Year: 2023

by Chris Koellhoffer, December 30, 2023

This deep into the Christmas season and approaching a new year, I can’t escape our present realities when I gaze at my beautiful little clay Nativity from Mexico. I see Jesus coming over 2,000 years ago in history and Jesus continuing to be born in our time and place. Jesus entering a world that had longed for his appearance for centuries and Jesus born anew in a world yearning for the fullness of his kin-dom. Jesus, Prince of Peace, arriving at the little town of Bethlehem and into a world marked by oppression, and Jesus, the embodiment of peace, coming now into a world equally wounded by conflict.

Already here and not yet, this kin-dom. That’s the mystery of its unfolding. That there is still, amid days and nights of terror and the unnerving nearness of bombs, the milk of human kindness. That there are still signs of the kin-dom of justice and inclusion, the kinship that proclaims and acts and hopes in God’s dream for our world. That there is still the desire to live lives of meaning, to in some way make a difference in our world. Still the longing to leave the space we inhabit more tender and more welcoming, to leave things better than they were when we came onto the scene.

These thoughts surfaced as I listened to a podcast, This American Life, a special December edition on “Yousef’s Week.” Over the space of a week, producer Chana Joffe-Walt recorded phone conversations with Yousef Hammash, who lives in Gaza and works for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The calls were often interrupted when bombings drew closer to Yousef’s location. In his 30’s and married with two children, Yousef also shoulders responsibility for his large extended family which includes four sisters and their children. He was having a hard time persuading his sisters to leave Khan Yunis and move to Rafah, which he believed would be safer. In Khan Yunis, the sisters had a home where their basic needs were met and so they were reluctant to pack up and move. Until a drone strike leveled the house next to them. Then moving was the only choice. And moving was made more treacherous because of the nearness of bombs.

And yet, even with the concrete dust next door still rising in thick clouds, the sisters didn’t immediately move.  Yousef noted that his sisters refused to leave the house before they did something unbelievable: they cleaned everything—the kitchen, the bathrooms, every part of the house, cleaned while bombs were falling all around them. “I really respect it,” commented Yousef on his sisters’ behavior, “because we leave it better than the way we have begun. This is how we show respect.”

To leave this world, our corner of the world, better than it was when we first arrived on the scene–that has the sound not so much of a New Year’s resolution as a mantra for all of life. To leave our family, friends, neighbors, community, employment more loving, more compassionate, more welcoming than when we first entered those relationships. To leave our house, our workspace, more clean than when we first inhabited our living areas. Oh, Yousef, you and your sisters are right! This is how we show respect.

As we stand at the edge of 2024, may we carry with us, may we deepen within ourselves, this awareness: to leave our beautiful yet wounded world more beautiful and less broken than when our lives began. As we enter into a fresh and unknown year ahead, may it be so!

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a 2024 calendar, a journal, a diary.
Reflect on any choice you’ve made or action you’ve done in the past year that brought into our world a little more beauty, a little more compassion, a little more justice.
Ask the Holy One for the grace to leave your mark of kindness on the year to come.
Ask this for all of us who inhabit this beautiful yet wounded world.
May it be so!

Featured Image:  Chris Koellhoffer, Nativity set from Mexico

NOTE:
Happy New Year!
Thank you for your prayer for my safe and uneventful flights home from Monroe, Michigan and for your prayer for all who were part of the Advent guided retreat. It was my great joy to be with my Monroe IHMs. Special thanks to Sister Paula Cooney, IHM for her technical support and to Sister Judith Bonini, IHM for the initial invitation and encouragement.

May you and all of our beautiful yet wounded world know the peace and kinship that are the Holy One’s dream for all of us in this new year, and beyond.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)* In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 
Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   December 15, 2023

The Advent and Christmas seasons trumpet the significance of the small and the hidden. This time of year reminds us that our seemingly small practices can set in motion on a spiritual plane what casting a tiny pebble into a lake causes in ripples on a physical level. Continuous movement forward out into the expanse of the universe.

The mystic and writer Annie Dillard relates a childhood practice—I would call it a spiritual practice—of taking one of her precious pennies and hiding it for someone else to find. She delighted in imagining the first passerby who would receive her free gift from the universe. This spiritual practice was the starting point of her learning to see and pay attention, to notice, as she says, that “The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.”

