Brent Bill says that “true silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit, what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment” (30). 

When you read descriptions on how to do a contemplative prayer practice, most of them begin with words like this: Find a quiet place. Close your eyes. Enter the silence and quiet your mind. Silence is a part of almost every contemplative practice.

While I am talking about it as a spiritual practice, openness is far more than something we do. In my previous post, I spoke of how openness is a foundational part of life.

A conversation about openness as a spiritual practice may be one of the most important conversations we can have. A conversation that doesn’t necessarily come to conclusions but keeps going because it opens up something in both people.

The practice of giving attention is related to the practice of being present.  It is a specific way of being present.  It is what you do when you are present with someone or something.  You give them your attention.  You pay attention. So, do you give your attention or do you pay attention?  At first,…

The word, present, has a double meaning.  Present, as in present tense, the here and now.  Present, as in being aware of what is happening in the moment.   All religious and spiritual traditions talk about the importance of being present in the here and now.  In my work as a counselor, I work with people…

The word, enthusiasm, has an interesting origin.  It comes from two Greek words.  En, which means in or within.  Theos, which means God.  So, the literal meaning of the word, is “God within,” or “in God.”  With this origin, it makes sense to consider enthusiasm as a spiritual and religious practice. Many other words come…

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” Socrates When you think about awe and mystery, which I explored in previous posts, it may feel strange to think of them as spiritual practices.  Awe and mystery, it seems, are moments that happen to you instead of practices that you do intentionally.  But there are ways to bring them into…

To be spiritual is to have an abiding respect for the great mysteries of life—the profound distinctiveness of other souls, the strange beauty of nature and the animal world, the ineffable complexity of our inner selves, the unfathomable depths of the Inexplicable One.  The wisdom traditions challenge us to live within a cloud of unknowing….

“Alive in the World” is the name I chose for this website.  That name comes from a song by Jackson Browne.  The song invites you to consider how you can be present in a world that offers an amazing depth and complexity.  In a previous post, I expressed how, for me, this aliveness, this meaning…