Year: 2025

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   February 16, 2025

True confession: during the winter months where I live, I might be mistaken for a hibernating bear. I resist going outside once the Northern hemisphere has tilted away from the sun and daylight quickly transitions to darkness. I bury myself under mounds of blankets, including a heated layer, in the cave of my bedroom. And when I must leave the comforting insulation of my den, my movement is more of a lumbering than the light sauntering of summer walks. More carefully, more mindfully, more slowly, that’s the winter pace, ice or no ice underfoot.

As I name these winter noticings for myself, I wonder if you might join me in naming some of the graced invitations the season of winter provides. To savor, instead of a quick glance followed by a hurried moving on to something else. To rest, paying attention to the rhythms of our bodies rather than pushing on against overwhelming fatigue. To contemplate, welcoming the gift of a pause or the happy surprise of time for stillness. To forsake the neighbors, Hurry and Rush, and instead make friends with Linger and Abide.

The Buddhist spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh authored a series of mindfulness essentials, five small, slim books that might be welcome reading for this season of burrowing deep. They are all “How to” titles: How to Sit; How to Relax; How to Love; How to Eat; and for our focus, How to Walk. The “how to” on walking is deceptively simple:

“The first thing to do is lift your foot.
Breathe in.
Put your foot down in front of you, first your heel and then your toes.
Breathe out.
Feel your feet solid on the Earth.
You have already arrived.”

Try this and notice how it dramatically slows your pace as you enter into each deliberate movement. Mindful, unhurried walking has a significant place in many spiritual practices, including prayer, pilgrimage, walking the labyrinth, walking meditation, all accompanied by intention and awareness. The slowness of mindful walking might be done in the name of our ancestors or neighbors who had to walk with sorrow or who were forced to march or to migrate. We might walk for those for whom movement of any kind is restricted because of pain or mobility issues. We might choose to walk tenderly, our feet kissing Mother Earth, to repair the harm she has suffered.

In his wonderful book, Surprises Around the Bend: 50 Adventurous Walkers, Richard A. Hasler profiles a variety of walkers including naturalists, poets, teachers, pilgrims, seekers, prophets, and social reformers. He notes that Dorothy Day discovered that when she could not pray in a traditional manner, she could pray while she was walking; that it was not until St. Teresa of Calcutta walked among the poor that she really knew how she felt; that an anonymous Russian pilgrim walked across Russia’s vast expanse, memorizing the Jesus Prayer and being transformed; that Gandhi’s 1930 trek across India on foot to protest a salt tax on his people became pivotal in their quest for independence; that Harriet Tubman walked to freedom to escape slavery in Maryland and then she marched right back over and over at risk to her own life to rescue many others.

And what of us? What motivates each of us to walk? Exercise, health benefits, contemplation, time spent in the natural world, immersion in wonder, a chance for clear-headed thinking? Whatever lures us into a gym or to the wide world outside our door, may we walk mindfully, prayerfully, tenderly on this earth. And if we’re unable to walk, may the movement of our hearts carry us mindfully, prayerfully, tenderly as we accompany one another into this fast-paced world.

Takeaway
If you’re able, you may want to walk this Takeaway; if not, sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you’re outside, breathe deeply and be attentive to your surroundings. What do you notice? feel? see? hear?
If you’re inside, play some movement music (Suggestion: “In Beauty We Walk” by Ian Callanan or, if you’re feelin’ groovy, “The 59^th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” by Simon and Garfunkel). What do you notice? feel? see? hear?
Name what you are present to and what is moving within you.
Give thanks to the Holy One for all that touches your heart and inspires you to move with tenderness and compassion through our world in the days ahead.

Featured Images:  Brian Mann, Unsplash; Brett Jordan, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayerful remembrance of all who were to be part of the Assembly of the Sisters of Christian Charity, February 8-9. Your prayers were very powerful and so were the elements of ice and snow! Because of hazardous driving conditions, the Assembly was postponed until March 22-23, so your prayers have moved forward to that date. Thank you!  

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   February 2, 2025

What exactly is a home? A structure? A place of welcome? An incubator for relationships? A shelter from storms both literal and figurative? A center to nurture and honor and keep safe loved ones, pets, memories, and mementos? Or is home, simply put, wherever the heart is?

Altadena. Malibu. Pacific Palisades. Pasadena. We can keep adding to the litany of places, of lives lost or missing, of homes forever disappeared in fire-torn Los Angeles, in fire-ravaged California. We grieve for the thousands who have been displaced, for the many whose belongings have become mounds of ash. We weep with those whose sense of home has been destroyed, charred, or forever altered and shaken.

