Looking for a spiritual retreat to tide you over in quiet contemplation during the holy days leading up to Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's Day, and Epiphany? Here are many choices — some Christian and inclusive, others multifaith — from which you can find a perfect match for your needs.

Crises drive us from our comfort to the edge of vital choice, children speak the words we’ve hidden, simple words we’ve failed to voice.

When you have an experience and tell the story of that experience to someone, something sacred happens inside of you. That experience doesn’t have to be an extravagant moment, but it can be beautiful, nonetheless. And as you store up all those stories and share them, you grow your world’s boundaries. You build community and remind yourself that every moment of your life counts for something holy, good, and glorious.

There are choral anthems, congregational hymns and songs and instrumental music for progressive faith settings. The website’s blog, “Resonate!” will offer thoughts on communal music and music-making.

Faith and facts deal with differing realms of our reality. To think otherwise is to make a category mistake -- one which diminishes both the depth and breadth of human life, and limits our understanding to the impoverishment that we refer to as narrow-mindedness.

*** This page has moved - please click here to Order Hard Copy and DVD. To see all Purchase Options Please Click Here.

*** This page has moved - please click here to Order Hard Copy and DVD. To see all Purchase Options Please Click Here.

On Mother’s Day May 2019, in honor of Gaia, our wounded Mother Earth, I and a dedicated team of helpers, launched a series of FREE daily meditations to support your being and your work.  Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox supports your inner and outer work, your contemplation and your action, your mystical and prophetic vocations. 

What is coming we yearn to know As fallen leaves herald winter snow Will what comes be worth the wait ? Will past hungers our future sate?

Allison Rossiter is making her "Gratitude Design" available to churches and other non-profit organizations for free.

*Centering Our Soul “Speak To Us…Let Us Listen”

Contemplatio Interfaith Mindfulness-Based Contemplative Prayer by James Burklo on August 16, 2018 | No Reviews or Comments 0 A 12th c French Catholic Christian monk, Guigo II, described the spiritual life as climbing a ladder. The steps were lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio – reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. This “ladder” has defined Catholic Christian spiritual discipline ever since. An ancient practice, employed increasingly today in churches both Catholic and Protestant, is called “Lectio Divina”. It follows Guigo’s four steps.

  From my book: BIRDLIKE AND BARNLESS Also found in my blog: Jim Burklo's Book of Common Prayer So let us feast on

ver the last few years, I have collected a number of quotations that relate directly or indirectly to the field of interfaith dialogue. These are attached. You may find various ways to use these quotations.

“My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant…”

On this quiet summer morning, I arise to find the airwaves clamouring with the sound of Tweets. As news of war and rumours of war penetrates my consciousness and awaken me to the surreal clamouring of madmen who hold the power of life and death in the grasp of their tiny hands, it is so very tempting to give in to the cynicism of the talking heads.

After searching for an opening Easter Acclamation that is progressive and cosmic in nature, and finding nothing that went where I'd like to take the congregation, I decided I'd just have to write one. This acclamation/invocation draws on themes found in the Gospel of Thomas, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard von Bingen, Teilhard de Chardin, and Thomas Berry. I also hope is has some of the poetic flare of that great earth mystic, Saint John (Muir) of the Mountains.

Reinhold Niebuhr's brother, H. Richard, argued for faithfulness to the example of Jesus's nonviolence, while Reinhold believed this was naive and unrealistic in an imperfect world. H. Richard was the purist to the Christian faith, believing that following the Golden Rule, no matter the consequences, is what Jesus and God called us to do -- the success of the mission being in God's hands rather than our own. Reinhold, however, looked at the more practical side of things, substituting his or the world's idea of what was possible and changing his ethics accordingly. H. Richard thus trusted more in the providential moral arc of history as M.L. King, Jr. , would call it rather than a realist's version of what humans believe is attainable given their corrupt nature. In essence, H. Richard focused on the power of God's grace to transform our spirits and the world for the better, while Reinhold accepted a more cynical view of our ability to be radically changed as a specie.

When you live in nature, in the scent of flowers, in the blessed light of the day and the sweet dew of the morning, you don't have questions, you simply live and joy together with them. Your heart opens, you cry, cry, and your eyes are wet with dew. This is how this song was born, when your body, mind, and soul opens, God steps next to you in an unguarded moment, and pours her treasures into you.

Why is this the best election ever? How can we release our fear and direct our energy toward the reality that we want to co-create?

1. The fragrance of Spring lies not in judgement's intervention but in love's nurturing of the interior goodness. 2. Spring is not so much a moment as a movement, a manifestation of the sometimes hidden but always present life-force of God.

This hauntingly beautiful Hungarian folk song has enchanted many a musician. Across the world you can hear it sung in wildly different styles, always adapted for the region of the singer. Here is beautiful 3 part harmony version, sung in the traditional Hungarian style by my women's trio Wild Honey.

On the surface, it seems that death is triumphant. It appears as though those who conspired to do evil have won.

Genesis opens the Hebrew Bible with two conflicting and irreconcilable creation stories. Obviously neither of these creation myths reported actual events. Even so, there are people who believe that the universe was created exactly as described there simply because this is what the Bible says, so it is fact. Those people despise the Darwinian evolution theory, so they stubbornly grasp for an alternative and end up with literalism or Creationism that demands unquestioning acceptance.

Source of physical being; help me to hear you in my body. Teach me to tend to my physical needs and be aware of my bodily conditions.

Enter my hearing, Oh, silence Soften my sight with love Rid my thoughts of harshness Open my search for good

There once was an extraordinary young man born in Nazareth centuries before airplanes, cars, or computers but a man in many ways similar to you and I.

All of us have experienced mental or physical suffering at the hands of other people. But each of us has also brought suffering to others.

Ceremonies are points of cohesion beyond the boundaries of reason, a journey into the shadowy mystical world of the human spirit ...

We live in a society were many older people feel put out to grass – no longer useful All: Help us to live life in all its fullness