[S]piritual and meditative practices are not meant to erase pain. That's a symptom of our pain-avoidant culture, and not an accurate portrayal of the practices themselves. It's a misuse of so many beautiful teachings to force them into roles they were never meant to play....

Spirit of Life and of Love, Holy One that reaches wide to encompass all beings, Hold us to Yourself in this moment. We come to this place carrying so much in our hearts. Around us we hear the laments of a broken world, Torn by fire, storm and strife, Crying, “I too have suffered. I too have been...

”If we don’t find a way to transform our pain, we will always transmit it to those around us or turn it against ourselves… If your religion is not teaching you how to recognize, hold, and transform suffering, it is junk religion.” —Fr. Richard Rohr People are in pain all around us, all of...

Each of us has gifts and wounds from those who fathered us. This is inevitable; even the best fathers in the world disappoint their children sometimes. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to grow up. But I know that some wounds are deeper than others. Some people’s hearts have been broken by their...

December 7, 2016 “Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world.” — Natalie Goldberg I know a little about "merry" meeting "mess" at the holidays — and by a little I mean How much time have you got? Four Christmases ago, a painful break-up sent me spinning into a long...

Holy God, hear our prayer. There is pain and there is sorrow, there are broken relationships and broken hearts. Sometimes we are the cause of those things. We have caused pain. We have broken the relationship....

We are called today, from the midst of pain and challenge, we are called to praise the world. From a world that appears broken, we are called to praise life’s moments of joy and grace. From time that seems to freeze in ongoing exchanges of platitudes and blame, we are called to reach out to those...

Torn and confused, lonely and enraged, I greet the new day with suspicion. Spirit of Life, show me the gate to healing. May I find in my hands the tools to craft a way through the pain. When even those tools fail me, may other hands reach out....

I will lift up my voice and sing; Whatever may befall me, I will still follow the light which kindles song. I will listen to the music Arising out of grief and joy alike, I will not deny my voice to the song....

It is an hour before sunrise. The waves keep coming, but each minute they make less progress than the minute before....

Despair is my private pain Born from what I have failed to say failed to do failed to overcome. Be still my inner self let me rise to you let me reach down into your pain and soothe you....

The human spirit has enormous resilience. But it is pushed to the limit by grief following the tragedy we have witnessed: sudden and unexpected death, the loss of so many lives. These vicious attacks defy our understanding. It hurts. We grieve. We do not understand, nor do we accept the logic of...

Here in this space, we are gathered, called by our sense of urgency, or duty, or the longing for community, called to be together on this day...Here, in this space, we are gathered...called to hold ourselves accountable to our values...to remind ourselves of those hopes and dreams and possibiliti...

"Let there be light!" Let it shine in dark places, in moments of pain, in times of grief, in the darkness of hatred, violence, oppression, where there is discouragement and despair. Wherever darkness is to be put to flight, "Let there be light!"...