Year: 2025

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   July 6, 2025

One of the briefest conversations I entered recently began with the invitation, “Tell me about your dreams.” I have friends who can recount in vivid detail and in technicolor every aspect of how their consciousness came alive during the night and offered them fantasies or sometimes strange and seemingly unrelated stories. Sometimes these dreams are easily traceable back to an event that happened during the day or to a long-standing hope, worry, or fear. Sometimes they seem to have no grounding in reality but leave a person wanting to get to the root of significance and meaning.

I confess to feeling a bit jealous of these slumber experiences because when I’m asked what fills my sleep, I have nothing to talk about. I have almost no recollection of anything beyond getting into bed and then waking up. I do, however, have an answer to that invitation to share my dreams. You see, I believe I dream while I’m fully awake.

If I’m at home during the day, I’m usually engaged in creative and imaginative work in writing or planning presentations or I’m fully engaged in attentive presence to people I accompany in spiritual direction. All of this brings me face to face with both the joy and the pain of our world, so I’m understandably spent when I go to sleep. I’ve come to understand that for me, sleep is a time of restoration. The work of the day is pretty much given over to accompaniment of some kind, standing in for the Holy One who is healing the wounded, consoling the bereft, rejoicing with the hopeful. So sleep offers my imagination and my heart a pause. Sleep feels like a time in which my mind demands a surrender and a letting go of the deep listening and inner soul work I’ve been about during daylight hours.

Perhaps I’m thinking about dreams because I recently returned from serving as a guest director for a directed retreat. This is a privileged and deeply humbling experience for me. In that role, I’m a listener. I’m a witness to how the Holy One is at work in people’s lives. During the retreat, I’m in a constant state of awe that people who began the retreat as strangers have entrusted me with their dreams and their deepest longings.

Sometimes those dreams might be about something that came to them as they slept during the night. Mostly, though, those dreams are waking dreams, focused on a vision of what the world they want to live in looks like. Or on what the Holy One might be inviting them to do or to be to move that dream closer to fullness, more in alignment with God’s dream for our world: abundant life for all, no exceptions.

And what of your own dreams? Whatever those dreams might be, do they get you out of bed in the morning with a sense of purpose and meaning? Do they invite you during the day to wonder, puzzle over, and hold them in your heart? All I know is that our world so desperately needs dreamers, so please, dream on!
Perhaps you may find resonance with this prayer reflection attributed to Joseph Whelan, SJ:

Nothing is more practical
than finding God,
than falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Share with the divine a sleeping or waking dream that reveals what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination.
Ask for guidance as to how to bring that vision closer to completion for the life of the world.
Pause, listen, give thanks.

Featured Images: Nguyễn Hiệpnguy, Unsplash, and Afsal Shaji, Unsplash

NOTE:
July 10-13
Please remember in your prayer the three branches of my IHM congregation (Scranton, PA; Monroe, MI, and Philadelphia, PA) and the Oblate Sisters of Providence, who are a significant part of our shared story, as we gather virtually to celebrate the 180^th anniversary of our founding by Mother Theresa Maxis Duchemin and Father Louis Florent Gillet in 1845.

July 17-20
Please also hold in your prayer all who will be part of a directed retreat at the Sisters of St. Joseph Spirituality Center in Ocean Grove, NJ. I’ll be one of the guest directors for this retreat. Thank you!

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   June 22, 2025

Perhaps it’s been a few years (or many) since we learned to pray. We might have been initiated into that practice by our parents or guardians, kneeling next to us at a bedside, offering us a sample of what might be spoken aloud to the Holy One before sleep, then encouraging us to “fill in the blanks” ourselves. We might have learned the practice of giving thanks for our food as we gathered around a table for supper. Perhaps an adult modeled for us the practice of pausing and entering into silent wonder before a brilliant sunset, an unfolding rose, a deer stopped in its tracks nearby. No words necessary. Wonder. And stillness.

As adults, we sometimes have to get creative in finding time and space to be silent and pray. I once had a harried mother with two toddlers at home tell me her plan: she established with her little ones that when she burrowed into her closet and closed the door, she was talking to God and couldn’t be interrupted—except for an emergency. It worked, she said, mostly.