Perhaps you’ve engaged in this spiritual practice by paying in advance for the Dunkin Donuts driver behind you in the Drive Thru. Or left your shopping cart unchained at the supermarket so that the next person coming along might find your quarter still in the slot, pre-paid. Maybe you’ve straightened up part of a messy, picked over aisle of Christmas items to spare a weary store employee some extra time on the job. Or applauded a restaurant server, overwhelmed and harried by having multiple roles because of staffing shortages. How can these acts of kindness and compassion not be called spiritual practices? Surely, they are the stuff that makes the universe a more gentle, welcoming shelter and home for all of us.

In these days leading to the celebration of the birth of Emmanuel, God-with-us, we remember similar small acts of kindness that are memorialized in the Nativity accounts. In a recent Advent retreat I led, one of the participants, who had spent many years ministering in Africa, shared something she had learned from the African women. Of course, they observed, Mary would not have been left alone to face the pain of childbirth by herself. Without knowing anything of her story or her background, the women of the village would have seen her distress and anguish and would have immediately hurried to assist her.

Shepherds, considered outcasts because of their long days and nights apart from the community and because of “the smell of the sheep” which Pope Francis urged pastoral staff to cultivate in a spiritual way, approached the newborn baby and his family. They knew what it was like to be hidden and to exist outside a loving community and so they offered the gift of their presence. Perhaps a wool blanket for the little one as well?

Travelers from the East, foreigners to the community of Bethlehem, dressing differently, speaking a strange tongue, braved the dangers of a long and difficult journey. Impelled by their research and spiritual practices, they followed a star, firm in their belief that wondrous events were still possible. How amazed and how deeply grateful Mary and Joseph must have been, every treasure and every bow from these wise ones a wonder.

So in this season that lifts up for us the Divine taking on our human flesh, let us celebrate the small. Let us be open to the tender Presence that transforms us and changes the world: a newborn baby lying in a manger and hidden away. And however we celebrate the holy days of our traditions, whether our hearts are alive with joy or weighed down by grief and worry, may we be comforted, consoled, and encouraged by the coming of Emmanuel, the Holy One choosing to be God-with-us in our time, in our place.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a Nativity set or object that is small but significant.
Gaze with love at this symbol.
Ask the Holy One to deepen in you the gift of noticing and paying attention to the small and the hidden in your everyday living.
Breathe a blessing to our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image: Greyson Joralemon, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please continue to hold in your prayer all who are part of this ongoing guided retreat for the Sisters of IHM of Monroe, Michigan. Please also pray for my safe and uneventful flights home on December 18. Thank you!

Wishing you and those you love every blessing of these holy days. Thank you for giving me the gift of following my blog, Mining the Now.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)*  In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    December 2, 2023

Amazing what connections come to our consciousness when we pay attention. I’d like to think I was doing exactly that when I came across a local honey display at a favorite health and wellness store.  I sometimes use honey in recipes (brussels sprouts-honey-balsamic vinegar) and have recently become fond of adding a bit of sweetness to a morning cup of tea. But in the average supermarket what I find is pretty much honey. Period.

Here in this specialty market the choices were more expansive and varied. Raw and unfiltered honey. Honey with pieces of the comb clearly visible. Descriptive names of seasons and origins. Buckwheat Blossom. Cinnamon. Fall. Orange Blossom. And this one that called out to me: Wildflower.

I purchased it, hurried it home, and spooned out a drop of syrupy, concentrated wildflower magic. Bliss! I suspect this is what Mary Oliver felt “At Blackwater Pond” when she cupped cold water in her hands, took a long drink and exclaimed, “oh, what is that beautiful thing that just happened?” When I took these sweet wildflowers into my body, I tasted fields of purple aster, goldenrod, pink phlox, and wild clover. I saw them blossom under summer sun. I heard them calling out to every passing bumblebee. I imagined worker bees covered with pollen and carrying their dusty gold back to a waiting colony. I felt the tender care of a thousand beekeepers. And yes, all this I could do–take in bee-ness, blossom-ness, wild-ness, essence of wildflower and essence of bee–because I have a body, because they gave their bodies over to transformation and to service of the whole.

