In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act.

John O'Donohue

Photograph: Blue valley, Ales Krivec (unsplash.com)

It takes the four seasons of our life to develop the art of doing all things playfully; that is religiously.  

Janice Brewi and Anne Brennan

Picture: Children's games, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Nurturing faith and creating migratory paths

Image: Butterflies, Odilon Redon

Reflecting on the different stages of life through 2 paintings

Photo: Jon Tyson, unsplash.com

Fidelity through changes.

Picture: Friends, Konstantin Makovsky

All dreams, (even the nasty ones we care to call "nightmares"), come ultimately in the service of physical, emotional, and spiritual health and wholeness.

Jeremy Taylor

Picture: July Night, Frederick Child Hassam

Faith is a verb, a process of becoming, involving our loving, trusting, believing, acting, suffering, valuing, knowing, committing. Alan Jamieson

Picture: The Vendramin family, Titian

We 'stand enquiring'. (John Donne)

The big river of God’s providential love

Photo: Ansel Adams, wikiart.org

Analogies for faith transitions

Photo: Evermore.com

Accepting the life that is awaiting us

Photo: Annie Spratt, unsplash.com

I the middle of my winter I found an invincible summer. Daniel O'Leary

Photo: Kwang Mathurosemontri

I wake to a perfect patience of mountains...To merciful Him whose only now is forever.  

E. E. Cummings

Picture: Samuel Palmer

Exploring our relationship with time.

Do some things get better as we age?

What might these be?

Picture: Self portrait with red flower wreath and chain, 1907.  Paula Modersohn becke

Why wait?

Picture: http://nos.twnsnd.co/

Entering deeply in to the soul so as to enter more deeply in to humanity and the mystery of God himself. Peter Feldmeier

Photograph: Houses on clifftop, Jonas Lavoie-Levesque (unsplash.com)

Most fundamentally, who are you?

A liquid society.  Do we underestimate the effect of postmodern culture on our faith?

The impact of internalising the extroverted bias in culture. 

Picture: Self portrait, 1901 Heinrich Kuhn

I'm not lost but neither do I know where I am going.

Why am I so tired?

Picture: Rest on the flight to Egypt, Gentileschi 

Torpor and the refusal of joy.  The word literally means "not caring" or "being unable to care".  Kathleen Norris

Picture: Elijah and the angel, Denic Bouts

Disorientation...an abrupt or slowly dawning acknowledgement that constitutes a dismantling of the old known world and a relinquishment of safe, reliable, confidence in God's good creation.  

Walter Bruggemann  

Picture: The fall of Icarus, Peter Paul Rubens

Infatuation and enchantment - Nesting and manipulation - Crisis - Resolution and integration.

Picture: The entombment, 1612.  Peter Paul Rubens

If we wish to live freely and expansively we must learn to die or diminish or take risks.

Photograph: Stephen Wood

Time for intuition, inklings and trusting the unconscious.

Everything is gestation and then rebirthing. Rainer Maria Rilke

Picture: Branches of an almond tree in blossom, Vincent van Gogh 

The LORD had said to Abraham, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."

Photograph: Stephen Wood

Second growth: Discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing as signs of growing pains.

Picture: Sven Schlager, unsplash.com

What imprints have landscapes made on your soul?

Photograph: Hill and village scene, Elaine Li (unsplash.com)

Our rootedness, our sense of place and space, is profoundly bodily.

God delights in being visible and tangible in human skin.  The Blessed Trinity dwells deep within our bodies. 

Daniel O'Leary

Photograph: Boots, Amanda Sandlin (unsplash.com)

Seen it all, done it all, heard it all, 

Mid-life, no "no more bullshit passage".

Cynicism and the love of all things.

Picture: Niagara Falls, Pavel Svinyin

Owning our own story and sinking into the deeper story.

A consideration of the Beatitudes.

Photo: Clashing zebras, David Meier (picography.co)

This hidden life, this first courageous life, seems to speak from silence.  

David Whyte

Photo: Underwater swimmer, Jacob Walti (unsplash.com)

To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day. Lao Tsu

Photo: Leaf, Grzegorz Mleczek (unsplash.com)

All of life is archetypal.  Jesus has therefore within himself all the patterns of being, relating, growing and ministering that all people have.  

Janice Brewi

Picture: Simeon's song, Rembrandt

Lord, transform our prejudice, nurture our growth, deepen our questions, widen our view, challenge our comforts.

May our thoughts make us explorers.

Picture: Stamp, wikicommons

Shame and vulnerability. The Invisible Church - a book review, Downloadable pdf material launched.  Two new groups: East Lothian and Explorers

For previous magazines

Caring is the greatest thing, caring matters most. Frederick von Hugel

Picture: Kneeling man planting,1881.  Vincent van Gogh

Creating space between people.  Henri Nouwen

Picture: Light of the world, Holman Hunt

Ascent and descent for women and men.

Photo: Underground, Sam (unsplash.com)

Religion is always, in one sense or another, about making one out of two.

Picture: Man and woman on the beach, 1893. Thomas Pollack

What is my characteristic style of coping with endings?

What and where is home?

Picture: Montfoucault, 1874 Camille Pissarro

Eucharist living. Liturgy and life.

Picture: Supper at Emmaus,1602, Caravaggio

Everything is already given.

Richard Rohr

Picture:  Waiting for the ferry, 1915. Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky

The body is a doorway into inner space or presence.

Picture: Annunciation, Fra Angelico,

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

At the end of the day, how do you know you have done enough? Pete Edwards

Photo: Tangle of railway lines José Martín (unsplash.com)

The signs of transition are a resurgence of immense fear, so the temptation is to return to the tried and tested.  Which is half right.  

Richard Rohr

Picture: Two crosses, Bridget MacAulay

I need to be humbled, cooked in the tears of loss for any deeper life to emerge.

And there was a new voice, which you slowly recognised as your own.

Roger Housden on a Mary Oliver poem

Picture: In front of the Isle Tudy, Maxime Maufra

It is morning, afternoon or evening. Begin.  

Thomas Merton

Photo: Watch, Levi Saunders (unsplash.com)

Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it.  It's frisky, and a theatre for more than fair winds...Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education.

Mary Oliver

Picture: Winger Dance, 1903. Hugo Simberg

What does it feel like to be silent before God, and before others?

Picture: Morning in Riesengebirge, Caspar David Friedrich

What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  Micah

Picture: Coalmine in the Borinage, 1879.  van Gogh

Meditations on the mingling of joy and sorrow.

Somewhere, somehow, we began to live as if we were separate, alone and in danger.  Once afraid, we constructed a self out of that fear and have been steadfastly defending it ever since. Kabir Helminski

Picture: Sunlit bush, Lukasz Szmigiel (unsplash.com)