I suspect that for many of us, our manner of praying has evolved over the years as our image of the Holy has also expanded. Often when I meet seasoned pray-ers through my retreat ministry, there is conversation about prayer, not so much the how-to of early days but more around questions about where persons find themselves in their life of prayer: Am I doing this prayer thing right? Should I be praying more often, praying longer, praying differently…? Or, how do I know if God is pleased with the way I pray? Or, I worry that my life is so full of responsibilities that I can’t seem to find time to pray. Or, I wonder if my prayer is making any difference.

But usually as I listen to people trying to shake out in words their practice of prayer or what prayer means for them, I find myself saying with a bit of holy envy to God, “I want that!” Often I have to hold myself back from bowing down in awe. I sometimes meet people who have been deprived of affirmation or encouragement or who worry about prayer and who have no idea what I see right in front of me: how brightly the astonishing radiance of their own goodness shines through, how loudly their desire for the Holy speaks.

I’ve come to believe that the very desire to pray is itself a prayer, a longing, a yearning to connect to a higher power, a Spirit larger than oneself. Prayer, I believe, is less about the words we say and more about a deepening relationship with the divine. Just as in human friendships we need to give time to be with the other in order to deepen connection and understanding, so in our life of prayer we need to give some time over to the Holy One each day in order to foster an intimate relationship. One of the ways I pray comes from a delightful practice a spiritual guide shared with me years ago. She mentioned that when she woke up in the morning, her first prayer took the form of a question to God: “What mischief can you and I get in together today?”

I’d like to write more about prayer, and I will another time. But for now, wherever you are and whatever time of day it might be, I invite you to take a moment to pause and ask the Holy One that same open-ended question: What mischief can you and I get in together today? I invite you to notice where that takes you.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Imagine:
What might it mean for you to get into mischief with the Holy One?
Chat with God about that.
Then sit back and simply listen.
Invite the Holy One to accompany you through the rest of this day.

Featured Images:   Shalom Ejiofor, Unsplash;  Guillaume de Germain, Unsplash

NOTE:
June 22 – 29
Please hold in your prayer all who will be part of a directed retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, CT during this time. I’ll be one of the guest directors for this retreat. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    June 8, 2025

Have you ever found yourself remembering a long forgotten person or experience and wondering how you got from there to here? Or wondered what might have activated a decades-long memory held in your unconscious? Our olfactory system is often the trigger that evokes stories from our past.

A whiff of salt air might return us to summers by the ocean. The scent of talcum powder or Jean Naté could bring to life a beloved grandmother. Toll House cookies still warm from the oven might draw us back to after-school snacks and the person who baked them, while freshly mown grass returns us to a favorite playground.

All these musings were part of a recent post-stroll day, for as I walked in an abandoned field near my home, I noticed patches of white, purple, and shades of pink waving in the breeze. I crossed over to introduce myself to these beauties. Wild Phlox, I thought, but then, when I counted the number of petals (four, not five) on each flower, I found myself instead surrounded by Dame’s Rocket, a lovely but invasive species of wildflower. I asked the flowers’ permission to take a handful home and add them to my prayer table.

That evening I was sitting in my favorite chair, reading, when I got a whiff of a sweet fragrance, proof that even an uncultivated, unwanted species can give glory to the Holy One. Within a few minutes the air in my living room was heavy with a delicate perfume, and I was immediately transported to John 12:1-3. Jesus enjoying dinner with close friends in Bethany. Mary pouring aromatic nard onto his feet in anointing. The house filling “with the fragrance of the oil” because of Mary’s tender gesture. Imagine the consequences of her act: perfumed liquid seeping into the dirt floor, lingering there. Imagine the aftermath: for the rest of their lives, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus savoring the warm presence of their friend and the company of one another every time they caught the scent of this anointing in their home.