And since it was the beginning of Advent, my thoughts connected with this season of preparation. With Jesus, who fully inhabited our human body, taking on the wonder and the limits of our human condition. Had he perhaps, like me, enjoyed this liquid bliss? In the wanderings of his public life through the land of milk and honey (Exodus 3:8), in his trekking through fields and meditating on the natural world around him, had he also at some point dipped his finger into a dish of honey, tasted it, and exlaimed after he swallowed it, “Wow! This is really good stuff!”

The call of Advent is to prepare our hearts and our consciousness for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us, in our time and place. Perhaps part of that call might be to spend some time reflecting on our human condition. To whisper prayers of gratitude that we actually have a body with all its dazzling complexity and its persistent limits. To give thanks at all times for our human bodies, even when we are weary, or arthritic, or wrinkled, or slowing, or aching, or confined to a chair or a bed. To look at our human bodies as fearfully, wonderfully made, no matter that these same bodies sometimes seem to betray us and sometimes cannot take us where we want to go or do what we once did.

So when you first get up in the morning and shuffle into the bathroom, take a long look into the mirror. Notice that gazing back at you is a human body, perhaps one whose hair is disheveled and scruffy, perhaps one whose eyes are bleary and shaking off sleep. Remember then the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of you, with your human and holy and wondrous body. And when you do remember, say aloud for all the world to hear, “Wow! This is really good stuff!”

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Wrap your arms around yourself in a gesture of love and tenderness.
Thank your body for helping you enter into yet another Advent season.
Show compassion for any part of your body that carries pain or wounds or sadness.
Ask the Holy One for the healing you desire, and then ask for healing for our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image:  Dmitry Gregoriev, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer my air travel and all who will be part of a guided retreat I’m leading:

December 12-18
Monroe, Michigan
“Advent:  Pilgrimage of the Heart” for IHM Sisters and friends

Blessings of this Advent season to you. As we wait for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us, may the witness of our hope contribute to the healing of our beautiful yet wounded world.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)*  In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   November 19, 2023

As a constantly curious person, there’s one question I’m perhaps most curious about and will voice to anyone, but especially to wisdom figures. I want to know, “How did you come to be the person you are today?”

Inevitably, the person on the receiving end of that question will mention someone who knew how to mine. This spiritual miner might be a parent, a teacher, a mentor, a friend. This miner possessed singular sight, able to see beyond the bravado and swagger of younger years and to uncover the timid or frightened or doubting child within who needed assurance or affirmation. This miner whose “I believe in you” litany offered an unfailing source of encouragement. This miner whose cheerleading evolved into a speech act.

In Loose Leaf Lectionary, Mark Strobel writes that a speech act is a single word or phrase that carries the power to effect change. A speech act happens in a circumstance where someone says something and the mere fact of saying it actually makes it happen. Imagine the first time a person utters the words, “I love you” and what that sets in motion. Scripturally, think of the Genesis account of creation where God says “Be!” and calls into being the universe, creating light and sky and oceans and all that swims there and all that crawls or runs on land. “Be!” God says to us and all our kin. And so it is. And it is good, so very good.

On the wall in the space where I write is a print with the reminder, “Words are so powerful, they should only be used to heal, to bless, to prosper.” Words, then, are potential speech acts.

So there’s an invitation to reflect on our own words, uttered or written. They may not be as dramatic as the primordial word spoken to creation by the Holy One, but like that divine invitation, they also possess immense power. Perhaps we’ve been blessed to hear in our lives speech acts such as, “You can do this!” “You got it.” “You have a gift.” “I believe in you.” How a life can be transformed by a steady hearing of such speech acts! These words or phrases invite our own mining and deep inner soul work. These words help to coax or spur into being our best selves, our infant talents, our transformation into generous, compassionate members of the human family.

In this season of voicing gratitude, may we reflect on and give thanks for the significant persons in our lives whose words set into motion our journey from a shaky and wavering belief in ourselves to a profound knowing that we are beloved of God. May the Holy One, who rested with contentment after the work of creation, gaze at us with all our quirks and limitations and doubts and say once again “Be!” And find us good, so very good.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on a person who has invited you into greater confidence and deeper belief in yourself.
Hold that person in tenderness and in your prayers of gratitude.
Remember as well those in our global family who long to hear words of affirmation voiced for them. Give thanks for all the gifts you have received.

