Author: Paula
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“O Beauty Ever Ancient,” a Video From the New Year’s Retreat
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At our New Year’s retreat, we did a lot of group work with doors – each person chose an image of a doorway or gate or threshold as they arrived the first evening. This item helped break people into “teams” (small groups), and had a quote about thresholds or journeys…
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Love Gambles Away Every Gift
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Another poem that I’ve come across recently, and that has really had me thinking is this, by Rumi: Love is recklessness, not reason.Reason seeks a profit.Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed. Yet in the midst of suffering,Love proceeds like a millstone,hard surfaced and straight forward. Having died to self-interest,she…
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Being the Light for Each Other in the Darkness
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One of the things that strikes me, now just a day after the retreat has come to close is the spirit of the crowd that was there. They were truly there, present, living in the now. They embraced everything that came their way, sharing, opening up, giving of themselves again…
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The Wee Hours of 2009
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We ended our evening with Mass, full of song and thanksgiving for a year gone by, and a new year to start, full of promise and adventure. Our crowd was in a festive mood, glad from song and full of community. We left the chapel, and on the horizon a…
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As we close our first night
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I am blessed to be here in this beautiful place surrounded by so many good people. I am humbled to be a part of their retreat experience, honored to be a part of this threshold experience for each of them. Some of my early thoughts are around the many doorways…
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New Year’s Eve Retreat: Preview!
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Tomorrow afternoon marks the start of our New Year’s Eve retreat. Things are in order, for the most part. I want to finish up my talk on Guardians at the Gate, and then put some final thoughts on the sermon for New Year’s Eve. Tonight I finished up the cards…
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Ram Dass speaks in Maui
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While we were in Maui in October, we had the priviledge of hearing Ram Dass speak. He’s had a stroke, so he speaks slowly. I truly found his words and speaking inspiring. After his time on stage, he exited to the hall, and was signing autographs and spending time with…
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How to Plan a Retreat
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Here is what I came home to tonight, after visiting my sister’s house: For some reason, this cracked me up. It seems planning a retreat requires a bag of chips, metronome, Santa fairy and a pile of books so high it’s a wonder anything is left on the bookshelf. Oh,…