Perhaps today holds an invitation to pay particular attention to the fragrances of your everyday living. The aroma of dough transformed into crusty bread by your oven. The scent of lilacs or roses from your garden. The breath of a furry companion panting in your direction. The lingering perfume of a friend who has embraced you. All of these and more, tangible reminders that the loving care of the Holy One always surrounds us and invites us to find God in all things.

What memories might you be invited to notice, revisit, and explore as this day unfolds?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you’re able, pray with scent.
Light a candle or burn incense or add a flower or potpourri into your prayer space.
Breathe in the fragrance of these gifts.

If your sense of smell has lessened or disappeared, place before you an image of fragrance.
Linger with scent or the remembrance it evokes.

Featured Images:   Maxime Doré, Unsplash; Josue Escoto, Unsplash

NOTE:
Blessings of the gifts of Spirit on this feast of Pentecost.

Blessings also to all fathers and to all who parent, guide, teach, mentor, and love young and not-so-young ones into the fullness of life the Holy One desires for us all.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    May 25, 2025

I am reminded every time I fly that I am Christ. Permit me to explain. With twenty letters comprising my first and last names, my full name doesn’t fit on a boarding pass. So to accommodate the space, my name prints out as “Koellhoffer, Christ.” Christ. Wow! That’s who I am.

Seeing that I am Christ bestows a certain awareness on me and makes me feel that I travel wearing the mantle of the Holy. It also intensifies my sense of identity and prompts me to wonder: Am I seeing like the Holy One? Listening as the Holy One does? Does my presence feel like God’s blessing to those I encounter?

While not everyone sees their name listed as Christ on a boarding pass, every one of us is called to wear the mantle of the Holy One. To put on the mind of Christ, to incarnate, with God’s grace, the Holy One’s way of being in the world. In Prayers for People Who Say They Can’t Pray, Donna Schaper urges, “Let us find the sacred deep within the ordinary, in the sweetness in our coffee and the bread on our table. Let us never miss a chance to praise what is good…”

This is such a simple practice, isn’t it? But imagine how rich our day might be if we followed this. We might begin by gratefully savoring that steaming cup of coffee or our steeping tea or whatever beverage helps us to greet the next twenty-four hours. Our first cup may offer us a chance to sit with the Holy One in stillness and offer thanks for that space. Perhaps we greet the morning sun with Mary Oliver’s thanks, “Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning…” (“Why I Wake Early”). From those simple beginnings, we might continue our awareness as we prepare ourselves or our children for carpooling or catching a bus or the day’s sports activities. If we include in our morning routine a few minutes of listening to headlines, we might integrate onto our prayer the news we hear of the world’s suffering.

Perhaps we commute to work, drive or walk or board a train. A wonderful opportunity to pray the Metta, blessing ourselves and sending that blessing to all our fellow commuters and beyond. If we notice travelers’ faces worn with worry or full of exhaustion, we might breathe compassion and strength to them. Perhaps words of thanks if we have meaningful employment or work that feeds our spirit.

A pause for a coffee break at work or as we catch our breath and tend to the needs of our home may lead to another moment where we express thanks for the food we have and for the nourishment of relationships that feed us in other ways. Conversation around the dinner table may also nourish, restore, and support us.

And at day’s end, we might find a few minutes to reflect on what we have seen or heard or felt this day, and how the Holy One has been part of our mindfulness. All of these pauses or moments of reflecting are ways of noticing the ordinary and giving thanks for the hidden gifts it holds.

It’s all about intentionality. Perhaps we may recognize something of our own way of praying and a kindred spirit in this whimsical prayer-poem from Steve Garnaas-Holmes:

   Ink
God, I was trying to write you a prayer
but the ink leaked onto my fingers,
the words all over my hands,
and I tried to wipe them off
but I got the words all over me
and then whole sentences got smudged
onto everything around me,
onto the world and wouldn’t you know it,
there’s no more ink left in my pen,
and I think I’ve lost the prayer entirely,
except I keep seeing it
on every tree and wall and person and headline,
and even the streets are smeared with it,
and even the clouds at times seem
prayerfully inky, and at night—
well, all I see is the ink of my prayers.
But my thoughts
have no more words
so

Amen.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you’re praying at dawn, ask for the grace of awareness to notice the “ordinary” parts of your day and to receive them gratefully.
If you’re praying at day’s end, review what has come into your life this day and notice your awareness of how the “ordinary” has been a gift for you.

