Rev. Catharine Is Currently
On Medical Leave

No Glitter in My Ashes, Part I

“You’re the most Catholic UU I’ve ever met,” now-Reverend Madelyn Campbell said to me across the aisle in the seminary lecture hall. And in many ways, she was right, and she’s still right. My wife says I’m Episcopalian in the winter (awesome Advent!), Catholic in the spring (tune-up of Lent), more aggressively Pagan in the […]

Hospitality of the Holidays?

complex woven Christmas ball with lights inside

In some ways, this is a season of hospitality or its lack. Many of us hear the story of the emigration and return of Joseph and Mary to and from Egypt, reminiscent of the time the Israelites spent in Egypt generations earlier. Many of us hear the story of the pregnant Mary being welcomed by […]

Where is Faith?

Well, I wrote Reflections about love. I wrote yesterday about hope. I’ve painted myself into a religious corner here, one that I welcome; I need to write about faith. What does faith mean to you? I grew up with the traditional Roman Catholic definition of faith:  Intellectual assent, and belief in things unseen. Particularly intellectual […]

Embers Turn to Flame

A friend of mine needed a sabbatical. He wanted to spend a year tending to his spirit, reading what would edify and delight him, cooking good food, and just being with himself. Holding the Ember He had the money to do it. He even had a job that took him back after he did some other […]

Kiss Me with the Kisses of Your Mouth

Each of the following quotations is central to my understanding of the yearning I have for God Herself. And that is what I have, a yearning. Yes, a seeking. Yes, a deepening. But a longing and yearning, the attraction and pull to a lover by the beloved. When I talk about “spiritual seeking,” sometimes I […]

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. […]

It’s You!

Spiritual Seekers with a Desire for Deepening That’s you, I bet! If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, I bet it’s you. I attended a call today about how to describe and attract “our people,” “our tribe,” and what I would say are the people I feel called to serve. It […]

Deep Roots, Gardening, and Spiritual Practice

***From June 2016 — this class is over and no longer available, but the post is still very valuable, I think***   One of the things I love about the folks who come to my classes, the folks who are drawn to my work—Pagans, trans* folk, LGBT community members and allies, and those who feel […]

How to Grow a Soul

**from summer  2016** “Life is just a chance to grow a soul.” So said Rev. A. Powell Davies. If our souls can grow, then they aren’t static things or conditions to be simply ignored, lost, or saved. What is the growing piece, then? What is the soul? Hell, what is life? Davies’ quotation seems to […]

The Lovers: Sexuality and Spirituality

“Passion and expression are not really separable. Passion comes to birth in that powerful impetus of the mind which also brings language into existence. So soon as passion goes beyond instinct and becomes truly itself, it tends to self-description, either in order to justify or intensify itself being, or else simply in order to keep […]