The Celtic tradition offers us the wonderful notion of anam cara . In Gaelic the word anam means soul and cara is a word for friend. So anam cara means soul friend . This is not a simple or superficial friendship, but a special and deep one in which one person really supports and guides another. They are the person to whom you can reveal the hidden intimacies of your life - your innermost self, heart and mind, without mask or pretension. In early Celtic history, the anam c

In its broadest terms, we can think of Christian meditation as a way of calming our minds and hearts to offer the least resistance to the graced event of realising oneness with God is our very life, our very reality. Because this realisation is a grace, we can't reach it by our own efforts. But what we can do, in a sincere way, is become as vulnerable as possible to the grace event of this awakening. So, meditation can be understood as the process of assuming that interior s

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness . It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. The labyrinth represents a journey to our own centre and back out again into the world, so in a sense it is a continuous model of our life and spiritual path. Labyrinths have long been used for meditation and prayer, and are intriguing tools for working with, and understanding, our psychological and spiritual journey that ca

Art can be a wonderful way of communicating ( both listening and sharing ) with God beyond words. It is not about creating masterpieces, but about allowing patterns to emerge that can offer you new insights and be turned into prayer. Mary Daly (an American philosopher and theologian) understands that it is the creative potential itself in human beings that is the image of God. And our creativity springs not from the intellect but from the play instinct: ' Perhaps the time ha

Lectio Divina is an ancient contemplative way to read short passages of sacred text and prayerfully let God speak through them into our lives. Its origins lie in the 5th century Benedictine and Cistercian monastic movements. It is very different to biblical study or praying with bible verses where the surface meaning of the text is to the fore. Literally meaning 'sacred reading', lectio divina is an active meditative kind of reading where we let God start the conversation.

Listening to the Holy, listening to others and listening to ourselves are all vital to the spiritual life and journey. And to be able to truly listen in all these places requires both courage and vulnerability, for deep listening can both move and change us. Br David Steindl-Rats reminds us that 'Without silence there can be no listening.' As I explore in 'Silent Mind, Holy Mind,' silence is the space in which words are heard. The Hebrew sage Solomon ibn Gabiol also says,

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 a Tibetan 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 Buddhism