Featured Images:  Clay Banks, Unsplash; Marcus Dan, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of the guided retreat I offered for the Dominican Sisters of Amityville, Long Island, this past week. I’ve just come home from the retreat but I’ll be savoring the gift of their prayer, presence, and hospitality for quite some time.

For those who are relaxing or traveling, have a safe and renewing celebration of the Memorial Day holiday. Let us remember the sacrifices of the many we commemorate this day.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   May 10, 2025

In the 13^th century, the poet Rumi, who lived in what is now Afghanistan, must have been outdoors and breathing in this season when he observed, “Spring, and no one can be still, with all the messages coming through.” Oh, Rumi, you are so right on!

At this moment in the Northern hemisphere, our eyes are feasting on a riot of pink on the cherry willows, the greening of baby asparagus and red leaf lettuce, and the brave lineup of tulips as they burst into watercolors. And our ears? Such delight to be awakened at dawn not by the harsh cry of an alarm clock but by the singing and chanting of our feathered friends. Chirps and trills and warbles and whistles, so much to chat about as a new day begins.

I’m more intentionally taking in the sounds of this season since I had to purchase a new smart phone to replace my dying one. Once I got over the shock of a replacement’s cost, I discovered some good news: that with an upgraded operating system, I could at last subscribe to the Merlin Bird ID app. Developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this free app makes bird identification accessible to everyone and offers various features like photo and sound identification. A user can be outdoors or sitting near a window with the app open and can eavesdrop on avian conversations. This practice opens us to wonder and encourages our desire to listen contemplatively, to live with awareness, and to be fully present to the world around us.

In Chant, Katherine Le Mée notes that this practice aligns with spiritual teaching, which “has always pointed to the fact that everything in creation has a sound, its own unique vibration.” She writes that when we try to live as conscious listeners, we “may perceive more and more of what the universe is saying to us by the simple act of listening.”

If you, like me, have an intimate relationship with the created world, you may find additional delight in now being able to address our winged neighbors by their proper names. “You’re sounding especially chipper today, Mr. Cardinal,” I might say after hearing that distinctive whistle. Or “Oh, Ms. Crow, what’s all the excitement about?” after some boisterous caws. This way of intimate and focused listening to the avian world might seem a logical next step if you, like me, already greet our bird neighbors’ relatives in the floral kin-dom by name whenever we meet one another.

So here’s a question to carry with us into the season of spring, or really into any and every one of the four seasons: What might be some of the messages you are hearing, seeing, noticing in creation in your corner of the world? What might our feathered and petaled friends be telegraphing to you about new life, fresh perspectives, and the deep yearning encoded in our spiritual DNA?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to sit or walk outside and simply listen to the voices of the natural world.
Notice the singing of birds or the gentle sway of petals in the breeze or the refreshing scent of mint.
What might the Creator be saying to you through your senses?
Share that with the Holy One, and give thanks.

Featured Images: Joshua J. Cotten, Unsplash; Austin Chan, Unsplash

NOTE:
Mother’s Day blessings to all mothers and to all who give their lives over to nurturing, encouraging, supporting, teaching, and loving life at every level.

We pray also for blessing and wisdom for our new Pope, Leo XIV, as he enters into his ministry as a newly elected global pastor.

May 18-23:
Please hold in your prayer safe travel and blessings for all who will be part of a guided retreat I’m leading for the Dominican Sisters of Amityville, New York. Thank you!

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    April 27, 2025

Don’t you just love it when your heart and mind make associations for you, seemingly without any effort on your part, and then later present clear connections in ways that surprise you? I recently had the privilege of spending a precious four days with my older brother who lives in Florida and my sister and her husband who were visiting nearby. During dinner on my first night, we reminisced over stories of how our parents found one another. Mom, who grew up in the coal mining region of Northeast Pennsylvania and had a serious boyfriend there, moved to New Jersey with her sisters after high school to find work. There she met our Dad, and as she told us, “he was a lot more fun than my boyfriend back home.” So it was that all of us grew up in the suburbs of northern New Jersey.

