Have you found the key?
Have you found the key?
One metaphor for wisdom is the key. Keys unlock what is closed, throw open the doors to what is hidden, and reveal secrets locked away. Keys are also a metaphor for access, and therefore, of power (remember the character nicknamed…
Teaching for Faith
A man was out hiking when he fell off a cliff. He managed to grab a thin tree branch sticking out of the side of the rocky cliff wall saving him from plunging thousands of feet below. As his fingers…
Helping and Ministering At End-of-Life
I’d always known we were a death-denying culture. I learned that first from the classic work by Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death. I learned it again when I served as a hospice chaplain for six years, prior to…
For the Bookshelf: Introduction to the Devout Life
Born in 1567 into a wealthy family, Francis de Sales received a wonderful education as the oldest of thirteen children.
At age fifteen, his father arranged for him to attend the University of Paris, with the intention that he would…
The Third Spiritual Alphabet
The author, Francisco de Osuna, was born in 1492, in the town of Osuna in southern Spain. His family was in the service of a count. At the age of eighteen, he was attracted to the priesthood. After three years…
A Spirituality Reading List for 2019
A Spirituality Reading List by Fives
Israel Galindo, Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning and Director of Online Education
Someone recently asked me for a reading list of books on spirituality. I’ll start by confessing that coming up with this…
For the Bookshelf: On Prayer—Conversation with God
December 24, 2018—John Calvin was the great Protestant reformer from France, who ultimately pastored the church in Geneva. During his Christian journey and ministry as a reformed pastor, he wrote and frequently revised the classical work of theology, Institutes of…
For the Bookshelf: The Complete Fenelon
December 10, 2018—Francois Fenelon was born in France in 1651. Fenelon pursued a career in the church. He completed his doctorate and was ordained at the age of twenty-six. He began preaching and writing. Fenelon became influential as a tutor…
For the Bookshelf: The Spiritual Guide
October 22, 2108—Miguel de Molinos was a prominent Catholic mystic. He was born in Saragossa, Spain in about 1627. He attended a Jesuit college, became a priest, and earned a doctorate in theology. When in his early forties, he went…
For the Bookshelf: The Interior Castle
October 8, 2018—Teresa de Ahumada y Cepeda entered a convent at twenty years of age and battled many illnesses. Yet her devout convent life and intense prayer practices, led to supernatural experiences, including trances in which she was paralyzed for…
What’s Your Number? How the Enneagram Helps You to Understand Yourself and Others
In the summer of 1991, a t-shirt changed my life.
I was on staff at Ring Lake Ranch, a spiritual retreat center in the Wyoming wilderness., when one mid-summer morning, Sister Agnes arrived in the dining hall wearing a t-shirt…
For the Bookshelf: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
September 10, 2018—Ignatius of Loyola was born as Inigo de Loyola, near the end of the 15th Century. The beginning of the 16th Century was a time of intellectual discovery which was accompanied by religious turmoil. Ignatius was born into…
Exploring the Spirituality of Hope: Is Hope More Than a “Feeling”?
Is hope more than a feeling?
More than expecting the good guy to win at the end of the movie or that the weather will be pleasant for your event?
Yes. It is.
We tend to relate hope with…
Where Will God Dwell?
This post reflects thoughts on how Christians can prepare and preserve a fitting, earthly place for God to dwell in and around us.
As I write this, my son has just returned from a college internship in Wrangell-St….
For the Bookshelf: True Christianity
August 20, 2018—Johann Arndt was a German Lutheran theologian, serving some time as a pastor. He lived in the late 16th and early 17th century (1555-1621). He was born to a Lutheran pastor who served as a chaplain to a…