Featured Image:  Ashley Whitlatch, Unsplash

NOTE:
In this season of giving thanks, know how grateful I am for your following of Mining the Now, for your comments, and for all the ways you use words and you encourage me to use words that heal, and bless, and prosper. Happy Thanksgiving, and blessings to you and all those you love.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 

Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)* In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   November 3, 2023

As someone who often drives distances of three or more hours at a stretch, I’m delighted to be living in the age of podcasts. I’m grateful for their company at any time, but especially on monotonous highways that might offer little by way of breathtaking scenery or diversity of landscape. Besides, there’s something intimate about being the only person in a car and having one or more of those sonorous podcast voices speak directly to me on a long trip or a lonely road.

Recently, I chose to take Route 206 in New Jersey. It was one of several options for my destination, and it was the longest one, but the fall foliage was at its peak and 206 would take me on roads promising autumn’s brilliant colors on full display.

Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, the NPR news quiz, was streaming, and it featured an interview with writer James Patterson. As the prolific author of over sixty books on the New York Times bestseller list, Patterson was asked what motivated him. He said that early on in his career, he heard a quote that reminded him his time was limited, and because of that, he should ask himself, “So what can I do most beautifully?” For Patterson, that clarified what became his life’s calling: telling stories.

As I heard Patterson ask the question, I was passing under archways of trees shining crimson and gold and orange above me. I sat up straight, always an indication that I’m meant to pay attention. I reflected on my conscious choice to take the longer way to my destination, simply so that I could experience beauty and thank the trees for sharing with me.

The question Patterson noted took me in another direction, towards the importance of bringing beauty into our lives. As much as we possibly can. Whenever and wherever we can. Seeking the beautiful with intentionality is soul work that can lead to our own transformation over time and can enable us to share the beautiful with others.

On the day I chose Route 206 because I knew it would bring an experience of awe and gratitude into my day, I was doing just that kind of intentional soul work. That leaning explains why I cultivate a tiny garden and welcome fuzzy bumblebees, the scent of lavender, the wildness of black eyed Susans. That’s why I don’t use headphones on my walk, so that I can better hear birdsong and the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot as well as the movements of my own heart. That’s why every day, yes, every single day, I read a poem aloud as part of my practice of prayer. That’s why I delight in relationships with others who appreciate my love affair with words, my need for whimsy, for the arts, for story telling, for compassion, and of course, for chocolate.

What I can do most beautifully is also related to how I can be most beautifully. It invites reflection on and a closer look into what we are taking into our lives. If our entire diet consists of a twenty-four hour news cycle that blares stories of humankind’s inhumanity to others through war, conflict, racism, and cruelty, we can become numb to and perhaps worst of all, indifferent to the suffering of others. But beauty can be an antidote to violence. To live beautifully, we need a nutritional supplement of wonder and awe, of music and poetry and dance and painting. We need to take in whatever makes us more alive and hopeful, whatever moves us further away from apathy or callousness, whatever moves us closer to the wholemaking the Holy One desires for all of us.

So let’s ask of ourselves today: What can I do most beautifully? How can I be most beautifully? And what will help me to consume the beauty all around me and in some meaningful way share it with a world that longs for more? 

Some of you who have followed my blog for a while know of my practice of picking up earthworms from the pavement after a rainstorm and carrying them over to a patch of moist earth or grass so that they don’t die when the afternoon sun dries up the pavement. Well, imagine my delight this morning when I turned the page and the next poem to read aloud and savor in my morning prayer was this sweet one from Lynn Ungar. I suspect it’s no coincidence that it speaks of what we take into our lives.

Earthworms

Imagine. The only thing that
God requires of them
is a persistent, wriggling, moving forward,
passing the earth through
the crinkled tube of their bodies
in a motion less like chewing
than like song.

Everything they encounter
goes through them,
as if sunsets, drug store clerks,
diesel fumes and sidewalks
were to move through our very centers
and emerge subtly different
for having fed us—looser somehow,
more open to the possibility of life.