We might call that Providence. Or grace at work. Or an accident of birth. But the reality of that landscape has so clearly shaped me and all my siblings. It invited us to freely explore the wilds of the natural world around us. It led us to embrace what today we might call creation spirituality: a profound knowing that every flower, every bit of greening, every furry, finned, and feathered neighbor is our kin, and we relate to them as such. Those formative years are responsible for the reality that we pray best, yes, we’re at our most contemplative, when we’re next to a body of water, preferably the salty and wave-tossed kind. The seeming accident of the place where we were born and raised gave us a childhood that wasn’t perfect, of course, but that was largely peaceful and absent of fear, a beginning that encouraged curiosity and cultivated beauty. I grew up owning that privilege and praying, “I want everyone to have what I have.”

After my few days in Florida, I spent Easter with another sister and her family. As we sat around and gazed at the deeply loved little toddler among us, I thought of the tribe of nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews I love dearly. Yes, I was oozing Easter joy and gratitude from every happy pore, remembering the promise of the empty tomb, the impossible good news, the incredulity of the disciples finding confirmation in the appearance of a risen Jesus.

Then I drove home and watched the evening news. My return to this practice was as sudden a jolt as listening to the Nativity Scriptures followed three days later by the abrupt and brutal Gospel account of slaughtered, innocent boys two years and under: Rachel weeping for her children. The contrast between what I was born into and where so many of the world’s fragile little ones are trying to survive looked back at me as if written in boldface and with exclamation points. Toddlers in Gaza crushed under rubble. Babies in South Sudan whom famine has robbed of the energy to cry. Both globally and closer to home, little ones struggling to escape abuse. I gaze on the suffering of the innocent, now deeply aware of the blessings of being born into my time and place, and once again I pray, “I want everyone to have what I have.”

Our place of birth is a mystery over which we have no control. I weep for every child whose life is untouched by love, who is constantly wounded by words or actions, whose only experience is the terror of war or the uncertainty of conflict. I wonder aloud to the Holy One: why them and not me? What I hear in response is that we’re called to fall on our knees in profound gratitude for whatever undeserved gifts have come into our lives because of our early beginnings. To recognize and name grace at work if we’ve known a catalog of caring parents, thoughtful teachers, faithful mentors who never gave up on us. To give our lives over in love and service to help move the Holy One’s dream of abundant life for all a bit closer to fulfillment. To be engaged in “good trouble,” working towards a more just and inclusive world for those who do not have what we had. To be people of resurrection who desire to be about all things rising, the rising of everyone, everywhere, with no exceptions, as Jan Richardson prays:

For all things rising
out of the hiddenness of shadows
out of the weight of despair
out of the brokenness of pain
out of the constrictions of compliance
out of the rigidity of stereotypes
out of the prison of prejudice;
for all things rising
into life, into hope
into healing, into power
into freedom, into justice;
we pray, O God,
for all things rising.

Blessings of this season! What might you hope to see rising in yourself or in our world at this time?

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
In your imagination or with a photo, revisit the place of your birth and childhood.
What memories present themselves to you?
For all that raises up joy, give thanks. For all that rises as wounds, ask for healing.
Entrust to the Holy One whatever is in need of rising to new life in you and in our world.

Featured Images: Robin Lyon, Unsplash; Salah Darwish, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please join me in prayers of profound thanksgiving for the life and witness of Pope Francis. May his memory inspire us to care for all creation, especially the most fragile and vulnerable among us.

April 26 – May 2

Please hold in your prayer my safe travel and all who will be part of a guided retreat I’ll be leading for the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, MI. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM     April 13, 2025

Several weeks ago, I spent a graced weekend presenting to and reflecting with a community I had journeyed alongside as a young adult. In my early thirties, after years of praying that was honest, after soul searching that was often painful, messy, and confusing, I made the difficult discernment to leave my original community and transfer to the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM – Scranton). That decision-making of forty-two years ago merged with the recent weekend in ways that were confirming, surprising, and full of the tenderheartedness of homecoming.

