Here in Halifax, and elsewhere, it has been a grey stretch of time, these last months. Grey and rain; grey and fog; grey and something between rain and fog; Grey. Yet still the Public Gardens green and bloom in technicolor because that is what trees, flowers, and plants are called to do. And in fact,…

     The role of repetition in prayer is long standing across different traditions.  Sometimes it is a repetitive action or movement, sometimes it is linguistic. Mantras, rosaries, sets of yoga poses…all assist both in focusing and in letting go… The act of repetitive behavior itself has a role in that way. Any prayer that…

What was intended as a quick errand to drop mail into the postbox turned into a lovely thick amble down the main shopping street near here and then up a side street to Citadel Hill; and along there until reaching the northeast corner entrance to the Public Gardens. I turned in and, as happens sometimes,…

It’s funny the unexpected things that can happen before noon in a day…You can wake up singing show tunes (which I did this morning); You can shoof-shoof-shoof the flappy ears of a puppy, brush a cat, and lay witness to a duck on a wander…all in the middle of a city, all within twenty minutes,…

This past Saturday was the celebration of the Feast of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. I choose to believe she  understands why I did not get out anything ahead of time this year. It was a crazy full May… I hope she would have delighted in how…

       There is a within of things…  —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin We are a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.  —Thomas Berry She was not daily bread. She was stardust. —Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1914) speaking of her aunt, poet Emily Dickinson Three quotations I thought to record in the midst of…

A beautiful bit of interior space recently opened for me when I read a friend’s reaction to the death of Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche community. She posted the announcement and commented—A great loss for this side of eternity. That way of putting it washed over me with an exquisite tenderness. Ever so true…

Today is very beautiful—just as bright, just as blue, just as green and as white, and as crimson, as the cherry trees full in bloom, and the half opening peach blossoms, and the grass just waving, and sky and hill and cloud, can make it, if they try…You thought last Saturday beautiful—yet to this golden…

This morning before Mass, I stopped for a moment while walking along College Street, enroute to Victoria Park.  In and among cars, ambulances, and other urban groanings, the distinctly percussive Rubbee-dedubbeedee-dub….rubbee-dedubbeedee-dub.   There was a woodpecker somewhere nearby.  After winter’s dormancy, crocuses are stretching their blooms over by the cemetery and I understood why when I looked…

Someone asked me recently about my vision of heaven,,,and then I made soup… A Vision of Heaven or,  Help with the Dishes A jukebox stretchingfrom Handel to hip-hopin the corner of a kitchen;A dutch oven, a sharp chef blade;a cast iron skillet and a heavy bottomtwo quart pot with a lid.Counters for working:chopping, writing, thinking.A…