Parinama

  The contemplative life is not a way of knowing. It is not the path of certitude. In fact, that’s what makes it so alive, so necessarily active. Our glimpses of “arrival” along the way are places we can catch our breath and recall we are moving in the right direction, even if it’s only because it’s exactly where we are. Those times, we remember that the way is not meant to be easy, simple, or comfortable. But these moments only last for a flash in the midst of life because, as the Rev. Dr. Walter Fluker reminds us, “Life will keep going because life itself is alive.” Cassidy Hall, “Queering the Living Tradition,” ONEING 13, no. 2, A Living Tradition (2025): 39 – 40. Wild Life What if Samadhi, the final eighth limb of yoga, the culminating aim of our practices isn’t a cozy, easy, comfortable, place but rather that state of consciousness where we are able to really take in – live in - the wild crazy mysticality of life itself?  Samadhi the eighth limb of yoga is translated as t...

  Some researchers believe that the reason for menopause - found only among the human species – is to create nurturers who will help care for and support new parents.  (October 18, 2025 NYT) It has been a great gift of my life to be raised in an extended family.  My mother, father, and me lived in the bottom apartment of a two-family house owned by my maternal grandparents, Phylly and Nunzio, who lived upstairs with my teen age aunt. We lived in a blended way eating meals together, sharing household chores, watching the black and white console TV.  All was intertwined with family stories, fights, food, and made-up on the fly Catholic faith.  As an only child, I lived among grownups, at times the center of attention and at other times sliding through days unnoticed.  Some things were rigid while other things were loose.  There was the expectation of loyalty to the family, our way of life, the church but it wasn’t so rigid that I had to go to church ever...

Fallow Etymology: to fold hence to turn On the heels of the summer harvest, we turn now to the fallow time of year.  Dry leaves on the ground, empty muddy fields, days of cold and darkness. Like the empty fields, there are times in our lives that feel fallow.  We are after all a part of same rhythm of the life’s waxing and waning. All that was starts to fall away, color, flowing streams, long days. We might seek comfort by the fires, the golden inside lights, the warming foods.  But in fallow the consolations can be bittersweet if at all.  There is in this turning a first shock of loss when it seems as if we might not be changed.  But then there follows the long slow integration of loss through layers of grief.  There is so much to let go of and nothing new yet to hold onto. This grief strands us in a foreign land where no thing offers the comfort we long for.  Folding back into ourselves, we are being asked to give in, give up, and allow what we have ...

The church that meant the most to me as a child wasn’t a real church but the gathering held at the end of each busy day at summer camp. When the bell rang calling us to chapel, the whole camp fell slowly into a magical silence. Walking in groups or alone, we made our way to the three-tiered campfire circle sheltered by tall oaks and pines and set close to the long deep lake at the heart of camp.  Settling into the silence, the sounds of the forest and the lake would become known to us, wind rippling through leaves, water lapping onto the shore, the scuffle of stone on dirt. Such quiet brought us into ourselves if only for a moment to be with our tender hearts, full of the play, excitement, and adventure of camp and maybe a sweet tender homesickness for those far away.  Then, the chosen cabin would lead us in song or read poem or play a skit about our cherished belonging at camp and in nature and with each other.  It was a precious gift to be quiet together in that circle ...