pour in. I'm also re-reading the book T he Secret Life of Bees this summer. Ah. Don't close a heart-- Re-read it. Cb Amen  MARK NEPO: How to Journal to Find Yourself & to Find God | As Seen on Oprah Super Soul Sunday (youtube.com)

"We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks; your name is near.  People tell of your wondrous deeds.  At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity.  When the earth totters, with all its inhabitants, it is I who keep it's pillars steady" (Psalm 75:1-3). I heard somewhere that, "Something can be real without it being true."  I watch with others while this plays out in the "tottering" world of politics. That said, Jesus did not say, "I am reality." He said, "I am the Truth." He did not say, "I am the right or the left." He said, "I am the Way and the Light." He did not say, "You are with-me or against-me."  Well actually he did, but we know Jesus grew and learned while on earth.  Later Jesus actions show him transcending "with-me or against-me" thinking. Is this where we are now?  Are we at that same "with-me or against-me" place of human transcendence? If so, "Then he...

It was hard to watch Joe Biden struggle during the first U.S. presidential debate. That said, I think president Joe Biden can still win the election in November. But how does he do it now?  He retires citing health reasons (like Pope Benedict XVI).  Biden makes history by clearing the way for a woman to become the first president of the United States. Next.  I don't know American politics well enough to know if this action would automatically make Kamala Harris the democratic nominee too?  Probably not?  But if she were somehow to become the democratic nominee, she likely wins an overwhelming majority of all shades of women's votes, which is half the population of America.  With the women's votes alone, Harris is poised to win the election (I still can't believe Trump beat her). Now fast forward to the second presidential debate.  Imagine it not being between Biden and Trump, but Harris and Trump.  What would that debate stage look like?  Wou...

We had our community BBQ last week. I close my eyes recalling the BBQ: It's hot, humid, with some breeze. I have joined two older neighbours sitting in their camping chairs, under the trees-- near the rosebushes. I'm sitting in a scarred, green balcony chair (I brought my own chair this time). Could it be why I feel so comfortable in this large group? I'm remembering a Franciscan Poor Clare nun in B.C. who told me-- that, one day, I would find the right rocking chair, my own rocking chair.  Not in a million years did I ever imagine it would be a plastic  Canadian Tire balcony chair.  But that's exactly what it is.   I think of what prompted my journey to the Franciscan monastery in B.C. in the mid-2010's. I think of the circumstance that brought me to here -- to the corner of Warden and Lawrence in Scarborough. It hits me:  THIS is what Love not trauma has done to me. "There are times in our lives when we have to realize our past is precisely w...

In my last post I borrowed Ruth Burrows' phrase "coming to grips with" to describe what it's been like working out my writer's call to a solitary vocation. And it is that. And it's also like contemplative hitch-hiking. Stay with me! This summer I'm enrolled in a course called The Divine Exchange .  The course is part of a wisdom school connected with the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. You might say I hitch-hiked (online!) to Albuquerque; as to the details of the trip, I'll leave them between me and my journal. Except to share the first question we were asked in week one, "How does it feel being in a wisdom school?" Here is my response: It feels like listening to The Eagles .  I get a peaceful easy feeling - I picture a million stars all around.  And in my head I edit a line from another Eagles song:  "It's a girl, (it's Wisdom!) my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford slowing down to take a look at me."   I guess wha...

Morning Lectio:  Essence of Prayer  by Ruth Burrows: (Chapter Two Growth in Prayer) "As soon as we talk or write about prayer and growth in prayer we are faced with huge difficulties. We are talking and writing, not merely about the deepest thing in human life, but about its very essence, about the mystery of God him-self.  We are daring to use terms such as 'intimacy' and 'friendship' since it is beyond doubt, for the believer, that this is to what we are called." (11) That said, "it is not easy to speak properly of a deep human relationship: how much more so when one of the partners is God." (13) "I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart" (Psalm 40:8). Cb Amen 💕 unsplash

