They started talking about Julian of Norwich. As people do. In a casual conversation one day over Zoom, Rev. Nicole Pickens reminded Rev. Nicole Havelka about Julian of Norwich – a 12th - 13th century monastic and mystic who lived in times shockingly similar to our...
When you think of love, what immediately pops into your mind? I’m a little ashamed to admit that my mind most immediately jumps to my favorite rom-coms — When Harry Met Sally, Keeping the Faith or the 1980s TV show Moonlighting (Remember that?) I can’t get enough of...
Leading up to the third Sunday of Advent this year, I kept thinking about the 2006 movie “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The movie stars Will Smith as Chris Gardner, an aspiring entrepreneur and sales person who gets an opportunity to do an unpaid stockbroker internship...
“Peace can be difficult to feel because of the chaos that surrounds us.” I wrote that line more than a year ago for my 2019 Mindful Advent series, but is really true now. Everything in this year feels like chaos — the disruption of a pandemic, the helplessness created...
https://youtu.be/BqdBo1dH6AQ Sometimes sitting in meditation just sucks. There. I said it. People often regale us the stories of blissful, releasing, or enlightening experiences they have. Those times happen, but they are few and far between. My typical practice often...
At least a dozen times a day I get stuck behind someone who is going slower than I would like to go. Most often this happen driving in traffic, someone in front of me going painfully slowly when I am running late to get to my next appointment. (Never mind that it was...
My 2019 was full of wandering. More wandering than I’ve done in quite a while. The wandering isn’t really a bad thing: When I began my advanced yoga teacher training nearly two years ago, I didn’t know why I was doing it or how I was going to use it. I just felt...
Last year, my family attended a Christmas Eve Catholic mass, as we usually do. Though I grew up as a Roman Catholic, I left that church for the United Church of Christ many years ago. Over the years, I have learned to appreciate the richness of the Catholic tradition,...
Each Christmas season, I make a ritual of watching the Frank Capra Christmas Classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Though I know there is a strong cult following for the movie starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, there is an equally large group of those who furrow their...
I remember one time many years ago I was talking to my mother on my cell phone while driving somewhere through Iowa. (Don’t worry. Hands free.) The conversation resulted, as it often did, in conflict. I was skating along the edge of my last nerve with her — a sadly...
I wonder if part of my annoyance with Christmas lights going up earlier and earlier in the season is because they obscure the darkness we actually need to rest and grow. Glaring lights that we put in our porches, trees and balconies may bring temporary holiday cheer,...
Learn more about how to practice, reflect and integrate mindfulness practices into your life and work. Here's an edited version of the video. More questions, just email me or schedule a free consultation. https://youtu.be/ABl57Fubf6s
I started doing yoga asana (movement) 15 years ago largely to avoid silence. Whenever I attempted to settle into the quiet of meditation or prayer, my mind assaulted me with memories of past negative experiences just dying to surface, with pervasive thoughts of the...
Last week I attended a free meditation class hosted by a local church. The leader, a very experienced mediation teacher, reflected that he often hears people push back about meditation — saying that it, and other mindfulness and self-care practices, were selfish. The...
Healer. That word emerged most frequently when I dropped — as the yogis say — into the cave of my heart, in several rounds of meditation. This meditation practice, I hoped, would reconcile the conflicting feelings I had about the next work to which I might be called....