“U.S. President Donald Trump says the mass shooting at a Texas church ‘Isn’t a guns situation,’ but is a ‘mental health problem at the highest level.’ “ (CBC News, 6 November, 2017) “While no officials have publically questioned Kelley’s [note: name of shooter] mental health, Trump said that ‘is your problem here.’ He offered no…
Author: Kimberly M. King
I am a Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I am the director of Barat Spirituality Centre, www.baratspirituality.org, a writer, a juggler, a quick wit, a walker. I enjoy reading all sorts of fiction and non-fiction and regularly write both essays and poetry. Other interests and abilities include Spanish/English written translation and simultaneous interpretation, cooking, and time spent thinking and observing.
And I am its monk
Rain Travelling A couple of light-happy plants; a wingback chair with a library’s worth of history and character; Books and paper and ink and windows, yes, windows onto the sea. A bed in a corner and blankets brought in from a clothesline. A prowly cat who comes home with stories and seedpods caught in her…
Touching the World
A friend of mine posted this quotation on Facebook yesterday… ~We never know when we will blossom into what we’re supposed to be. It mightbe early. It might be late. It might be afterthirty years of failing at a misguided way.Or the very first time we dare to shedour mental skin and touch the world.~ …
Feel Profoundly, Live Poetically
I was asked earlier this week to offer a reflection for the general meeting of the alumnae/alumni association for the Sacred Heart School of Halifax that took place last night. The idea was to lead into Saturday when there would be a talk on each of the calls of General Chapter 2016 and do this…
Longing, the Universe, Cinnamon, and You
Photo used with permission of Denise Pyles When I was in undergrad, I had not yet joined the Catholic church. I was in the midst of learning a whole new vocabulary for my relationship with God and a friend told me that the church just off of campus was open late into the evening and…
Fully Alive
On December 4th, 2015 I wrote a piece in response to a mass shooting in San Bernadino. Sadly, I can’t even cry out “UNBELIEVABLE.” Because it isn’t at all unbelievable.And yet we wonder. We consistently wonder and act surprised. Or worse, accept these shootings as a part of our reality, as part of the price…
Greatest Mystery, Greatest Perspective
A book I began recently, Speaking of Faith by Krista Tippett, proposed the idea that We can construct factual accounts and systems from DNA, gross national products, legal code, but they don’t begin to tell us how to order our astonishments, what matters in a life, what matters in a death, how to love, how…
On the Cusp
On The CuspYou make me strong-strong to sing down my fear with the rise, the uplift, the choir robed Gospel embrace of voices in praise and strong with pencil and line and just enough groove to write my psalm of the world is crazy on the cusp, and a roiling mess of ego and power…
Grace: One small act at a time
Missiles are being launched and countries that are armed to the gills and seething are being taunted. Presidents are pardoning racists and proclaiming them upstanding. The heavens have opened and floods are plaguing creation. Gunmen enter libraries and kill. Cars are driven into crowds; people are “disappeared,” trafficked, bullied, ignored. All of this and still,…
Charlottesville…Showing up…and Beauty
The news of Charlottesville, Virginia puts the lingering thoughts of my retreat, from which I returned a week ago, into stark relief. In a way. On the other hand, my notes help provide a way to structure my response to the hatred, the fear, the violence, that includes and goes far beyond and far deeper…
Consider the Lilies 