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

I study the two images below: In one I see my brother and me in white, and my two nephews in red and gray t-shirts. I see us all at a certain point in time (Irish-time can be sort of fluid). When this picture was taken, I had just come back from a 'come-and-see' with the Benedictine Sisters of Erie PA and I was still working as a social worker in Downtown Toronto…  I return to the family reunion photo and look deeper: I see the people who aren't there. It's complicated. With the Irish Wishing Tree in mind, I fold an 8X10 black and white photo copy of the family reunion photo into smaller-and-smaller squares. I say a prayer and carefully tuck the folded photo copy into the ivy vines wrapped around my balcony railing. It's not an Irish Wishing Tree , but it's close enough. I think of Major Mark Hall saying in church that, "Satan attacks us through family, church, and our testimony." This resonates. I am told the answer to my worry about family is  1 Jo...

This Victoria Day long weekend, I want to share a video that's been tucked inside my Irish heart for awhile now. Bing Videos Cb Amen

The fifth Sunday of Easter: So I take a few old family photos out of storage and place them around my apartment. The family is still seemingly permanently estranged, but I still have some power here. I can take them out of storage. I am struck by one photo in particular of us all gathered up north for Thanksgiving in the early 1990's. Looking at the photo now, all these years later, I think of a  Star Trek  episode where the  Traveler and Wesley Crusher characters are having a conversation in front of a group of warring people on another planet. The scene is paused-- the weapons frozen in their hands. I feel something like that happening now, in the spiritual realm of relationship with my family. Something is changing. What comes next (what I see in the photo) is truly hard to put into words: I see the family sitting at the Thanksgiving table up north… What strikes me the most, is the 'eye-contact' between  me in the photo then, and  me  pondering the ph...

Big storm's moving in. A horn honks. A bird caws. His crucifixion's far away, and closer today … a siren,  a mass notification. Tires on wet pavement, another horn honks, another bird caws-- we stand by and wait. Cb Amen

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unsplash for Gabbie+ Happy Valentine's Day! I know you love hearts!

Today I want to share three anti-ICE songs that are being passed around in my CAC Tears of Things community. Two are from the RagingGrannies, one from a new (to me) American folksinger Jessie Wells. All are humourous, prophetic, and inspiring. All are bravely staring down systemic evil. I'm going to go out on a limb and say these are also good Lenten songs. Enjoy! Join ICE   Bing Videos We Gotta Stop the Raids Hit the Road ICE . Bing Videos   Cb Amen

Heavy snow is falling again today. I skip ahead to this week's CAC Living School's reading assignment in  Falling Upward by Richard Rohr : I discover another reading in this week's module:  What Our Seasons Teach Us,  by Kaitlin Curtice. Paraphrasing Curtice, I imagine making snow angels with "my child self; my 15 year old self; my 20 year old self; my 30 year old self; my 40 year and fifty year old self-- and my self two months ago." I am blown away to read … "the relationship I have to my past selves who are all, somehow, still me." — Kaitlin Curtice. Thank you Kaitlin Cb Amen  

I have been listening to Julian of Norwich's book, Revelations of Divine Love . With talk south of the border about conquering Greenland, I am filled with anxiety and anger. It reminds me of some family members, bosses, colleagues, and coworkers-- how I waited for the hammer to drop when there was an issue. I need to remember (even if I don't quite believe it right now) that love and not power conquers all. And I can know that when God made me he didn't fill me with anxiety and anger. He filled me with love. FULL STOP. Continuing. Usually when I'm triggered like this (and threats to take Greenland have triggered me) I can say to myself: "breathe Carolyn, the same thing isn't happening now, it's just a memory-- granted a very bad one. Those who hurt you are not here, that predator boss and mean coworker aren't here either-- they can't hurt or bully you. Your home is secure, you are safe." But the frightening thing is it IS happening now. I turn ...

An old life sort of flashes before my eyes while I'm watching New Year's Eve festivities from Harbourfront on CP24. Harbourfront is where I lived in my thirties; it's where I was a wife, did a Jungian analysis, wrote a fairytale, and it's where my marriage ended. The fireworks tonight bring it all back. I pick up Merton's  New Seeds of Contemplation  again. Randomly I open to page eighty-one: "You should be able to untether yourself from the world and set yourself free, loosing all the fine strings and strands of tension that bind you, by sight, by sound, by thought, to the presence of other men." And, "Once you have found such a place, be content with it, and do not be disturbed if a good reason takes you out of it. Love it, and return to it as soon as you can, and do not be too quick to change it for another." Continuing. I think about how I didn't go to my former downtown Toronto parish this Christmas (haven't for a few years). But the...