They say the job of angels
is to sing to God in serried choirs.
Perhaps. But most jobs
aren’t so glamorous.
Mostly the world depends upon
the silent chanting underneath our feet.
To every grain that enters: “Welcome.”
To every parting mote: “Be blessed.”

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a photo, image, or object that speaks of beauty to you.
What do you notice about your choice?
What moves within your heart as you gaze at it?
How might it draw you into wonder or awe?
Spend some time in reflection, then bow and give thanks.

Featured Image:  Annie Nyle, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please remember in your prayer my Congregation, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), as we celebrate Founders’ Day on November 10. We were founded on November 10, 1845 in Monroe, Michigan by Theresa Maxis Duchemin, IHM and Louis Florent Gillet, CSsR.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)*  In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   October 20, 2023

This is a difficult acknowledgement for me as a writer. But let me acknowledge it and admit that sometimes, there simply are no words. Sometimes grief is so searing, so massive, so leaden, so overpowering, so consuming that in its presence we are struck mute, we become utterly inarticulate, we collapse under its deadening weight.

From the past five months, I’ve accompanied retreatants through six to eight day stretches of time in beautiful retreat centers through retreats both guided and directed. Usually in beginning to accompany a person through a week of directed retreat, I ask about what they carry into the days, about what their hope might be for the time of retreat. I am in awe of the stories I hear: about a longing to live meaningful lives that make a difference in our world; about a desire for richer relationship with the Holy; about attention to some deep inner soul work; about profound joy or gratitude for the way their lives are unfolding.

Sometimes what I don’t hear is telling. Sometimes we’ve completed our second day together and I still have no idea of why persons have come to this place at this time. Because they haven’t been able to utter a word. Because their language spills out in a torrent of tears, a flood of strangled sobs. Because the weight of what they’ve swallowed both silences and engulfs.

So I sit with. I wait. I listen. I pray to the Holy One. Help me to accompany as you would. Help me to be your face, the tender face of love in this room.  

Ever so slowly, words emerge. Sometimes of relationships estranged. Of connections severed and not by choice. Of a beloved friend, soul mate, partner, mentor taken by illness or death. Of finding oneself left out, excluded, overlooked. Of loss unimaginable. Of the cruelty of which our human condition is capable.

As I sit with, listen, and pray, I muzzle my Big Sister tendencies that want to fix, to make everything better, to push pain away, to offer solutions. I try to stay grounded in the Holy and to be fully present. Sometimes that is all we can do, and yes, it is everything.

Now that the extended summer retreats have paused, I step back, assess, and reflect on the blessings and the challenges of the people and places that have occupied my heart and my prayer. I give thanks for my call to bear witness to how the Holy is at work in our world in times of utter delight, in times of profound sorrow, in all times.

Wherever we may be at this moment, may the Holy One who makes all things whole move each of us ever closer to the fullness of abundant life. And when we are in need of reminding that wholeness is always God’s dream for us, I leave us with this blessing, © Jan Richardson, janrichardson.com:

Blessing for a Broken Vessel

Do not despair.
You hold the memory
of what it was
to be whole.

It lives
deep in your bones.
It abides
in your heart
that has been torn
and mended
a hundred times.
It persists
in your lungs
that know the mystery
of what it means
to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.

I am not asking you
to give up your grip
on the shards you clasp
so close to you

but to wonder
what it would be like
for those jagged edges
to meet each other
in some new pattern
you have never imagined,
that you have never dared to dream.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you an image of something that is broken or mended or entirely whole.
Share with the Holy One why you have chosen that specific image.
Ask the God of wholemaking to help you hold in tenderness everyone in our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image:  Brett Jordan, Unsplash

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)*  In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    October 7, 2023

I suspect it’s not by design but by Providence that every guided or directed retreat I was part of from May through October this year was near a salty body of water. The Atlantic Ocean. The Sound off the shores of Connecticut.

