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Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Roof
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Roof
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
To have a roof over our heads is to have a home. Days of storm, days of intense sun, gray days, pleasant days—the roof is there and we are sheltered. How easily we take that fact for granted, yet all around us there is homelessness—a roof-less population. In appreciating that we …
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Window
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Window
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
If we have been out in the dark, how comforting to see a lighted window; if we have been shut in, how refreshing when the light finds us. Without windows a house is a tomb. We need light and air. We need the new day to enter our homes, to bring us out of the night’s slumber and o…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Wall
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Wall
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
Many people who meditate sit facing a wall—facing a limit in order to find the limitless inside. Many pilgrims have traveled to stand beside the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem or to be witnesses by the walls where the names of the dead are inscribed. We need walls to help us with memo…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Hear
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Hear
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
We can close our eyes, but we cannot close our ears. Without ear-lids we are in a sense always open to the world, to its noise and joy, its confusion and its deep cries. Our eardrums cannot but resonate with what is around us. We thrum, whether we like it or not. Sometimes we dro…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Sleep
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Sleep
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
It may seem strange to some of us to think that entering into sleep could be prayer. Many of us say prayers before we turn off the light, but we seldom think of consciously giving ourselves over to the losing of our daytime awareness for the mysteries of sleep and dreams. Attende…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Touch
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Touch
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
In the courtesy of beholding, and with a certain kind of respectful distance, we can come to know that everything and everyone has a vast solitude within. Quite often we do not want to feel this essential aloneness. It is fearful. We want to touch and be touched. We want to be ve…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To See
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To See
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
We see with more than our eyes. This is a mystery. We know that even a blind person can see in that larger sense. To see with carefulness and love is a great act of faith. So often we are too lazy or too distracted to see with care. Images come into our retinas, and our minds hav…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Hearth
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - The Hearth
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
Not many homes have an actual hearth, a place for fire to burn freely. Most of us live in apartments or houses without fireplaces. Nevertheless, every dwelling has a subjective center for fire. It is the place where we gather, the place we are warmed. It is no accident that the w…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - Dwelling
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - Dwelling
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
To dwell is to live in a place, to remain in it. Any space we truly occupy becomes, through dwelling, a home— becomes, through time, a sanctuary. There is, in the word dwell, a sense of repose. When we really inhabit our homes we gain a sense of time, and are then more able to kn…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Breathe
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Breathe
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
When we are born, we are born into a relationship with air, with breathing. How closely the words wind, air, life, and spirit are linked in human thought. We are creatures into whom life is breathed. A word we have for inhaling is inspiration. When we are fully inspired, not only…
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Be Embodied
Simple Ways - Towards The Sacred - To Be Embodied
by SPCK - Gunilla Norris
What does it mean to be embodied? Doesn’t it mean to be given form? We have been gifted with a particular body. It is who we are in part—but not the whole story. Form implies content. And when form and content are wedded, an intrinsic grace emerges where beauty is revealed. To ma…
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 22 Year C
Gazing on the Gospels Year C - Proper 22 Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Proper 22 Luke 17: 5-10 Gaze on this poor worker with the sweat running down his face, and blisters on his hands, plodding back from the fields. The light is dimming and he’s returning to the farmhouse. How he longs to be able to bathe his tired limbs, drink cool water, and gaze …
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Fifth Sunday of Lent Luke 12.1-8 Gaze on this cosy domestic setting, spruced up for a special celebration. It seems that this house is the nearest Jesus came to an adult family home. Martha is being Martha again – the carer in the kitchen. Mary is being Mary as ever – impetuo…
Gazing on the Gospels Year A - The Third Sunday before Advent Reflection Year A
Gazing on the Gospels Year A - The Third Sunday before Advent Reflection Year A
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Third Sunday before Advent - Year A Meditation on Matthew 25: 1-13 Gaze on an early Saturday morning in late summer, when the sun has come up and promises a glorious day. You open the curtains and delight at the weather – it is perfect for planting your bulbs for next spring;…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Sunday Next Before Lent Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Sunday next before Lent Luke 9.28-36 [37-43a] Gaze on all things that dazzle – spume of the waves that roam the sea, and is tossed up like tinsel in the air, or the light on a lake, making silver rays skid over the surface like a thousand steel skates flashing across ice. Gaz…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Third Sunday of Epiphany Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Third Sunday of Epiphany Luke 4.14-21 Gaze on the scene in the synagogue. The men crowd in, some who normally wouldn’t bother to attend, but today have rediscovered their piety in the urge to see what the fuss is about. They arrive early so they’ll get a seat with a view. The…
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Third Sunday of Lent Year C
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Third Sunday of Lent Year C
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
The Second Sunday of Lent Luke 13.31-35 Gaze on Jerusalem today, in greater need than ever of her children being gathered together in harmony. It is a city divided between Jew and Muslim, Jew and Christian, with no-go areas armed by guns. Churches are locked. Doubt and suspicion …
Gazing on the Gospels year c - The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C