Silent Mind, Holy Mind: A Christmas Reflection Across Traditions
Looking through the eyes of another can bring into fresh focus those things familiarity can too easily obscure. So, at this Christmas time I share some reflections on the birth and teachings of Jesus Christ as offered by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Lama Yeshe (1935–1984) from talks he gave in the Christmases of 1971-74 when first encountering Western students in Kathmandu.* Although disenchanted with the Christianity of their homelands, and seeking alternative answers in Bud
What is Prayer? Why is it important in the Spiritual Life?
Prayer lies at the heart of the spiritual life, yet it is often misunderstood, reduced to technique, obligation, or belief. Beneath these layers, prayer speaks to something more fundamental — our human capacity to turn toward the mystery that gives rise to us, sustains us, and calls us into transformation. This reflection explores what prayer is, and why it remains essential if our spiritual life is to become lived and embodied rather than merely believed. Prayer as a Human I
Struggling with Prayer : A Psychological Perspective
Many people experience prayer as unexpectedly difficult — especially at moments when they most long for comfort, clarity, or closeness to God. Rather than assuming this difficulty is a failure of faith or discipline, it can be helpful to look more carefully at the inner dynamics that shape our prayer life. This reflection explores some of the psychological patterns that may quietly influence our openness to prayer, often without our awareness. When Prayer Feels Most Difficult
Spiritual Life and Our Emotions: A Contemplative Way of Being
Having looked at some of the benefits and challenges of our emotions in the spiritual life and journey, we can now explore some practical ancient ways of meditative prayer to facilitate this process. The key is to find, and rest in, a place of undefended awareness where we can open to the divine with intention of heart in the midst of our emotional turmoil; returning again and again to the unconditional divine embrace that offers us this freedom of heart. So, below, I explor
Spiritual Life and Our Shadow
Carl Jung , a 19th century Swiss psychoanalyst whose work bridges the gap between psychology and spirituality, understood our Shadow to be where we hide all the bits of ourselves we think are shameful or primitive . It is that aspect of our nature that is cast into the unconscious and held there in the dark to protect our conscious life from what we feel may be unacceptable, either to ourselves or to others. This reflection draws on many years of working with people in spiri
Contemporary Trends in Spiritual Direction: Reflections at a Time of Emergence
Today, around the world and across traditions, the ancient spiritual practice of meeting regularly with a spiritual director is growing and developing. What follows are six observations offered as reflections rather than predictions. These reflections were written in the early 2010s, drawing on conversations and articles published at the time in Presence, the journal of Spiritual Directors International, and in conference conversations among those involved in training spirit
Spiritual Pathology: How Inner Wounds Can Distort the Spiritual Life
Spirituality is often assumed to be inherently life-giving and benign. Yet, like every dimension of human experience, it is shaped by our inner world — including our unresolved wounds, fears, and unconscious patterns. This article explores how spiritual life itself can become distorted, not because spirituality is false, but because it is taken up into the very places within us that most need healing. Spiritual pathology describes how we can distort and undermine our spiritua
Barbara Hepworth's Spiritual Vitality
A Garden of Presence: Encountering Barbara Hepworth in St Ives I've been staying a stone's throw from Barbara Hepworth's studio and museum in St Ives. So, before the crowds arrive each morning, I slip alone into her extraordinary garden - a captivating blend of sculpture and exotic planting. Her working spaces lie undisturbed as if she has just popped out for a moment to fetch milk for morning tea, or perhaps in her case a packet of cigarettes. The early morning light in St I
Living With Paradox
In the Christian spiritual tradition, paradox is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be lived. Again and again, the life of faith draws us into tensions that cannot be neatly resolved — between strength and weakness, certainty and unknowing, action and surrender. This article explores why the capacity to live with paradox is not a spiritual failure, but a sign of growing maturity, opening us to a deeper, more spacious way of knowing and being with God. Paradox and the
The Wisdom of Imperfection
Many of us approach the spiritual life with an unspoken assumption that growth means improvement — becoming better, purer, or more complete versions of ourselves. Yet again and again, both spiritual tradition and lived experience suggest something more paradoxical: that our imperfection itself may be one of the primary places where transformation begins. Wisdom, it seems, does not arise from eliminating what is broken, but from learning how to live more truthfully, compassion
