Rev. Catharine Is Currently
On Medical Leave

The Gentleness of Questions’ Answers

Today, I intend to write in a way I haven’t done in this blog before. It is the way I wrote and spoke at my father’s memorial service. It is a way that I have written and spoken in sermons. I read the following poem this past week, and I want to share it with […]

Spiritual Seekers Who Desire Deepening

So what does it mean to be a spiritual seeker who desires deepening? Part of this definition is intuitive for me:  It refers to me! It refers to my own sense of myself as a spiritual being with a constant sense of what Roman Catholic religious sisters (and especially Benedictines) call seeking passionately after God. […]

The Emergence of a Minister: Part 2

So, in case you’re not glued to my every word, I’ll remind you that it was All Souls Unitarian in Washington, DC that really sucked me into Unitarian Universalism, and ultimately into ministry. I had attended another Fellowship in the past, but it had never grabbed me as All Souls did. And it wasn’t the […]

The Emergence of a Minister: Part 1

So now that I’ve written some about the service, healing, ritual, and journeying of a priestess, the question becomes, How and why did I become a Unitarian Universalist minister? The answer is a bit convoluted, as these things go. I had attended a UU congregation in the early-to-mid-nineties, and while I enjoyed the intellectual rigor […]

My Claims for Spiritual Direction

If you receive Reflections, you know that I offer spiritual direction. I’ve also written about it here a few times. As I return to the flow of the The Way of the River, I find I want to be clear about some things. Having a spiritual director does not mean that you are “directed” by that person. […]

Friendship Across Difference–Gratitude to Rev. Dr. Mackessa Holt

As of yesterday, contributions from many of you have brought my indiegogo campaign to $1000. Thank you so much for all your support and help, whether through your financial contributions or in the myriad other ways you have encouraged me on my path to ordination. If you haven’t already, please go to https://life.indiegogo.com/fundraisers/catharine-clarenbach-s-ordination  and make […]

One Newsletter, A Thousand Thanks

Behind the scenes at The Way of the River, I learned something very important this past week. I knew it was going to have been important, but I didn’t have the faintest idea how. As those of you who receive the newsletter, Reflections, know, this past week was a very intense love letter. I wrote […]

My Gentleness Thing

“I will be gentle with myself. / I will love myself. / I am a child of the Universe / Being born each moment.” ~Libana~ When I first heard that chant, it sounded a little hokey, a little woo, as we say these days. I didn’t get why it was important or what it meant. […]

Stumbling Compassion

I pray, “May all be well.” I pray that I be well. I pray that those I love and those I cannot stand be well. These prayers, however, are disingenuous if I do not also pray that I be changed, that I be an agent of wellness in myself, others, and the culture around me. […]

Beloved, Will You Be A Midwife?

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” ~~the master poet, Walt Whitman~~ &nbsp It has been said of me, more than once, that nothing about me is small. Not my body, not my mind, not my love, not the breadth and depth of my spiritual seeking, […]