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Given Who, Not Why: Job, Christ, and the One Question Worth Asking (Lectio Divina)
There is a question most of us carry without naming it: why. Why the silence, why the suffering, why a God whose ways remain just out of reach. This reflection sits inside the book of Job, where that very question is met not with an answer but with an overwhelming presence — and follows…
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Remaining To Be Fed: Brother Lawrence on Faith, Stability, and the Daily Bread of God’s Presence (Lectio Divina)
Most of us know the restlessness Brother Lawrence is describing — the impulse to move on, to find something fresher, more alive, more suited to where we are right now. What we rarely notice is how much of what we are searching for is already being given. This reflection traces the gap between the…
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Perhaps We Only Need to Wake Up: On Understanding, Surrender, and Spiritual Awakening (Lectio Divina)
Thomas Merton writes that when understanding fails, it is not a tragedy — it is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking. This Lectio Divina takes that claim seriously. The Meditatio traces a tension most contemplatives know well: the honest effort to seek God through thought, study, and desire, and the slow…
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Listening for the God of This Moment: On Prayer, Presence, and Renewal (Lectio Divina)
Every morning, Robert Van Valkenburgh sits in the same chair, faces the same window, and prays to the same God. Same woods. Same birds. Same silence. And yet each morning is a different morning. Each morning he is a different person. And each morning, God’s face is not the same. This post moves outward…
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Did Not Our Hearts Burn: The Many Faces Of God (Lectio Divina)
Where does God meet us? Not only in the dramatic moments of Scripture — wrestling with Jacob at the ford of the Jabbok, speaking to Moses from a burning bush, leading Israel through the wilderness — but in the ordinary movements of our days. In this Lectio Divina reflection, Robert Van Valkenburgh draws on…
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An Excess of Presence: On Spiritual Darkness and the Gift of God’s Grace (Lectio Divina)
Some days God feels farther away than others. The fog of spiritual dryness settles in, and the mirror through which we see his reflection grows dark and unpolished. In this Lectio Divina reflection, Robert Van Valkenburgh draws on Pseudo-Dionysius’s Mystical Theology and the Mary and Martha passage from Luke’s Gospel to explore what we…
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No Secular Moment: Karl Rahner and the Sacredness of Ordinary Experience (Lectio Divina)
Drawing on Karen Kilby’s introduction to Karl Rahner, this Lectio Divina explores why there is no such thing as a secular or ordinary experience — why every moment, every relationship, and even our brokenness has its origin in God’s loving self-communication, poured out as the very life we so often take for granted.
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When the Birds Sang: On Presence, Worry, and the Word Hidden in Creation (Lectio Divina)
A cabin in the woods, an aching hip, and a symphony of birdsong become the occasion for a contemplative reflection on presence, worry, and the Word of Christ hidden in creation. Drawing on Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditations, this Lectio Divina explores how the natural world can startle us out of fear and into…
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Unfolding In God: Viewing Life Beyond Dualistic Thinking About Good And Evil (Lectio Divina)
A contemplative Christian reflection on seeing God present in all things, wrestling with suffering and uncertainty, and choosing humility and trust over dualistic thinking. Drawing on Scripture, Pope Francis, and prayerful insight, this meditation invites readers to recognize divine love unfolding throughout creation and everyday life.
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Seeing God in Strangers: How God Appears Through Simple Acts of Kindness (Oratio Divina)
A contemplative reflection on recognizing God in strangers through simple, selfless acts of kindness, and how everyday encounters can become moments of divine presence and grace.