In “Portraits of a Deeply Meaningful Life,” Stacey Lindsay reported on a unique and artistic way to give those facing the loss of their homes “a tender well of love.” She noted the work of Jordan Heber, who has drawn from this well by painting images of homes as they once were before the wildfires and gifting those works of art to devastated homeowners. Her efforts have been replicated by Asher Bingham, a portrait artist in Los Angeles, who’s also sketching homes that have burned down. “Since I can’t donate to every GoFundMe that makes me cry,” notes Bingham, “I draw. And keep drawing.” Fellow illustrators, art students in Seattle, and a myriad of people volunteering to help with administrative tasks have joined the creative efforts to bring solace to some of the devastated homeowners.

In standing with all whose sense of home has been destroyed through natural disasters like wildfires, floods, or earthquakes, we also hold in tenderness and prayer those whose homes have been obliterated by fire raining down from the sky in bombings: Aleppo, North Gaza, Khan Younis, Rafah, Dnipro, Lviv, Kharkiv, and so many other places in our world where the sound of weeping accompanies the loss of home.

We remember the heartache of refugees and migrants who might have longed to remain in the familiar places they called home but whose dreams were upended by threats of  imminent danger or life-crushing poverty or political instability. In “Home,”  British Somali poet Warsan Shire reminds us that the suffering of people far away could become our own overnight, could threaten our sense of safety and well-being. She pleads with us to understand,
“that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land…”

Speaking as a refugee herself, Shire admits that her desire to return home can’t be fulfilled because
“home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of a gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore…”

For all for whom the home they loved is no more, Jan Richardson (©Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com) offers “Blessing Where A Life Was Made,” excerpted here:

Bless this place
and the life
left behind—
this emptiness
that is not empty,
this absence
that is not void.

Bless this place
that knows full well
what was made here,
that wears
the mark of it
always,
imprinted forever
by what passed by
in its intricate,
astonishing grace.  

We know that all of us live together as neighbors for whom Jesus promised to prepare a place (John 14:3). What then, are we called to do, how are we called to be, in the in-between times? Even though we may be hundreds of miles away from someone else’s story of sudden homelessness, how might we be present to those who mourn for homes that are no more? What does home mean for them and for us?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a globe or an image of people who are suffering loss.
Gaze at the image, and notice what you see and feel.
Breathe out your compassion to all who long for the welcome and safety that is home.
Share with the Holy One your intention to be present to and hold in tenderness and prayer God’s suffering ones.

Featured Images: Mantas Hesthaven, Unsplash; Zoltan Tasi, Unplash

NOTE:
February 8-9:
Please hold in your prayer all who will be part of an Assembly of the Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham, NJ. I will be with them to lead reflection and contemplative dialogue around the  work ahead: becoming agents of healing for one another and for this world so beloved by the Holy One. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 19, 2025

Sometimes it seems as if the Holy One has to deliver more than a gentle nudge to get our attention. This was my experience recently when several forms of household breakdown or domestic disintegration occurred within the space of one week.

I’ve been living in my sunny apartment for fifteen years now. Most of the donated furnishings have lived here far longer than I. Some, like the sheer voile curtains on the many large windows, have witnessed occupants come and go over several decades.

Recently, when I could no longer ignore their dusty appearance, I took down the living room curtains and washed them. When I removed the curtains from the washing machine, an unexpected epiphany: the curtains were now shredded into dozens of small particles. (I’ve learned since that three years is the average life span of voile. Who knew?) But at that point, confident in my unknowing, I proceeded to then wash the kitchen curtains. Disintegration once again. And as often follows, not long after I purchased and ironed and replaced all the window coverings, my ancient iPhone showed signs of a serious decline. Can you guess the rest of that story?

Everything, including things that disintegrate, can be food for soul work. Gratitude is a spiritual practice that extends even into our connection with the inanimate world. When multiple objects break down or cease functioning unexpectedly and simultaneously, we’re led to ask, what’s happening here? What’s underneath the falling apart? Aside from the practical need for replacements, what are we meant to notice, pay attention to, and learn?

We normally don’t give much thought to the simple possessions that surround us. But with prayer and reflection, we may discern from the shredded curtains or the worn-out phone that some of our familiar ways of doing and being have completed their purpose in serving our needs. With their collapse, we may notice something shifting in us, in our perspective, in the way we move through the world, in our awareness of all that is around us day to day.

