Within/without

15/05/2026

Matthew Fox traces the universal nature of Julian’s message of mystical hope and divine love:

Julian makes explicit on many occasions that she is speaking to a very broad audience—one that includes those of us who live 650 years later. It follows, then, that we recognize that sense of inclusion. “In God’s sight, all humanity is one person, and all people are a single humanity.”… [1] For Julian, the traditional teaching of the church as the mystical body of Christ is extended to the entire human race….

When she celebrates the beauty of being human, she again makes explicit that she is talking about all and not some sectarian group. “God made us so rich and noble in our essence that all we can do is strive to enact his will and honor him in all things. When I say ‘we,’ I mean all true spiritual seekers.” [2] When she says “all,” she means all. This would include, in our time, all versions of Christians and all Jews, all Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Muslims, goddess worshippers, those of indigenous religions, and those of no religions, whether agnostic or atheist. That is how ecumenical she is—and in the fourteenth century, no less.

When speaking of retreating “into our own souls, which is where our Beloved dwells,” she again speaks out about the universality that encompasses our spiritual search: “Let no man or woman think this truth applies personally to the individual. It does not; it is universal. This beautiful human nature of ours was prepared for our precious Mother Christ.” [3]

References:
[1] Julian of Norwich, The Showings: Uncovering the Face of the Feminine in Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Mirabai Starr (Hampton Roads, 2022), 133. Selection from chap. 51.

[2] Julian, Showings, 157. Selection from chap. 57.

[3] Julian, Showings, 172. Selection from chap. 62.

Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond (iUniverse: 2020), ###ii–###iii.

Image Credit and inspiration: Syuhei Inoue, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Japan, “Unsplash”.

06/05/2026

Kia ora, e te whānau!

The Kāpiti Wellbeing Fair is coming in just a few short weeks! I'd love to meet you and have a kōrero about what spiritual direction can offer you. I would love to see if companioning with you might be a good fit!

This is my first ever event, so please join me.

06/02/2026

Peace. Action. Contemplation. Rage. There is a season for it all.

21/01/2026

The lie is that we are our thoughts. We believe our programmed reactions. The truth is more than a your nervous system’s response to the present moment.

Truth what sets you free not what you believe to be true. Your fruit is a expression what you believe to be true. So if the fruit is rotten the root is corru...

19/01/2026

Why spreading peace is vital.

Maya Eaglin reports from North Carolina, where thousands have gathered to watch a group of Buddhist monks walk from Texas to the White House to promote natio...

17/11/2025

This is the essence of spiritual direction: listening.

I love the part of the story where Ram Dass describes listening without fixing. A woman tells him all about her struggles - twice - without receiving the comfort or solutions she came for. Instead, her answer came from within. The guru held the space, and the Spirit stirred reminding her that she too was an unruly youth once. Her heart for her daughter changed in that moment.

That’s what can happen in a spiritual direction session too! As a companion, I won’t have any fixes for you. But I can lean in to silence with you hold space gently for whatever stirs within. The intention is that you, too, realise your ability to connect with the divine in tangible and meaningful ways.

07/10/2025

Pause. Take a moment. Feel the stillness. The coolness of the air. Notice the radiance of the moon. Smell the freshness of a spring night. Hear the creatures in the darkness around you. Feel your breath filling your body. Release what can’t be controlled in your exhale.

All shall be well. Until it is, we trust and fight and rest.

18/06/2025

Sometimes we can help by changing one life at a time.

31/03/2025

An expert in authoritarian regimes, Sarah Kendzior captures the danger like this:  
Authoritarianism is not merely a matter of state control, it is something that eats away at who you are. It makes you afraid, and fear can make you cruel. It compels you to conform and to comply and accept things that you would never accept, to do things you never thought you would do.   

Authoritarian regimes, she says,  
… can take everything from you in material terms—your house, your job, your ability to speak and move freely. They cannot take away who you truly are. They can never truly know you, and that is your power. But to protect and wield this power, you need to know yourself—right now, before their methods permeate, before you accept the obscene and unthinkable as normal.  

Kendzior addresses this very need for inner renewal and transformation. Authoritarian regimes, she says,  
… can take everything from you in material terms—your house, your job, your ability to speak and move freely. They cannot take away who you truly are. They can never truly know you, and that is your power. But to protect and wield this power, you need to know yourself—right now, before their methods permeate, before you accept the obscene and unthinkable as normal.   

She continues,  
We are heading into dark times, and you need to be your own light. Do not accept brutality and cruelty as normal even if it is sanctioned. Protect the vulnerable and encourage the afraid. If you are brave, stand up for others. If you cannot be brave—and it is often hard to be brave—be kind. But most of all, never lose sight of who you are and what you value. [1]  

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/protecting-our-own-light/

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23/03/2025

Why Contemplation?

Father Richard Rohr describes the importance of a practice of contemplation:

“Contemplation is about seeing, but a kind of seeing that is much more than mere looking because it also includes recognizing and thus appreciating. The contemplative mind does not tell us what to see but teaches us how to see what we behold.

Contemplation allows us to see the truth of things in their wholeness. It is a mental discipline and gift that detaches us, even neurologically, from our addiction to our habitual way of thinking and from our minds which like to think they are in control. We stop believing our little binary mind (which strips things down to two choices and then usually identifies with one of them) and begin to recognize the inadequacy of that limited way of knowing reality. In fact, a binary mind is a recipe for superficiality, if not silliness. Only the contemplative, or the deeply intuitive, can start venturing out into much broader and more open-ended horizons. This is probably why Einstein said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination  encircles the world.” [1]

A prayer practice - contemplation- is simply a way of maintaining the fruits of great love and great suffering over the long haul. To allow the moment to teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it until it draws us inward and upward… we normally need a single moment of gratuitous awe to get us started - and such moments are the only solid foundation for the entire religious instinct and journey.”

Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Just This”, 2017, p 7-9.