Today at a break in a retreat in Madison, Connecticut, I was watching sea birds find respite on the tip of a large boulder. During high tide, the boulder couldn’t be seen from the shore but the way the waves broke against its spot hinted of something large underwater. Now that the tide has gone out, the boulder is exposed and a flock of cormorants has discovered it and perched on the rock. I might have named it a cormorant convention except for the fact that the birds have all gathered in silence. No twittering, no fluttering of wings or shaking of feathers. Meditative, it seems.

I’m reminded of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen who observes, “For those who have come to know God, the whole world is a prayer mat.”  For the cormorants, and certainly for me, the ocean is one of my preferred places of prayer. With my formative years rooted so deeply in New Jersey, I’ve found that nothing more quickly settles me into a prayerful mode than the breaking of waves and the rhythmic lullaby of the ocean. So I’m especially grateful for all the invitations of these past months to minister seaside, to inhale salt air, to catch my breath at the rising sun at daybreak or a pastel sunset over the Atlantic.

My reality the remainder of the year is that I live in land-locked Pennsylvania. Fortunately for me, there are countless other prayer mats where I find myself. I can be immersed in contemplation when I tend to my tiny garden and its inhabitants of echinacea, lavender, marigolds and their visitors, the industrious bumblebee and the graceful butterfly. I can stand on the patio late night and breathe in stardust and a waxing moon. I can crunch leaves underfoot as I stroll along the Heritage Trail. I can savor the aroma of still baking pumpkin bread or lose myself in the haunting notes of “Gabriel’s Oboe.” I can sense the nearness of grace in the insistent way a Golden Retriever happily leans into me. I suspect that for each one of us, the list of what invites us into contemplative space is long and growing longer by the day.

But enough about me. Where do you most easily find the Holy? What gifts of our beautiful yet wounded world take you out of or beyond yourself? What transports you to a place of stillness and reflection?

In “Praying,” the luminous Mary Oliver reminds us not to overthink this, but to live with awareness and to be grateful for what comes.

“It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Perhaps you may want to find your preferred prayer mat and bless it.
Savor the experience of being with whatever invites you into contemplative space.
Give thanks for the ways it helps you to lean into the Holy.

Featured Image: Job Savelsberg, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for remembering in your prayer all who are part of a directed retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, Connecticut, still going on. I’ve been privileged to be one of the guest directors in this beautiful place.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 

Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)*. In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    September 24, 2023

This weekend we observe the autumnal equinox. Equinox, two Latin words meaning equal and night. On the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time, approximately twelve hours. With the autumnal equinox in the Northern hemisphere, we move forward from this day to the inevitable dimming of daylight, with less and less sunlight each day as we head towards the winter season of stillness and gestation and hidden contemplative time.

I was reflecting on the lessening of light this week as I watered my tribe of African violets, cyclamen, and pothos. Clearly, they respond to phototropism, that movement of leaning or bending towards the light. Weekly, I notice their tilting in the direction of the sun’s rays and so I give their pots a turn of 90 degrees to adjust their growth. This insures that they won’t grow in ways that are lopsided, that they can remain balanced and centered. It’s a reminder to me to do the same in my own inner soul life.

I’ve learned that plant responses to light depend on a plant’s ability to sense light through photoreceptors. And I wonder, given my allurement to light, if some of those same photoreceptors might have migrated to my human body. Is it possible that I and others who are so drawn towards the sun, are perhaps part plant? Is it imaginable that, on some deep, primal level, we might be kin to the very tribe of green leaves and flowering buds we tend so lovingly?

My office, where I’m writing now, is drenched in the fullness of afternoon sun. Sometimes when I walk into this space around three o’clock, I sense the pull of the sun’s rays. It’s both palpable and startling. “Oh, it’s your favorite time of day,” I say aloud to my plant neighbors. I thank them for their quiet company, for purifying the air, for enhancing the quality of my inhaling and exhaling.

And I remind them, as I remind myself, that the surges of growth that late spring and summer invite are now left behind us in memory. In the northern hemisphere, autumn  brings not the lush growth of the past few months but instead a change of form. As she paints the trees with vibrant brushes of color, she invites us into quiet and daydreaming and wondering and awe.