But before we discard these no longer useful inanimate objects, one more step: let’s thank them for their service, voicing gratitude for all the ways they have filtered sunlight or opened us to beauty or carried the voices of people we love over time and distance. With the poet Pat Schneider, let’s savor and appreciate the ordinary companions of our everyday living:

The Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.

I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Is there anything breaking down or nearing an end or calling for a fresh look in your life at this moment? If so, what might it be inviting you to reflect on at this time?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may wish to place before you a simple implement of your every living: a cup, a plate, a kettle, a spatula, a placemat, and more.
Reflect on the object’s patience and the “kind of love” it shows you day after day.
Promise that going forward you will use it gently and with awareness of its service.
Give thanks to the Holy One for all the living and inanimate creation that serves you.

Featured Image: Laura Rivera, Unsplash

NOTE:
As I write, I’m painfully aware of the thousands of people displaced by wildfires in California. Added to the terrible loss of life is the loss of home and safety and a sense of well-being, with not even the smallest memento salvageable. To all who are bereft, please know that our Mining the Now community holds you in prayer and in tenderness as we breathe compassion and healing energy to you and to all of our suffering neighbors throughout the world.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 5, 2025

During the Christmas season, we hear once again the story of the Magi, wise ones from the East, strangers from another culture, journeying to pay homage to the newborn Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12). Sometimes a story is so familiar that we’re not inclined to break it open beyond the words we’ve heard so many times. But the story leaves us with unanswered questions: were the Magi shaken, perhaps awestruck, by what they had witnessed in Bethlehem? After their departure, did the news of Rachel’s weeping for her massacred children ever reach them? Once safely home, did they often catch themselves gazing up at the midnight sky, remembering the allurement of the brilliant star that had led them to Bethlehem? And perhaps most of all, how were their lives different because of their encounter with the child who was both human and divine?

I ask these questions because I always want to know the rest of the story. What I’m really asking is, what impact did the epiphany, the manifestation of the Holy, have on the remainder of the Magi’s everyday living? I ask because once we’ve encountered the Holy, we can’t stay exactly as we once were in the past. Whenever God is revealed to us, there’s an invitation to new and fresh ways of seeing or being, an invitation to growth and transformation.

Many of you who have followed me for some time already know my story of a formative revelation I experienced when I was in third grade. How a Maryknoll missionary visited our class to talk about his experience in Japan. How I don’t remember a single word he said. But how I do remember, and very clearly, what he did. He gave each of us a holy card with the Madonna and Child on it. The revelation for me: Mary and Jesus had Asian features.

The Maryknoll missionary had no idea what he had unleashed in my young world. I found myself stunned and deeply perplexed. Up until that moment in my eight-year-old suburban life, every holy card, every statue, every image, every stained glass window I had ever seen had a Mary and Jesus who could have been one of my German-Irish relatives. Though I didn’t have the necessary language to unpack this and articulate it at the time, I can now name this a mystical experience, a deep knowing that God is bigger—than our understanding, than our imagination, than our worldview, than our grasp.

And we need not wait for huge, earth-shattering experiences for God to be revealed. The Holy can and does appear in the seeming ordinariness of our everyday living. In a commentary on the Epiphany, SALT writes of “the small and often unnoticed ways God enters our lives in epiphanies large and small. This hiddenness is a kind of divine signature: instead of ‘showing forth’ conspicuously…God slips into the world by way of a poor family in a backwater town…” Our call is to “reflect on ‘epiphanies,’ the ways (great and small) God shows forth in our lives, and the ways (great and small) we notice or overlook these showings.”

Coming so soon after Christmas on the Church calendar, the Epiphany serves as a gentle but persistent reminder that the revelation offered to the wise ones is also offered to each of us as well. In this new year, may we cultivate an attitude of noticing and paying attention to all creation. May we take time to contemplate what is unfolding in the world around us. May we open our hearts to the wisdom offered from sometimes surprising sources: the small, the simple, those beyond our own culture, language, or religion. Let’s not let the seeming ordinariness of our lives get in the way of our deep, intuitive seeing that the Holy One is always at work in us and in our world.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Take a few moments to reflect on the past week.
What have you noticed? Where did you give your time and attention?
What moved you or invited you to pause and look more closely?
What might the Holy One be saying to you through such revelations?
When you are finished, bow your head in gratitude for these epiphanies.

Featured photo:  Inbal Malca, Unsplash

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