Back to School

Dear Friends,

In just one week, I'll be going back to school at St. John's School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota.  I'm enrolled in their Spiritual Direction Certificate program which is primarily an online course of study with two June residencies in Collegeville, Minnesota (should be a good time to be there!).

I am excited and happy about this course of study and welcome the opportunity to give formal categories to what I've been doing for quite a long time as well as learning something new.  Mepkin Abbey is my partner in this venture, and it's my heart's desire to be useful to them in some way.

Below is an image from one of my first classes - Contemporary Spiritual Practice - perhaps you have seen this tree image?  Thought I would share.  It's called the Tree of Practices.  Which of these nurtures you right now?

Epiphany Eve

Epiphany -- o thank God, the three gentiles (the kings or wisemen, what have you) .. faithfully following the star that called their name and sang them all the journey through..those ones, have finally come to their place of their heart's desire.

May God bless any seeker this year for he promises that if we seek God with a whole heart, we will find God. (Jer. 29.13).

Fra Angelico

From Malcolm Guite..

Epiphany

It might have been just someone else’s story,

Some chosen people get a special king.

We leave them to their own peculiar glory,

We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.

But when these three arrive they bring us with them,

Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;

A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,

A  pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.

They did not know his name but still they sought him,

They came from otherwhere but still they found;

In temples they found those who sold and bought him,

But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.

Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice

To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.

The Ninth Day of Christmas

Today we remember Sts. Basil and Gregory -4th century. Here is a beautiful prayer from St. Basil.

Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbour, where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict. Show me the course I should take. Renew in me the gift of discernment, so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go. And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course, even when the sea is rough and the waves are high, knowing that through enduring hardship and danger we shall find comfort and peace.

Here is an image of St. Basil from Tracy Christianson. 
https://www.portraitsofsaints.com/   

I like this rather than some of the icons - somehow, he looks kinder in this painting.  A lot of her work is pretty romantic but good...