What if silence isn't something we need to achieve, but something already present, waiting to be inhabited? For many years, I thought of silence as something to be achieved. When I first began practicing meditation, and particularly when I discovered Centering Prayer, I imagined that the goal was to quiet the noise. If I could … Continue reading Inhabiting Silence: Discovering the Spaciousness Beneath the Noise
Location is not presence. We can physically occupy a place while being mentally, emotionally, or spiritually somewhere else entirely. We can sit in a meeting while thinking about everything waiting for us afterward. We can walk through a familiar neighborhood without noticing the trees, the changing light, or the sounds of life around us. We … Continue reading Inhabiting Place: Learning to Be Here
We say we need rest. And yet, when we finally stop, many of us almost immediately reach for something else to do. We check the phone. We think about the email we forgot to answer. We notice the task waiting in the other room. We lie down at night and, rather than resting, begin mentally … Continue reading Inhabiting Rest
When we hear the word work, most of us probably think first about employment. What do you do for a living? What is your job? Your career? Your vocation? For me, the answer is pastor. That is work I do. It is work for which I am compensated. It is part of how I spend a … Continue reading Inhabiting Work: Letting the Inner Life Grow Hands
We are born into relationship. Before we ever speak a word, make a choice, or understand ourselves as separate people, we are already connected. We begin in relationship within the womb. We emerge into a family, a history, a body, a world. We breathe air shared by countless others. We inherit something from those who … Continue reading Inhabiting Relationship
Pain has a way of narrowing the world. When it arrives—physical, emotional, spiritual, relational—our instinct is often immediate: get away from it. Distract ourselves. Fix it. Numb it. Move somewhere else. Do almost anything except remain in the place where it hurts. I know that instinct well. As an Enneagram Seven, one of my familiar … Continue reading Inhabiting Pain
There is a difference between simply having a body and actually inhabiting it. Last week, I began what I’m calling the Inhabiting series by reflecting on what it might mean to inhabit your life as a gift — to live from the deep awareness that you are precious, and that your preciousness shapes the way you engage … Continue reading Inhabiting the Body
A reflection from the Infinitely Precious podcast Hello, beloved. For months now, we've been walking together through what I call the ripening dimensions of life — the ways we're always moving toward greater ripeness, or sometimes away from it, in any given moment. (A little Aramaic trivia for you: the root of the word "good," … Continue reading Ripening Playfulness: Awake to Delight
There is always somewhere else to be. There is always something else to finish, something else to begin, something waiting on the other side of whatever we happen to be doing right now. And sometimes I notice how much of my life I can spend trying to get there. This week on the Infinitely Precious Podcast, … Continue reading Ripening Presence: This Moment Right Now
Awareness often begins in a very small space. It may be no more than a breath, a pause, or a fraction of a second between what rises within us and what we choose to do next. This week, I continue my series on the ripening dimensions of being alive with the seventh dimension: ripening awareness. I … Continue reading Ripening Awareness: The Space Before We React
