Blog
Today was a glorious day!
Over the past week, I’ve been planning a sanctuary just outside my back window. This backyard spot is a sacred space where my spiritual work unfolds, where I sense the Spirit accompanying me.  I thought of a border to hold flowers beside butterfly bushes. I will plant a fl...
I grew up in a family with deep and meaningful table traditions. We gathered for civic holidays, church celebrations, anniversaries, and sometimes birthdays. It felt like we were always cooking and always eating!
All but two of my mother’s seven siblings lived in our small town, so you can imagine ...
Working in Silence
She works in silence behind the curtain of time
From things you do not even know are coming
You see, God does not need to announce Her movements
Just because you cannot trace Her hand
Does not mean Her hand is not there
Behind every No, there is a greater Yes waiting to unfo...
Palm Sunday Dance
A poem by Chuck Wester, WTC Student
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I am passed by
 the procession
 of God.
I stand alone
 lost in the narrow
 the winding
 the streets of
 ancient Jerusalem.
And press my ear
 to the old stones
 that I might
 catch an echo
 a fading whisperer
 of the dance
 that...
Wisdom Tree Collective offers a rich variety of inspiring practices. And yet, some exercises that seem simple on the surface can quietly invite us to deeper places.
Recall a moment when you felt loved.
When I first tried this exercise, I was not able to connect with an experience of feeling loved...
A few weeks ago, my college-age daughter shared with me that something I had said to her in sixth grade had become part of her inner critic.
She told me that whenever a paper or project was assigned, she would hear my voice in her ear asking if she had been working on it. That voice pushed her alre...
Silence and stillness are central to contemplative spirituality.
They can open us to God, deepen awareness, and restore our nervous systems—which in turn affects our relationships, communities, and the world. But even these sacred practices can become forms of spiritual bypassing when offered witho...
The Reading: John 4:5-14
So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.7A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to he...
“Mom, now is not the time for meaning-making!” my teenager said to me.
Instantly, I knew what she meant—and I apologized.
I have a habit of looking for deeper meaning, of going beneath the surface of things. That impulse is not inherently bad. But when it happens too soon, it bypasses what needs t...
“I feel crunched and crushed,” she said.
It was an online spiritual direction session, and this was how my directee—a college professor—began the call.
She went on to describe the anger and angst she felt living within society’s grind culture and the relentless pressure it places on people. This p...
Wild Geese
 You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile...