In The Circle of Life, Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr reflect, “Autumn is a wondrous metaphor for the transformation that takes place in the human heart each season. When we notice a subtle change of light outside our windows, we know the dark season is near.” The authors invite us to ask significant questions about where we find ourselves in our own inner harvest: “What do we need to gather into our spiritual barns? What in our lives needs to fall away like autumn leaves so another life waiting in the wings can have its turn to live?”

So here we stand on the edge of a new season unfolding. May we welcome autumn with a steady spirit of quiet expectation, of assessment, of reflective time, of taking stock as the external light lessens.  May we take up the invitation to enter into this season of burrowing, of waiting, of gathering, of harvest.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
What might you see ripening and nearing harvest in yourself at this time?
Is there a gift that you long for in this season of surrender and letting go? Ask for it.
Give thanks to the Holy One for all that grace has enabled to flourish in you season after season.

Featured Image:  Dewang Gupta, Unsplash

NOTE:
October 1 – 8:
Please remember in your prayer all who will be part of a directed retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, CT. I’ll be one of the guest directors for these days of retreat. Thank you.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 

Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)* In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   September 7, 2023

You’re doing it right now. And not just now, but 25,000 times today. Probably without any awareness unless breathing is made more challenging by respiratory issues. You’re breathing. Inhaling. Exhaling. Over and over.

So why not make of our breath a prayer? No equipment needed except our attention and intention. We can experience the simple practice of praying with the breath, what I like to call breathprayer, every morning as we greet the dawn and every evening as we gratefully drift off to sleep. And any and many times in-between, especially when a pause or a centering is needed or desired.

We know that breath is a sign of life. Our human life cycles testify to its beginnings and endings. Perhaps we have stood among the concerned and eager faces in a delivery room. Listened expectantly and leaned forward as if one body, awaiting the first wail of a newborn. And when that longed-for cry broke through the hush, perhaps we have wanted to bow our heads in worship at the miracle that another breath, another new life, was visible and among us.

Or perhaps we have sat in stillness night after night as the shadows deepened around a sickbed. Whispered prayers of pleading or made promises to God, if only…. Listened intently as the pauses between one labored breath and the next lengthened. Witnessed a final deep sigh as breath, life, departed the body and ended our long vigil of accompaniment. Perhaps we have then wanted to bow our heads in worship, knowing ourselves in the presence of holy mystery.

Inhaling and exhaling, such simple, basic human acts, so easily adapted to our prayer. In the ancient practice of breathprayer, we connect to Ruah, Spirit. We remember Jesus’ appearance to the disciples who had gathered in a locked room after his death. (John 20:19-22) We imagine him looking into those haunted and terrified faces, revealing wounds in his hands and side as proof that he was indeed risen and alive. And we participate in the joy and utter relief in that locked room when Jesus exhaled and breathed peace, Spirit, on his disciples.

In breathprayer, we first pay attention to how our breath is in any given moment. Steady? Anxious? Weary? Rapid? Relaxed? However our breathing may be, the Holy One blesses it. After a few moments of attentiveness to our breathing in and breathing out, we may want to continue praying with the breath alone. Or we may use a line from  Scripture. Or add an intention for the day, such as “Holy One,” (as we breathe in), “breathe through me” (as we breathe out).

I once heard an ancient parable claiming that it is the prayers of the many that hold up the world and keep the earth from disintegrating into ashes. I’m sure the Holy One has something more to do with that! But what I understand as the spiritual core of that statement is that prayer breathed with intentionality is an antidote to attitudes of hatred, racism, indifference, and cruelty that have the potential to burn up and destroy our earth and all who call it home. In contrast, I suspect there are few daily moments more tender or selfless than coming together with no intention other than to hold in love and compassion the known and unspoken needs of our world.

When we enter into breathprayer individually or collectively, we become, with the grace of the Holy One, agents of healing. We create what Judy Cannato called fields of compassion, exhaling tenderness and welcome and a deepening sense of kinship.

So if you are new to breathprayer, I invite you to try it. If you’re a long-time practitioner, thank you. And now I’ll simply stop writing, exhale a blessing to you, and envision all of us breathing closer to fulfillment God’s dream for our beautiful yet wounded world.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Spend some time noticing how you feel as you inhale and exhale.
After a few minutes, you may wish to add words or an intention to accompany your breath.
Continue inhaling and exhaling this breathprayer for as long as you wish.

