Wednesday Wisdom: Living Mercy. In Hebrew, the word for mercy is hesed, which has many more nuances than it does in English. It can be translated as tender love, loving kindness, steadfast love, and loving compassion. Lately, I’ve been feeling so much grief over my elderly mother now being in a wheelchair, and moving into assisted living after falling in her…

Wednesday Wisdom: The Tender Love of Mercy. Can we have mercy for ourselves? I am just not myself these days. I am disoriented, as I try and accept the change that has taken place with my elderly mother, and as a result with my relationship with her. She fell a few weeks ago, had emergency surgery…

Wednesday Wisdom. Surrender to Love. Today, I am leading a contemplative day of prayer at the lovely and restful Santa Sabina center in Northern California. My theme is embracing surrender in our hearts and in our lives. I will utilize my book, Seeking Surrender, has the focal point of this retreat. As I was reading through my…

Today as I write this post, my 92-year old mother is facing hip surgery. She fell last week and ended up in the hospital with excruciating pain. The outcome is undetermined: whether she’ll make it through the surgery; and if she does, whether the surgery will even be successful. When I spoke to her last night on the…

Wednesday Wisdom: Live By a Few Simple Principles. I remember what the late Matthew Kelty, a trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani, once said in one of his evening talks while I was on a retreat at the monastery. “Live by a few simple principles.” I have reflected on this many times, and I pause and…