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Explore My Reflections
Following the contemplative rhythm of Lectio Divina
Moving from Attentive Reading (Lectio)
To Reflection (Meditatio)
To Prayerful Response (Oratio)
And finally into Silent Resting in God (Contemplatio)
Grappling With Divinity invites a slow unfolding of Scripture, Spiritual Wisdom, and Lived Experience.
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What Seemed a Fragile Thread: On Grace, Awakening, and the Love That Will Not Let Us Go (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Ruth Burrows’s vision of God as the consuming desire of the heart, this Lectio Divina reflects on the invisible thread of grace that connects us to God — a connection we cannot break, though we may forget, deny, betray, doubt, or flee from it. From Adam and Eve to the disciples in…
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The True Self and the False Self: On Identity, Exile, and the Grace That Reveals Us (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on James Finley’s Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, this Lectio Divina explores the relationship between the true self and the false self — how the false self conceals the light of the true self, how Paul’s language of the old and new self illuminates that dynamic, and how it is grace, not effort, that…
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Our Life Is Our Prayer Life: On Spiritual Growth, Daily Chores, and the God We Meet in One Another (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Patrick Hart’s foreword to James Finley’s Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, this Lectio Divina explores how our truest spiritual growth is revealed not in our devotional practices but in our everyday relationships and ordinary circumstances. From Teresa of Avila’s pots and pans to Brother Lawrence’s practice of the presence, from Paul’s call to…
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Not Perfect, Not Okay, But Loved: On God’s Unconditional Love and the Gift We Cannot Earn (Lectio Divina)
When we have exhausted ourselves in the wilderness of self-will, we discover what was always true: God’s love was never withheld. Drawing on Fr. Mike Schmitz’s simple confession — “I’m not perfect. I’m not okay. But I am loved.” — this Lectio Divina reflects on the unconditional love that meets us in our imperfection,…
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Cherished Emptiness: Creating a Sabbath in Your Heart With Macrina Wiederkehr (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Macrina Wiederkehr’s insight that cherished emptiness gives God space in which to work, this Lectio Divina explores what it means to create a Sabbath in the heart — not as mere absence, but as a receptive stillness in which God alone may speak. A meditation on silence, surrender, and our God-shaped capacity…
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The Tapestry of Life: Finding Joy Through Suffering With St. John of the Cross (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Fr. Daniel Chowning’s reflection on St. John of the Cross, this Lectio Divina explores how joy does not mean the absence of suffering — but is woven through it. Through the Scotist lens of a God who willed us for love from the beginning, this post meditates on how the full tapestry…
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Awakened by Love: Christ’s Yes, Our Yes, and the Sleep We Leave Behind (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Thomas Keating’s image of waking from sleep, this Lectio Divina reflects on Christ as the perfect and unwavering yes to the Father — and on how, through Christ joining himself to us, his yes becomes our own. A meditation on spiritual slumber, the dubious comfort of darkness, and the love that gently…
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Letting Go of Worry: Throwing Ourselves into the Ocean of God’s Goodness (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on St. Paul of the Cross’s invitation to throw ourselves into the ocean of God’s goodness, this Lectio Divina explores Jesus’s call to release anxiety and trust in grace — one step at a time — into the boundless light of love that was always waiting for us.
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She Changeth Her Working, But Not Her Love: Healing in the Broken and Ordinary (Lectio Divina)
A Lectio Divina reflection on healing through brokenness — drawn from a burnt sandwich and a crumbled piece of carrot cake on a daughter’s birthday. Anchored in Julian of Norwich’s vision of a love that changes its working but never its love, this post traces the unexpected grace that arrives in our most ordinary…
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An Open Invitation To God’s Banquet (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Richard Rohr’s image of Christianity as a wedding banquet rather than a judicial court, this Lectio Divina reflects on God’s original intention of inclusion — and on how it is we, not God, who exile ourselves from the table that has always been set for us.
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Even a Pin Picked Up in Love: Thérèse of Lisieux and the Little Way of Sabbath (Lectio Divina)
What if the smallest thing you do today — a pin lifted from the floor, a quiet hour handed over — carries more weight than the great things you keep waiting to do? Thérèse of Lisieux hints at a strange arithmetic of love, and this reflection sits with the Sabbath we keep so imperfectly, and…
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The Calm We Cannot Make: St. John Chrysostom on Tears, Confession, and Peace (Lectio Divina)
What if the peace you keep trying to manufacture was never yours to make? St. John Chrysostom describes the calm that follows tears the way a violent storm gives way to stillness, and this reflection sits with the ache of falling short of the peace Christ asks us to carry — and the distance between…
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Whitewashed and Withholding: Origen on the Mercy We Refuse to Give (Lectio Divina)
What if the reconciliation you keep postponing is the very thing standing between you and the God you’re trying to reach? Origen names a righteousness that’s dead on arrival — polished outside, hollow within — and this reflection sits with the mercy we’d rather hoard than pass on, and the depths waiting for those who…
