Setting the World on Fire This is a week of setting the world on fire. Fire is one of my favorite metaphors for spiritual life. It purifies, melting and burning away what does not belong. Fire shines light into darkness. It warms us. Fire is powerful, beyond our ability to control it. It helps us feel safer and more secure. Fire grows stronger as we feed it fuel. This week we live surrounded by fire. Some of us try to... Read more
What Difference Do Our Spiritual Practices Make? When we begin a spiritual practice, we generally expect it to make a difference. Why would we develop and follow our spiritual practices if we did not think they would change our lives in some way? We choose our practices, and work to follow them, because of how we expect them to help us. One of the standard questions about our spiritual practices is how they will help us. What is it we... Read more
Stillness in the Middle of May There are a few more weeks of spring left before summer. The sun is not yet up on this morning in the middle of May. I get up slowly, reluctant to greet this May morning. Fumbling in the dark, I avoid significant injury and begin to follow my morning routines. After completing a few tasks I sit down and listen to sacred stillness. We may be regularly following a practice of listening to sacred... Read more
Where We Have Been Broken Many of us believe spiritual life is about finding comfort, not about where we have been broken. We like to think spiritual life wants us to be joyful. I remember singing about the joy down in my heart. Some of us believe spiritual life is about feeling safe again. Spiritual life is not about making us miserable. I do not believe, though, it is about making us feel comfortable. We do not start over as... Read more
What Do We Fear? Our fear keeps us awake at night. It holds us back from even trying to do what we hope to accomplish. Being afraid eats away at us, robbing us of who we have the potential to become. It can steal our closest relationships and our most cherished dreams. We have known it since before we can remember. We may have been, or still be, afraid of the dark, of being our true selves, or of failing.... Read more
Taking Time for Stillness When will we begin taking time for stillness? We value our time. Some of us believe time is money. We do not want anyone else to waste our time. It is almost as if we could hoard spare moments or days in boxes to use them later. Some of us pay attention to time management. We want to use our time as effectively as we can. Some of us are convinced each second counts. We want to... Read more
How Do We Pray? People ask us to pray for them or someone they know on social media. We pray for people who are ill or injured, people who experience tragedy or loss. Some of us pray for relief from natural disasters or for people affected by gun violence. Many of us are praying for peace in Ukraine and Sudan and the Middle East and the rest of the world. We pray for people we know and for those we... Read more
What Is a Strategic Monk? People ask me quite a few questions about the name Strategic Monk. Where did I get the name? What kind of a name is it, and what does it mean? Many of the questions are about the monk part. People want to know whether I am a real monk, and what my connection is to monks. A few people ask about the strategic part. Strategic Monk is the story of my life. I was raised to... Read more
Getting Out of Our Own Way Listening to sacred stillness is more than just being calm and sitting still. It is all about getting out of our own way. We can get stuck in our image of sitting quietly. The challenge becones meeting our goal of five minutes or twenty minutes of stillness. The truly important part is our openness, our willingness to listen. This is not a test or competition or anything else we can measure. The question is not... Read more
Where Do We Go When We Need Worship? Most of us do not think we need worship much these days. We are busy getting things done, talking to people, living our lives. There is barely enough time for us to think, much less spend time worshipping. Those of us who do think we need it probably see it as part of our job. We usually spend more time thinking about it than actually worshipping. If we ever do think we... Read more
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