In my last post I blogged about finding a book I'd misplaced for months called,  Essence of Prayer , written by the Carmelite nun Ruth Burrows.  Since finding the book I've been turning to it for morning lectio divina. This morning I opened to chapter three, Faith, Trust, Surrender to God: This is Prayer. I do not get beyond the first line of my lectio reading before something jumps out at me and I stop, "For Christians, those who claim Jesus as their Way, Truth and Life... "  (27). I stop reading here because it strikes me, "Do I really claim Jesus for myself as the Way, Truth and Life?" I put the book face-down on my lap for a moment, then pick it up again and move on: I read, "The surest help we can give to ourselves and others is to exhort them to an ardent coming to grips with Jesus in the New Testament so as to 'get God right' and the constant plea for greater faith.  Nothing else is needed"  (28). If nothing else is needed, then this...

This lecture by Thomas Merton given to monks in 1967 could have been given today.  I've put a link for the lecture at the bottom of this post. I stop in my tracks hearing Merton say, "It's not contempt for what's in the world, but our contempt for what isn't there."   Or something to that effect.   Do I have contempt for love? Did I develop a contempt for love after many accumulated disappointments? On some unconscious level I think I must have.  That said, I like this Wikipedia definition, "Disappointment is the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations or hopes to manifest.  Disappointment is normally a drain on our emotional energy, but it is possible to switch some disappointments around (metanoia) and turn them into sources of energy."  I'm thinking of the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13).  Lord, help me turn this and other disappointments into refurbished sources of energy, while remembering I am not alone. On a last no...

A butterfly flaps it's wings in Mexico (or Spain!) and the spiritual weather changes at home. I think of St. Teresa of Avila's Prayer of Quiet . I find quotes underlined in Teresa's book,  The Way of Perfection  (book Carlos from Our Lady of Lourdes gave me).  The quotes help me understand. St. Teresa writes, "This prayer is something supernatural, something we cannot procure through our own efforts." Teresa continues explaining the Prayer of Quiet : "We can neither bring it about nor remove it; we can only receive it with gratitude, as most unworthy of it; and this not with many words, but by raising our eyes to him, as the publican did." I think when Teresa says "unworthy" in her 16th century language, I might say "trauma," you might say something else.  Maybe addiction, disability, culture, age, illness, etc. I think I will leave it at that and to the changing weather-- To the cocoon and the butterfly! And THAT'S how a mystic ...

This Lent I journeyed (and am still journeying) with more than 80 people through St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle (CAC course, Feb. 2024).  There have been unexpected graces received, also "reptiles and inquisitors" encountered along the way. I can't help wondering if St. Teresa's 16th century "reptiles and inquisitors" have morphed into modern-day narcissists?  For those of us with a history of trauma, narcissists can be triggering, whether encountered in our interior castle, or exteriorly as we try to navigate our everyday lives. That said, at the end of this post I will share a helpful video from a podcast called, Surviving Narcissism .  The video is by Dr. Les Carter and reminds me of the "reptiles and inquisitors" connected with St. Teresa's 7 mansions, especially the early ones. On a last pilgrim note, the video supports the spiritual notion that as we progress through St. Teresa's mansions (on the way to the Beloved) the ...

This Lent I'm trying to give up who I thought I was, and who I thought they were. Makes me think of Joni Mitchell's song, Both Sides Now . How she sings, "Something's lost and something's gained"-- And I chime in! In every footprint in the sand, In every gust of the one same wind . In every loss, In every step, In every lose, In every win, A journey begins. "Something's lost and something's gained-- in living every day." And it's hard to do, Until it isn't. Below is a link for a remastered version of Both Sides Now . https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=yXr2EFomFkU .   Cb Amen    

"The desert is not for everyone," I heard it said. If it is not for you — you are not alone. If it is for you — you are not alone too. In the desert, what Ruth Burrows describes below, can suddenly (or slowly) happen: "The certainty that one can never go back, that one is safe forever; in a very real sense the goal is reached... . There is still work to be done, but it is not a question of striving, for the struggle is over." (Guidelines for Mystical Prayer, 147) Maybe this is the mystical stage of acceptance? Cb Amen  

