Confluence Formation

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Every step and every strain and hard breath and heart pump is an investment in tomorrow morning’s strength.” (Terry & Renny Russell, On the Loose , I think) In my mind, I responded: Ok. Then I’...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “...men of intelligence who formerly possessed an ordinary amount of refinement.” From my heart: And what is the ordinary refinement that you are shedding? I know you care a lot, my hearty soul,...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.” (Mary Oliver, To Begin With, the Sweetgrass ) From my heart: Like the rough Father says, though a little bit gentler. Like Jesus said, more o...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Rest thee by many brooks and hearthsides without misgiving.” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden ) In my mind I responded: But I don’t feel okay. I don’t feel at rest, at ease. Everything’s just a lit...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “For afterwards a man finds pleasure in his pains, when he has suffered long and wandered long.” (Homer, the Odyssey ) From my heart: I know, my love, you think of others first when you read of...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “We aim a black box and scratch on beaten wood pulp.” (Terry & Renny Russell, On the Loose ) From my heart: I put that smile there, my darling. And it delights me. If I had a black box to aim, I...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Now we know what is trivia and what is real.” (Terry & Renny Russell, On the Loose ) From my heart: It might take you a while to discern between the two, beloved. And it won’t come without mist...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “There is nothing like the perils of the wilderness to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy.” (Herman Melville) From my heart: Free. And easy. Sort of genial. Desperado...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come.” (Wendell Berry) From my heart: No matter the trials of today. No matter the weariness in the present moment. No matter, even, the regre...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Use even this sadness to carve out spaces in our souls where still greater repositories of holy affection might be held, unto the end that we might better love, in times of absence and in times...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Watch, now, how I start the day…” (Mary Oliver) From my heart: I will. I do. There is nothing more that I love than that: To watch you start—and then live—a day. This is the day, they sing, tha...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Thy name is as ointment poured forth.” (Song of Solomon) From my heart: And I am pleased to call you by your name. To give power to you by naming you so. You have the name your parents gave you...

Everyday I ask the loving voice of wisdom , which dwells in our hearts and elsewhere in this world: “What would you have me know today?” And then I listen. This is what I heard one day, not long ago… From elsewhere: “Come into the presence of still water.” (Wendell Berry) From my heart: Beloved one, though all around you life travails, be like me. Be the quiet water that you are. Yes: Depend on fl...

In this post: I’ll share a listening practice, and then I’m going to invite you to join me for the next month, for about two-minutes every day, to practice listening with me. The thing we’re listening for is a simple note from the loving voice of wisdom. That voice is part intuition and part divine prompting, and it is always eager to whisper sweet guidance to any and every quiet and attentive hea...

I thank god that I spent the bulk of my childhood in the 90’s. Me and my best buds riding bikes alongside the White River in the Indianapolis suburbs or adding to our rickety treehouse in the sycamore in my backyard or playing street hockey at the end of the cul-de-sac. And playing a little bit of Nintendo, too, here and there. But never once having to navigate the pings of a dumb phone or the sir...

My friend Danielle sent me a book full of prayers and liturgies for all sorts of quotidian occasions. Every Moment Holy , it’s called. Every moment really is, isn’t it? The table of contents is full of titles like: liturgies for daybreak, midday, nightfall; liturgy for the preparation of a meal, for the keeping of bees, for the planting of flowers, for the morning of a yard sale; liturgy for a sic...

**Shared at the Christmas Eve candlelit service at Edgecomb Community Church** Good singing! Good reading! Good songs! Good story! Don’t you love a good story? And what is it that makes for a good story? What are the elements of a compelling story? High stakes. Surprising characters and character development. Nefarious plot twists and near misses. Journeys full of obstacles. Encounters with implau...

These days I have been praying more than I have in years. I have mostly been doing this in private, with a candle and some sacred objects, a few words and some silence each morning. Everyday, along with asking for divine help, I invoke the presence and companionship of seven archetypal figures which, to me, represent qualities of my own being.  These archetypes are qualities of being that are alre...

This is a meditation that I wrote for another thing , which I will tell you more about later, but meanwhile I want to share it with you here… In the poem that she called Wild Geese, Mary Oliver tells us directly: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body // love what it loves.” Lest we forget, we are animal every bit as much as our mammalian kin. Our tenderness and our ferocity are both a...

In my last reflection I wrote about the practice of having the audacity to suck at something. Here are two things that I have had the audacity to suck at lately: * Improv comedy * Fly fishing And it isn’t even that you have to be terrible at the thing, really, to get the full benefit of the practice. It just has to be something that you are not already excellent at, that you are a little bit intim...

I have been combing the internet for sources of insight at the confluence of wildness and spirituality. The internet is not the most relevant place to search for such things. The most relevant places to search are wild places and wild spirits, your very own and those belonging to others. But there is no shortage of wild wisdom out there—even among the ones and zeros—for those who have eyes to see....

After Easter this year I flew from Boston to a conference center in a little corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are called the Blue Ridge Mountains because the trees on the mountainside emit hydrocarbons that—when seen from a distance—huddle over the mountains in a haze of blue. When you are in the mountains, and not just beholding their hazy edges from afar, things are more vivid. Up close...

A sunrise like today’s makes me think about that sentiment that appears through the pen of the prophet who wrote: “His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning.” Sometimes I procrastinate a long while from doing a thing that I want to do, and then I wake up one day and I’m like, “Ahhh *deep sigh* new mercies.” And I just go ahead and do the thing. I like to sit every morning at my...

As a wilderness guide, the ability to pivot from your itinerary when the weather, terrain, group, circumstance, or who-knows-what requires it—that’s one of your most vital capacities. The same goes for any practitioner of wild spirituality. It’s interesting though, because it’s seldom crystal clear whether the pivot is entirely necessary. It’s always some combination of managing risk and expectati...

“We are animal in our blood and in our skin. We were not born for pavements and escalators, but for thunder and mud.” — Jay Griffiths, Wild: An Elemental Journey Perhaps you’ve heard: Loving on nature is good for us. A little biophilia goes a long way toward making us feel better.  In 2017 The Nature Fix , by Florence Williams, landed on bookshelves. In it Williams explores a host of efforts to st...