A weekly curated collection of essays, poetry, and reflections for your spiritual journey. From The Wisdom Years.
Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long.
-May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
From Well for the Journey
Crossing Thresholds
“A threshold is not a simple boundary,” says the Irish poet John O’Donohue. “It is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres.” Thresholds bring fear, confusion, excitement, hope, or sadness. We need to see them as not only something ending but also as opportunity for something to begin.
Read more from our current Wisdom Years online study “Following the Epiphany Light” on our website.
Jesus the Good Shepherd and His Discovery
Jesus called himself “the good shepherd,” but did he always know that? In his life he was more like a lost sheep, thirsty, hungry, so terribly vulnerable and alone.
Two Types Of Heartbreaks
Violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering, says Parker Palmer. But our hearts can react to sorrow in two ways: they can break apart like shards of glass or open wider, growing into greater capacity for love.
From Awakin.
It’s All About the Glass
Whether we are a glass-half-full person or a glass-half-empty person, we are living as grateful people when we are grateful for having a glass at all. “Knowing that our lives are incomprehensibly precious, fragile, and fleeting reminds us to stop in our tracks and take stock, every moment, of what matters, how much is enough, and where wisdom would direct our attention,” says Kristi Nelson.
From Grateful Living.
A Call to Awakening
“Saints are those who wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one,” says Richard Rohr. “History is continually graced with people who somehow learned to act beyond and outside their self-interest and for the good of the world, people who clearly operated by a power larger than their own. Consider Gandhi, Oskar Schindler, Martin Luther King Jr. Add to them Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Óscar Romero, César Chávez, and many unsung leaders.”
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