To expand on the autobiographical Fairy Tale I alluded to in my last post:  I began the Fairy Tale by saying that the main character hated going to sleep because she never had any big dreams.  I didn't know what I meant by this in 1995, and in fact, for many years afterwards.  The reason being, sometimes poets (and, Fairy Tale writers) don't know what they're saying, it comes through them.  It is in this way I feel they are writing an inner mystery, and being given one to solve. Next. After years of carrying the above Fairy Tale in my heart, I had an important insight:  The main character didn't hate going to sleep because she never had any big dreams, but because she had bad dreams.  She (I) had (and still have) horrible nightmares connected to narcissistic abuse and post traumatic stress.  Writing a Fairy Tale was how my psyche protected me.  On a lighter note, it was making lemonade out of lemons. Speaking of making lemonade out of lemons, I w...

Once I wrote an autobiographical Fairy Tale about a young girl who travelled to the end of the world in search of the Feminine face of God. Now, almost thirty years later, I can tell the young girl in that Fairy Tale, "failure is part of the search for God."  I can tell her that past failures (hers or anyone elses) will not have the last word.  I can tell her she is a contemplative on a beautiful and difficult path.  I can tell her I am in awe of her courage and strength. And I can share below a reassuring teaching from Martin Laird, OSA: "It is not uncommon to find people with very sensitive consciences and who seem to have a certain attraction, even aptitude, for the contemplative path, but who cannot come to terms with things that have happened in their past. Not only can they not accept divine forgiveness, they cannot forgive themselves.  Consequently their self-esteem is too low to accept the fact that failure is part of the search for God.  As Eckhar...

"Until God intervenes mystically, that is until God creates God's own secret route into the self, we can go no further." Ruth Burrows, Guidelines for Mystical Prayer, 17 . I think God also intervenes mystically, afterwards, to protect that new secret route!   "And then they left for their own country by another road. " Matthew 2:12. Amen

"If you had to shed all but one image of God, which would you choose?  How would you react if you were then asked to cast aside even it? Do you trust God enough to carry you beyond the limitations of human language? Beyond the confines of all human knowledge? Beyond life and death itself? Do you trust God enough to carry you in the midst of darkness, to the peace of the traveller's rest? (Dennis Billy, Under the Starry Night, 1997, 154)

 "In returning to God and to ourselves, we have to begin with what we actually are.  We have to start from our alienated condition.  We are prodigals in a distant country, the "region of unlikeness," and we must seem to travel far in that region before we seem to reach our own land (and yet secretly we are in our own land all the time!)"  Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 2007, p280-281 . Next.  This return is a meeting, a reckoning, a contradiction. On that note, "The times when we meet or reckon (*or sing!) with our contradictions are often turning points, opportunities to enter into the deeper mystery of God." (CAC Daily Meditations, 2024-01-19). Let The River Run!   https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=EgPRwL6SRGU    Cb Amen   *Italics mine    

SAD. What if it's not a disorder but an opportunity to surrender to the light within? John 1:5: "A light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." 7 Lightbulb Realizations After Narcissistic Discard: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=fSIIEyHUfKo  I want to (want to) lose. "Love must be willing to lose." The Desert Monks  

 We have important elections coming up in 2024/25.  That said, I want to share a poem that speaks to the dangerous political situation in the United States right now.  Then I will give a suggestion for something we can do to make it safer. First the poem, by Hafiz: DROPPING KEYS: The small man Builds cages for everyone He Knows. While the sage, Who has to duck his head When the moon is low, Keeps dropping keys all night long For the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners. (The Gift)   LORD let a strong majority of Americans not fall for the small man running for president in 2024, but for the sage.  Let Canadians take care too, we have a National Election on the horizon, and a similar situation. Lastly, a tip:  Educate yourself about DARVO (if you haven't already).  Apply it like you would mosquito repellent in the woods in summer.  Seek to educate others in your circles who don't know about DARVO.  I will re-post a related link below.  DARVO is addr...