Since then, I’ve been holding the image of doors in my heart. The doors we’re afraid to open. The doors that won’t budge or that lock us out. The doors we’re prompted to explore. The doors that swing wide in welcome.

It can’t be coincidence that right now in the Northeast, spring is bravely opening doors of liberation. Forsythia bursting into sudden gold. Narcissus and Grape Hyacinth fearlessly poking their heads up through still cold soil. Robins and Cardinals warbling songs of hope to welcome the sunrise.

All these signs of courageous breakthrough lead to one of my favorite Lenten days, Holy Saturday. Sandwiched between the utter grief and darkness of Good Friday and the glory and hope of Easter morning, this Saturday that we call Holy is all about waiting. Waiting in the uncertainty of the tomb. Waiting in stillness. Waiting for a stone to be rolled away. Waiting and discerning next steps once that door has opened wide.

I’ve always felt that Holy Saturday’s significance is overlooked in our longing to get to resurrection. After all, isn’t this where we spend most of our lives, this space between loss and hope, this not knowing what’s behind Door #1, this wondering if our lives given over in love are really making a difference for the well-being of our family, our neighborhood, our nation, our world?

To all our neighbors who at this moment are buried in the tomb of numbing grief, who feel overcome by utter despair, who are paralyzed by fear over next steps, who are crushed by heartache or disappointment: please know that you are not alone. We are waiting with you. We are holding you in our heart and prayer. We are standing with arms wrapped around you in the cold and dark of this place.

Together, let us proclaim that sin and death will not have the last word. Together, let us refuse to be intimidated by the heaviness of waiting or the weight of the stone blocking the way to a fuller, freer life. Together, with the grace of the Holy One, on this day or surely on some graced day to come, let us roll away the stone and greet the dawn. May it be so!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on any door not yet opened in your life.
What does this door look like? sound like?
How do you feel sitting on this side of it?
Share this with the Holy One.
Then ask for courage and strength to move closer to the fullness of God’s dream for you.

Featured Images: Alexey Demidov, Unsplash; Marcus Dall, Unsplash

NOTE:
Every blessing to those who have observed Ramadan or who will be celebrating Passover or Easter. Wishing you whatever freshness and newness of life you long for at this time.

Please hold in your prayer:

April 26 – May 2
Safe travel and blessing for all who will be part of a guided retreat I’m leading for the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   March 30, 2025

Ice on the windshield again this morning. The winter that seemed unending in Northeast PA still manages to have a bit of a grip on my part of the Universe. I could be grumbling about the inconvenience of defrosting and scraping (a tendency I’ve indulged in many times this season). But on my better days, I gaze at the natural world around me and wonder what hidden messages I’m meant to uncover.

What could Earth be saying through its friends: ice, snow, frigid mornings? The last gasp of winter reminds us to explore what we also might be clinging to and reluctant to let go of. What we’re missing if we focus only on the elements that irk us, like the necessary extra minutes required to clear a frozen windshield or to put on thick layers of warm clothing. What if we approached these experiences more as an act of learning, of care and well-being, and less of an annoyance?

As resilient spring dares to make a comeback these days, I’m committed to paying close attention. After returning home from serving as a guest director for a directed retreat in the early days of spring, I was stunned to notice and realize that, since the beginning of time, the natural world has been practicing repetition, something that is often also a practice in directed retreats. In Ignatian spirituality  “repetition is the return to a previous period of prayer for the purpose of allowing the movements of the Holy One to deepen within the heart.” So we might go back to a Scripture passage, a movement of the heart, or a significant experience, we might listen and look again, see what more might be unfolding, and mine the deeper meaning of things.

