Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: Dohle

Restless

Lack of sleep, overwork, or simple dissipation of energy in frivolous pursuits, and of course ill health, can be only some of the influences on our inner life that can lead to ‘restlessness’. I think the term “Waiting for the Lord”, deals with this very common experience for human beings, as they continue their journey… Read More ›

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Eucharist

The Eucharist for many Christians is participating in the suffering and death of Christ as well as the resurrection.  They cannot be separated.  Christ was fully human; his heart filled with compassion for all and drinks with us the seeming bottomless chalice ever empty and ever filled.  The chalice we drink is what Christ also… Read More ›

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Way of being

Cycles can be broken by simply stopping; sitting, reflecting and enduring what must be faced.  Prayer for me can be many things.  Yet to sit in silence before Ultimate Reality, simply waiting, not running will eventually bring a feeling of coming home, though it is a process that must be gone through many times, with… Read More ›

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The Journey never ends

I will always fail to live out my commitment as a Christian, for I am still on my journey. So I fall and rise and keep going, not allowing my inner voices to detour me from what I am called to become. I suppose, again, our beliefs will tell each of us what that ‘being… Read More ›

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The Wheel

There can be deep personal experiences that can be existentially transforming, the world shifts, a new depth is reached…..then things settle and a period of dryness sets in, and the search continues.  No permanent state is allowed, or final resting place, just a taste of what could be, or perhaps what is, but the long… Read More ›

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Pilgrimage

If life in fact is really a pilgrimage, well what does that mean?  It certainly does not mean that we will have it easy.   However, how we respond to reality is important and has deep spiritual significance…. For in fact what makes us more self aware seems to come about when we suffer.  I wish… Read More ›

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The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule is a call to deep inner probing. Without self knowledge, without the inner journey, our sensitivity towards others is severely curtailed. All that is possible is to react on the level of the instinctual, allowing anxiety and fear to fuel anger that is either directed outward or driven deep within. If compassion… Read More ›

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Lessons from the labyrinth

In the Christian tradition there is a saying:  “God works in secret”.  I believe that is true. It is our openness, our readiness to start anew at every turn, that inner hope that starves off despair…. is I believe what we are about. I have found that in doing this, something deeper goes on; it… Read More ›

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Waiting

Waiting can be a frustrating process, for it is often mixed with both anticipation and the knowledge of how little control we have in its fulfillment. There is a point in which there is only emptiness, boredom and a feeling of being constrained, when what we desire is withheld from us. We can distract ourselves,… Read More ›

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Beneath the Sands

The human heart is deep, lost in a desert where its deepest longings are lost beneath the sands.  Days spent in silent pain, surrounded by others on the same path; yet not a word is said.  Love the key that is sought and often not found….or something less that only makes the wounds deeper and… Read More ›

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