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

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