In late 1995, with the advice of a friend, I arranged for a retreat with Sr. Cornelia Gust, a Benedictine Sister in Crookston MN. That first retreat came in January of 1996, a partial week set up to test the model. In response, I created a narrative tracing my way through the retreat, adding a selection of verse centered on the surroundings. I decided to repeat the experiment in the Summer of 1996, again in the Spring and then the Fall of 1997. In each case, I gathered the experience in wh...

Poetry writing has proven proficient at helping me see what is there to be seen, hear what is there to be heard. I will see or hear or reflect on something which then provides an image, a nuance that emerges in a word, a line. The single line and image, written, provides a cadence, a focus of sound and echo that invites a second line, and more. Usually, the poems come quickly and run until they stop: the poem is complete. This book draws upon such poems over a pair of sweeps of my history ...

Writing poetry has proven to be a great aid in seeing what I see, hearing what I hear. From my perspective, something happens, something gets noticed. The image, the happening strikes my mind, entices some response in words. An image or sequence of images appear and enter into a line. The line bears for me a cadence and a sound. Vowels tend to be important to me and help to elicit a sequence of lines that add onto one another until they reach the point where they stop and the poem ends. Th...

These Reflective Prayers are the result of permitting a gentle reading of the lectionary texts for a given service to resonate in me and emerge as a searching engagement of the word with my spirit in a mood of settled joy. The ninety samples given are the most recent, in order, at the time of publication.

ese Re ective Prayers consider a pondering over the assembly of texts for a given occasion, a service at which the readings from the Revised Common Lectionary are read. e notion that inspired the process of this re ection came from e Prayers of Catherine of Siena, where the editor-translator, Suzanne No ke, O.P. , noted that Catherine’s prayers, recorded by her confessor, followed the readings at daily Mass. Over the years, these re ections have proved valuable to me and have come to be pu...

Reading that the 2.88.888. hymn meter is considered powerful in Welsh hymnody - but that it is not used in English - I became curious. I tried the pattern out even though I initially could find no hymn tunes to that meter; indeed, it has not been used in English as my glance at my hymnals and online showed. So, I took my experience of hymn meters and the way this one was expressed and let the resonance begin to flow. It seemed to me that the meter did work in English, that it provided a po...

These Reflective Prayers are the result of permitting a gentle reading of the lectionary texts for a given service to resonate in me and emerge as a searching engagement of the word with my spirit in a mood of settled joy. The ninety samples given are the most recent, in order, at the time of publication.

I have come to consider these re ective prayers as the most signi cant of my writing. I began to publish the series in 2011 and followed periodically with more recent sequences since then. Beginning in 2024, I have been assembling in electronic form earlier sequences of these re ective prayers, moving in segments from that point where I began in 2011. is collection brings my beginning date back into 2006. I nd the series continuing to illumine the way the Spirit moves through me in respons...

This book joins the series of titles assembling my sequence of Reflective Prayers. Earlier productions have taken up the more recent examples of the series; this volume takes up the prior 89 reflective prayers in order. I have come to consider these as perhaps the most significant of my productions, certainly of those I continue to write. In that light, I am hoping to extend the sequence back in time through those I consider to represent a maturity in the engagement with the scriptures I h...

I have come to consider these reflective prayers as among the most spiritually significant of my writings. I began to publish the series in 2011 and followed with more recent sequences since then. Beginning in 2024, I have been assembling in electronic form earlier sequences of these reflective prayers, moving in segments from that point where I began in 2011. This collection brings my beginning date for published items back to 2001. I find the series continuing to illumine the way the Spi...

What if one quiet moment each week could center your spirit and renew your faith?A Third For Your Quiet Meditation is a five-year collection of weekly Christian devotionals drawn from the Revised Common Lectionary. Each meditation reflects on a verse from the lectionary texts not typically selected for Sunday preaching, offering a fresh, contemplative lens on familiar scripture. Using the broader periscope for context, these reflections create space for deeper spiritual gr...

The engagement of life in all its surprises, the faces and actions of people, the impressions given by nature, the way these stir the heart and entice the mind into a resonant speaking of the occasion become incidents of poetry in the poets mind. At least I find it that way. These are collectedsome are selected, brought together in this book. Once they are here, they are invited to play poet with the minds and hearts of readers, even of this reader, on revisiting them in the course of time...