Featured Image: Zac Durant, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for returning to my blog, Mining the Now, after my brief hiatus during the month of August. I hope that time was restorative for you as it was for me.

And thank you for holding in prayer the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Immaculata) who were part of a guided retreat I offered August 8-15 at Villa Maria Retreat House, their beautiful new retreat center in Stone Harbor, NJ.

Thank you in advance for remembering specially my niece and Godchild, Lauren Kline, and her husband-to-be, Peter Wilkins, who will be married this weekend, September 9.

And please hold in prayer all who will be part of the next retreat I’ll be leading:
September 15-22:  Guided retreat for the Sisters of Mercy and Associates, Sea Isle City, NJ

Thank you!

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 

Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)* In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    July 28, 2023

During the summer months when I’m at home, I go out to the patio before 8 AM to water and check on my container garden and tiny flower garden. The timing of my visit often coincides with my downstairs neighbors who are preparing to go out in a van for the day. One of those residents waits on the patio in his wheelchair. As soon as he sees me, he begins directing me without words: pour the watering can on this pot of mint, not that one; use the shears on this bit of lavender, not the one over there. We also have a daily ritual where I snip a sprig of mint, he sniffs it, and he then gestures for me to add it to his backpack.

This morning he surprised me by wanting one of the flowers from the black eyed Susan patch. I was about to clip one and offer it, but no, he wanted a specific flower. From a bed of over a hundred blooms. “This one?” I would ask, and he would shake his head “No.” Finally I landed on the one he wanted so I cut it and carried it up to him. He sniffed the offered flower tentatively, then held my hand that was holding the black eyed Susan, and simply gazed at it. He kept gazing, with great tenderness.

I’ve been wondering what he saw that I didn’t see. What made him single out that one particular blossom? What did he notice? What caught his attention? What summoned him to pause and take a long look?

Our lives are often so full and lived at such an accelerated pace that simply to pause might seem a luxury. Joan Chittister observes that when we can’t remember how long it has been since we simply sat and looked at something we love, it has been way too long. Even the hard-working fuzzy bumblebee, moving from flower to flower and setting in motion the complex process of honey-making, lingers. Bees are selective, hovering and discerning before landing on the blossom of their choice. Pausing and gazing are an essential part of their search.

Gazing helps us attend to the holy that surrounds us in nature, art, and other people. We pause in stillness. We contemplate. We look with soft eyes and without judgment. We open ourselves to wonder.

So we might ask: what have we been gazing at this summer (or any season)? Where have our eyes lingered? What has captured our attention and invited us to look long and lovingly? With whom, with what, have we chosen to “waste” our time? Gazing reveals who or what we value and cherish.

In our pausing and our gazing, may we look with compassion at our beautiful yet wounded world. And when we do, “Let’s Remake the World” as Gregory Orr suggests:

“Let’s remake the world with words.
Not frivolously, nor
to hide from what we fear,
but with a purpose.
Let’s
as Wordsworth said, remove
‘the dust of custom’ so things
shine again, each object arrayed
in its robe of original light.
And then we’ll see the world
as if for the first time,
as once we gazed at the Beloved
who was gazing at us.” 

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Place before you something that has meaning for you: a photo, a plant, a pet, a child, whatever it may be.
Simply gaze with deep and unwavering love at what you’ve chosen.
Offer thanks to the object of your gazing and to the Holy One who created it.

Featured Image:  Chris Koellhoffer, “Summer­ Garden”

NOTE:
Since I began writing Mining the Now in 2016, it’s been my custom to take a break from writing my blog and other ministry responsibilities during the month of August. This frees me to spend time in my own retreat and renewal, as well as offering one retreat:

August 8 – 15:
Guided retreat at Villa Maria, Stone Harbor, NJ
Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Immaculata)
I’ll be leading this retreat and ask you to remember all who will be part of it.

Blessings on your days during August. I’ll be back to writing for my blog, Mining the Now, in September. Hope to see you again then!

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
Go to the Home Page of Mining the Now (chriskoellhofferihm.org)*  In the left-hand column above the section marked “Archives,” you’ll see the words, “Subscribe to blog via email.” 

Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

Thank you for following!