We humans mark time, divide it into years, months, weeks, days and hours. But time, in a greater sense, can be thought of as a creative, seamless evolving. We might ask a beginning-of-the-year question with that perspective in mind. What am I at this time asked to bring into being? The first answer that intuitively […]

We participate in two time dimensions when we receive a blessing or give one. Of course we can see that a blessing occurs in the now at a significant moment in time. What we don’t see as easily is that a blessing continues its action in timeless time. To become aware of this even just […]

The word, hospital, is in the word hospitality. Considerations of the heart are really acts of hospitality that we can inhabit and grow to understand to be about inclusiveness and repair. To open our inner doors to sharing and mending, what better use can we make of our lives? Neither fame, financial fortune, nor favor […]

The year comes around again to the winter solstice and the many ways we humans have commemorated this time of year. The need to mark time, to be more present than usual, to imbue time with meaning is ancient in us. What we do these days and what was done long ago are very different. But under it all, our little planet is spinning in a vast universe and we mark time, making some days more significant to us than others.

I think we might find that by the time we are septuagenarians we will have spent an accumulated four to five of our years waiting or more. That thought staggered me, and so when I wait now (and I am a septuagenarian) I say to myself, you are alive now. Watch. Breathe deeply. This is prime time.

What keep something out also keeps something in, hence the beauty and necessity of gates. Boundaries with no exits or entrances stifle life. There’s no flow. We need both and the consciousness to decipher where to draw the line and where to welcome and open.

Boundaries are often created out of fear and are consequently rigid and impede growth. When created out of a sense of needful care they support life. We can relax in the appropriateness of them, and know we make better neighbors when both a boundary and a gate are present.

We can think of all the times we have said yes – some regretfully and some leading to growth and discovery. Any participation on our part done with resentment or obligation robs us in some way. Any gift of participation given with a true yes is a gift returned to life itself and grants us more energy and freedom. We need to be careful of every yes we say and so come to live more authentic lives.

We have two hands: one for receiving and one for giving. Putting our hands together, however, they make a cup, a little cistern where what we have been given can fill to the full and can then be shared with others. To receive fully enables us to share fully. It is the sustainable energy of serving.

What an extraordinary power the imagination is. Anything we hold in our minds consistently over time tends to manifest. It’ no small feat to catch the subtle every day stuff we carry around and so make happen as if we had nothing to do with it.

In our technological age everything has speeded up. We don’t give things the time they need. We have forgotten how to be in rhythmic, organic time with our physical and spiritual selves. A deep self-courtesy is to pause long enough and often enough for our souls to catch up with our bodies and our over-programmed minds.