As we move towards the end of the year, and the season of Advent, I've been reflecting on how this year began for me, when I spent 3 months living in (and taking care of) the home of a friend in the tiny village of Molinaseca on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. That settled… Continue reading Where no-one is harried and nothing is forced…
We're experiencing a heatwave in Spain at the moment, with record temperatures announced each day in the town where I'm currently living, and a 'record-record' reached yesterday, as we tipped over into the 40-degree-plus celsius realm. The mornings are still comparatively cool (in the low 20's) but, from 2pm onwards, the temperature gradually climbs, shutters… Continue reading Why I go down to the river…
Yesterday I received, not for the first time, a life-giving lesson in the powerful and ever-present reality of the quality of Grace. How it lives within each of us. How each of us has the power to use it gently, kindly, wisely, consciously, as part of our own way of being, through our own choice… Continue reading The Rosebush…
This is the transcript of a video made by 'Green Renaissance', as part of their mission to capture personal stories on film that encourage us to see, explore, recognise and value our shared humanity. A link to the video and the Green Renaissance YouTube channel appears at the end of this blog. I heartily recommend… Continue reading Those places in need of healing…
Today I plucked a book of Christian teachings by an American Pastor off the bookshelf of a friend. I was waiting for the kettle to boil and, as I'd been wrestling with a writing project for a few days, I hoped I might find a bit of spontaneous inspiration by leafing through its pages. I… Continue reading This business of happiness…
Yesterday morning a friend sent me a link to a televised Mass from a Catholic church in Ireland (which she'd tuned into by chance), because she wanted me to see how the Mass had started. She knows me well, and she knows that the way in which Catholic Masses traditionally begin (verbally acknowledging that we… Continue reading A Prayer for the Possible…
I don’t believe it matters how we start, when we start, or even where we think we’re heading, the only thing that seems to matter is listening to the part of us that longs for and just knows there’s something more. We tell ourselves, or are told by others, many things about why we should… Continue reading That blessed ‘something more…’
Sometimes words don’t work. Sometimes a candle-lit room, accompanied by the sound of rain, says more than the greatest philosopher. Sometimes pain is our greatest teacher. Sometimes those that give us life try to destroy us. Sometimes time doesn’t heal our wounds. Sometimes choosing life is harder than giving in to death. Sometimes friends become… Continue reading Sometimes
This is how it is for me... It´s the thing that makes sense of the nonsensical and shifts the darkest cloud on the dullest day. It blows aside confusion with the whisper of a breeze; so gentle that it´s almost imperceptible; and yet so powerful that it moves a mountain of anxiety in a moment… Continue reading Listen…
Last week a pilgrim, who had worked as a volunteer at the Taizé Community in France, stayed with us in the parroquial albergue in Logroño. As he helped wash and dry the dishes after dinner we spoke about his time at Taize and he explained a little about the community´s Mission; to help unite the… Continue reading The value of silence…
La Casa de Paz 