How, I wondered, have I never before noticed that the
kin-dom of plants and all things green and growing has been practicing this repetition for far longer than we can imagine? How, pushing up through the layers of dead leaves piled on them as winter frost protection, are clusters of mini jonquils, bunches of eager crocus, tribes of brave daffodils. How they seem to joyfully trumpet we are here, we are here, we are here, over and over again. Returning is what they know. Repeating is what they do, every spring. Same faces, but a new season.

What stories they must gather from their time in the Underland! Oh, if only we cultivated eyes to see and hearts to notice, to pay attention, to mine for the deeper meaning of this flowering, repeating, ever new and ever fresh revelation.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you live in the Northern hemisphere, you may wish to walk outside, bask in the generous sunlight, and notice the new life around you that is returning and repeating.
If you live in the Southern hemisphere and are witnessing the coming of autumn, you may want to spend this time looking for life that is surrendering to the repetition of sleep and burrowing deep.
What might you intuit from what your eyes and heart notice?
Share this with the Holy One and ask for a repetition of whatever grace you most desire.

Featured Images: Ales Maze, Unsplash; Chris Koellhoffer

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of the Assembly of the Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham, NJ last weekend.

Now may I ask you to hold in your prayer:

April 7-8:
Travel and a Lenten day of reflection that I’ll be leading at the IHM Conference Center in Bryn Mawr, PA. Thank you.

Another thank you:
To “Gally” Galligan III, a follower of Mining the Now, who wrote after I published “The Practice of Rafting” and I suggested listening to Ben E. Cook’s version of “Stand by Me”:
Here’s what Gally offered:
“After reading today’s from you, I could not help but remember a version of this great song. You may be familiar. It is sung by various street musicians and others from all over the world and there is a video of it as well. It is inspiring…You may want to check it out. “Stand by Me: Playing for Change”
Thanks for this wonderful addition, Gally, and here’s the YouTube link for anyone who would like a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    March 16, 2025 

Although we didn’t have the term, “creation spirituality,” when I was growing up, I realize in hindsight that that’s exactly what my parents nurtured in my siblings and in me. A softness toward every creature. A sense of caretaking. A commitment as serious as being a big sister to my younger sisters and brother.

No surprise, then, that I’m predisposed towards tenderness for every plant and animal. And that I capitalize their names in acknowledging their being. Perhaps you, like me, have a hierarchy of sorts explaining the mystery that draws you towards certain creatures more than others. High on my list: every dog I’ve ever met, with a special leaning towards Golden Retriever, Border Collie, German Shepherd, and “mutts.” Donkeys, mini and standard, with their ruffled coat and that full-throated, enthusiastic, honking way of saying hello. Orcas (please don’t call them killer whales) forming permanent pods of visible kinship, belonging, and care for their family. And how about the clever Crow and his fascination with all things shiny and sparkling? The generous Peony sharing her perfume and the comforting Crocus and Pussy Willow assuring us that spring is near?

But it’s what I recently I learned about another favorite, Otter, that I want to get around to sharing. Perhaps we’ve seen photos of how they seem to cling to one another while resting. Besides rating high on the cuteness factor, there’s a sound reason behind this behavior. Otters hold hands in sleep to prevent themselves from drifting apart in the water. This behavior is often called “rafting,” as it keeps them safe and connected while they’re floating. It’s a behavior that’s especially important when currents are extremely strong, rough, and threatening to their safety and well-being.

I’ve been thinking about what a beloved practice rafting could become for us, both literally and figuratively. I suggest it might be a spiritual practice essential for surviving and thriving in our time and place. Rafting in prayer links our fervent pleas with people of good will, with the holy ones in our universe. Rafting gives public witness to solidarity, underscoring that there are steps for justice we might hesitate to take as individuals but wouldn’t hesitate to move into with the collective, with someone standing next to us. Rafting invites us to link arms and draw courage from people we respect and trust. It emboldens us through nearness to the resistance, bravery, and commitment of others.

So when we fear we might become the hate or indifference we see around us, let us hold on to one another. When we long to be persons of compassion and mercy towards our vulnerable neighbors, let us hold on to one another. When it appears that our individual and collective actions to foster the Holy One’s dream of abundant life for all people are not effecting immediate or significant change, let us hold on to one another. When our trust in the slow work of God (emphasis on slow) grows shaky, let us hold on to one another. Holding on challenges us to transform our holy rage at injustice into focused action for a more loving and inclusive world. Holding on invites us to grow our spaciousness of heart, to breathe in softness and breathe out fierceness.

