I believe in laughter in the rain.
I believe in the first soft footfall and the thud of jellybean legs flailing as a child learns to walk.
I believe in open arms; the entreaties of encouragement that are the refrains of a lifetime; the open arms of acceptance and welcome and refuge.
I believe God is, was and will be.
The ‘gold-standards’ of power, perfection and privilege, which dominated Greco-Roman society, continue to capture us, writes poet and scholar the Rev’d Dr Mark S. Burrows.* But Christianity, he says, is a radical rejection of this ‘false gospel’, believing that true strength and freedom lie not in naked self-interest, but in the ‘weakness’ of compassion and putting others’ interests before our own.
Bird watching is akin to praying. Or, more precisely, bird waiting is an act of contemplative prayer. The Welsh poet and Anglican priest R.S. Thomas, who lived by the sea in North Wales, was a passionate bird watcher. His poem ‘Sea-Watching’ (below) explores the relationship between prayer and bird watching while looking out to sea.
An inspiring and gifted teacher of meditation and spirituality, Dr Chris Morris died suddenly earlier this month. Greatly admired and much loved, Chris was a Senior Lecturer in Spirituality and Head of the Department of Pastoral and Spiritual Studies at Catholic Theological College, Melbourne, Australia. As a tribute to him, the following is a re-posting of an article he wrote for Living Water in June 2021.
In 2020 Chris completed his PhD on Bruno Barnhart, Californian Camaldolese Benedictine Monk, who died in 2015. An extraordinary and life-changing spiritual experience when he was a young man shaped the rest of Bruno Barnhart’s life. It led him to devote his life’s work to recovering and re-conceiving Christian wisdom today, centred on and emanating from the one great revolutionary event of the Cross. Here Chris explains why he found Barnhart’s ideas “compelling and endlessly engaging”.
While bushwalking in Western Australia, Rodney Marsh practised a silence and attention that allowed him to discover the silence and generosity of the natural world, and how nature can heal and restore the soul. This is the first article in a series of three in which he reflects on how walking in nature nurtures spiritual well-being.
God has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us. (Romans 5:5)
This is one of my favourite Scripture verses, and for me is at the heart of my faith, and why we celebrate Easter. Through a simple practice of mantra meditation (see below) we can tap into this stream of love, and verify the truth of this claim through our own experience.
In his poem Not A One, Mark Nepo reflects on how ‘being awake’ depends on outgrowing our masks, which Noel Keating says is one of the fruits of meditation. Long-time meditator, educator and author Dr Keating* continues his reflection on how poetry gives rise to rich contemplative insights and helps deepen our appreciation of the mystery of our own spiritual experience. The articles are a slightly edited version of an online talk Dr Keating gave to a group of Christian meditators on 28 August 2023*.
Just as meditation moves our consciousness from the head to the heart, and from Doing to Being, so poetry also leads us to an inner richness that we hunger to experience. Long-time meditator, educator and author Dr Noel Keating* reflects on how poetry gives rise to rich contemplative insights and helps deepen our appreciation of the mystery of our own spiritual experience. Part II of his reflection will appear in two weeks. The articles are a slightly edited version of an online talk Dr Keating gave to a group of Christian meditators on 28 August 2023*.
Following the Rwandan genocide, a planned campaign of mass murder in 1994, World Vision sent John Steward and his wife Sandi there in 1997 to manage its reconciliation and peace-building program. Here John reflects on what he learned about peace-building, and the lessons that can be learned in the Middle East, particularly as we celebrate the coming of the ‘Prince of Peace’.
In meditation we discover our essential unity with one another, and also the Earth, says author Jim Green*. And in this act of contemplation, or communing, our consciousness is transformed, and we both hear the cry of the Earth and are at one with it. In the following edited extract from his online course, Contemplating Earth, Jim reflects on the crisis now facing humanity and the planet as COP28 meets in Dubai, and the urgency of a contemplative response.
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