Tag: Soul & Spirit

Writings that are related to faith and spirituality.

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The Ring of Weakness

What can you not do?

I wonder if our prayers are less discipline and practice, and more listening and obedience–accepting the silent guest as we take the ring of our meager power to see it cast into the fiery chasm. Once the ring is cast, we listen anew.

Gold and ivory ring

As 2023 begins why not ask questions? What is your vocation? What can you not do? Is there a calling, a living duty that transcends obligation? The question demands we look inward, to try to see clearly what nourishes and grows. A vine grows and reaches, moving from its beginning, putting down roots like footsteps in the earth.

Are there vines in your life?

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Another Revolution

The Path Around Our Star

Another year ends. Another begins.

Based on past searchings, will you ride the clouds to a different horizon? Most of us settle uneasily into resignation. Things will likely be as they have been. We move inexorably along the plane of another revolution around our star.

photo of night sky

Some of us will leave the cyclical journey. Indeed, we don’t know which revolution will be left undone. Will you plunge inward to your fiery center, or be flung outward into cold darkness?

Or, perhaps there is another way: .A spiral upward. Rise to the summit where our darkness and light are clearly seen in their beauty.

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Dan’s Thoughts on Regret: A Podcast Interview with Joseph Warren

Recently I was invited to chat with a new friend, Joseph Warren, on his popular podcast, Broken Catholic. Unexpectedly, the conversation turned toward regret and dealing with the feelings that go along with it. Hope you enjoy this discussion about letting go of the mistakes of the past.

Listen to Broken Catholic Podcast on iTunes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/broken-catholic-podcast/id1270337955

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Wisdom of Thankfullness

I have heard it said that the worst part about being old is remembering being young; the helplessness of knowing you cannot go back. Yet, I wonder when we reach the distant shore beyond the world as we have known it, if we will find ourselves returned and in the flower of life, men and women of, perhaps 30 years. How would it be to again be full of life but to have also the knowledge of the aged? To know the wisdom of thankfulness when yearning for what was is transformed into the joy for what is. Few in their youth know such wisdom.

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Family Pride

Woman in MirrorWe are family,

We are brethren,

Kindred in a fallen race.

Fallen from God’s gracious blessing,

Everywhere but on our face.

Proud of all our vain achievements,

Prouder of things we’ve yet to do.

Choosing to ignore our weakness,

We’d have our cake, and eat it, too.

 

Wretched people proud and broken,

Who will save us from this death?

Praise to Jesus, eternal Savior,

Who gives the corpse eternal breath.

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Silence

Your word is truth, 

Your word is light,

Your word is Spirit,

Your word is life.

Silence is a womb into which Father implants life.

He is ever fruitful.

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Bright Flower

Bright FlowerThe garden is in ruins.

Winter’s burden,
Icy curtain draped on frail limbs,
Fragile twigs like human hearts,
That snapped
Too weak to bear the load.

Sin’s dark weight.

Nurtured dreams
Wreckage upon the brow of earth,
Hopes strewn carelessly.
Brokenness scattered on the ground.

In such a garden the Father once walked.

Clear the fallen boughs,
Pile high monuments to winter’s vain fury.
For spring promises one bright flower.

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Leaves

Dan-Sadness

Some days I drift

Like a leaf, 

Settling into the deep. 

Sadness. 

A place I do not wish to go. 

Ought not, but do. 

It is dusky place, of remembering

Yearning. 

Wishing for yesterday. 

Longing for tomorrow,

Where sadness does not

Settle around God’s children

Like leaves in the deep.