We begin by entering into deep, inner soul work. We link arms and lean on one another for support and encouragement. We pray to bring closer to fullness the Holy One’s dream of a world that welcomes everyone, no exceptions. In all of this, we hold on tight to and are held on tight by the Holy One who remains beside us always. With tenderness. With understanding. With extravagant and endless compassion. With a love that knows no limits and has no end. May it be so.

Let’s keep on rafting!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to sit with your palms upturned.
Imagine holding hands with a person in our world who is paralyzed by fear or letting go of hope or overcome by despair. Grip their hand tightly.
Play a piece of music that resonates with solidarity. (Suggestion, “Stand by Me,” composed by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and performed by the Kingdom Choir), or another piece of your choice.
Ask the Holy One to hold on tight to you and to inspire you to hold on tight to everyone in our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Images:   Ken Conger; Aman Shrivastava, Unsplash

NOTE:
March 21-23

Please hold in your prayer all who will be part of the Assembly of the Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham, NJ. This Assembly I’m facilitating was postponed because of inclement weather in February, so your prayers have continued to accompany us since then. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    March 2, 2025

If you know me, you already know that I’m not inclined in the direction of the penitential. So it may seem a glaring contradiction when I declare that Ash Wednesday ranks as one of my favorite days on the liturgical calendar. Permit me to explain.

I was excited the first time I was to serve as a minister of blessed ashes on this day. I had heard there were several predictable experiences for those who distributed ashes: the line to receive ashes would be seemingly endless and the people in the line would be mostly unfamiliar and unknown. Still, I was totally unprepared for what happened to me the first time I served in this ministry.

“Return to God with all your heart” was the rhythm of the day. I prayed to be a welcoming presence, especially to any strangers awkwardly coming forward. I tried to gaze into every face with the tenderness I imagined the Holy One gazes at each of us. It was what I saw looking back at me that utterly shook my soul and has haunted me on every Ash Wednesday since.

When I peered into the face of the first person I signed with the cross, I anticipated the customary countenance of the “regular” worshippers who received the Eucharist on Sundays. This was not that. This was a desire so intense that I gasped. Caught my breath. Not only the first face I met but on face after face after face. Longing was as transparent as if each person wore a neon sign announcing it. No matter that I hadn’t met most of the people lining up and knew nothing of their stories. I saw newborn hope. Felt the weight of past mistakes cast off by the chance of turning things around. Imagined earnest and whispered promises. Witnessed faint remembrances of childhood prayers. Gazed at a sea of faces wearing the names “Sincere” and “Longing” and “Hopeful” and “Returning” on their foreheads. I knew myself to be in the presence of the Holy and simply wanted to bow down.

I was shaken not only by a palpable immersion in the sacred but by a brief glimpse into what the Holy One sees at every moment in our midst. How we dare to come forward and hold out our wounds, our shame, our failures, and still receive an embrace. How we take one step closer and then fall several steps away but still are never let go. How our intention to live lives of more engaged prayer and right relationship with God and our neighbors doesn’t always align with our daily practice, but the affirmation of our faltering efforts still remains. How there is nothing that can ever permanently separate us from the heartbeat of unconditional Love. Still.

So yes, Ash Wednesday is coming and it signals a new beginning. May we find ourselves in readiness to return to God with all our hearts. Today and always. Over and over again. Still.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on your deepest desire for this season of your life.
Share your hopes with the Holy One.
Ask for the grace to be the face of Love for every other face you gaze at today.

Featured Image: Zulmaury Saavedra, Unsplash

NOTE:
Blessings on the Lenten journey at its beginning and far beyond. Whatever your faith tradition, I can think of no soul work more critical at this time than helping to bring into being a world that is more just, peaceful, and inclusive. Thank you for your efforts to do that. May this be so!

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