Category: Reflections

topographia

A sanctuary for the quieted mind.
Here, we move beyond the “what” of our lives to the “why,” offering deeply personal essays and thoughtful examinations of the human experience. These are the chronicles of the inner life—the essential pause where the raw data of existence is composted into the soil of wisdom.

  • Quoting Saint Augustine

    Quoting Saint Augustine

    “What have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions, as if they were to “heal all my diseases?” A race eager to know about another man’s life, but slothful to correct their own!” Saint Augustine

  • Weeds

    Weeds

    Reflections on the flagrantly honest charm of being a small thing with great love.

  • Mulling

    Mulling

    Deprivations and restrictions are inevitable. Throughout our lifetime, we’ll encounter ordeals that push us underwater, plunging us from times of growth to times of deficiency. Captive to what’s too strong for us, we wait for deliverance.

  • Thoughts on Love

    Thoughts on Love

    I don’t want to win at your expense. What solution can we arrive at that will serve our mutual interests? What can we do to achieve peace?

  • Amid the Cold of Winter

    Amid the Cold of Winter

    Thoughts on the gifts of cold, darkness, and suffering.

  • How the Light Gets In

    How the Light Gets In

    “Start again,” I heard them say, “Don’t dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be.” — Leonard Cohen

  • Where is My Home?

    Where is My Home?

    “Where is my home?” poet Rainer Maria Rilke asks.

  • Being Willing to Change

    Being Willing to Change

    “To suffer consciously means to live through the ‘death of ego,’ to voluntarily withdraw one’s projections from other people.” Robert A. Johnson

  • Attending to the Vision

    Attending to the Vision

    In this great pilgrimage of life, we land in darkness before long, and sometimes it’s a darkness so great we can’t see the hands in front of our faces. We wonder if we even have hands, or feet.

  • Hello, Traveler

    Hello, Traveler

    Hello, Traveler. As you make your way along life’s tumultuous highways, it’s important to note that you should always carry a map, have plenty of fuel in the tank, and take frequent rest stops.