Angel on Highway

 ...  ... I was recently on a trip to Boulder, Colorado, from my home in Southern Utah, driving on Highway 70, headed east, perhaps 100 miles from Denver. I was in a deep meditative space while I was driving, which I am able to do now on long trips because of my years of... Read More

Integral Saints or Integral Hillbillies?

 ...   Recently, I have been experiencing a period of deep sadness. It is different from the crippling depressions I have experienced in the past, when it felt like I was trying to walk and think surrounded by mud; my body, mind, and emotions so weighted down that I could... Read More

That Which is not Lived is not Redeemed

 ...  ... I was recently reading Cynthia Borgeault’s remarkable book The Meaning of Mary Magdalene . In this book, on page 142 to be exact, Cynthia quotes an adage from the early Church fathers: “That which is not lived is not redeemed.” Cynthia paraphrases... Read More

Deep Practice and Playing the Blues

 About five months ago, I was at a friend’s house in Salt Lake City, who had started a business buying and selling vintage guitars. I started playing guitar when I was thirteen years old, so I have had a 40-year relationship with the instrument. Somewhere early on, for various... Read More

The Addiction Worm

 The Worm's Waking... There is a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.... Suddenly, he wakes up, call it Grace, whatever, something wakes him, and he is no longer a worm.... He is the entire vineyard, and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks, a growing wisdom and joy that does not... Read More

A SENSE OF SIN

 ...  ... It seems in my practice lately or perhaps always, as I approach the depths of my being, the inner light, God, what have you. I hit this thick layer of self-loathing, where my failures, imperfections and neurotic conditioning, or to use the Christian language my sinful... Read More

A Poem: Into My Heart of Darkness

 I found this poem I had written on a scrap of paper as I was cleaning up around my desk this morning. I wrote it the last year or two.... Into my heart of darkness... Into the darkness of my heart... I search for the Light of God... What is true in this abyss?... I love God, I... Read More

Depression: My Disease

 ...   July 11th, 2009 While most of my work and writing in the last few years has focused on chemical dependency and addiction, my personal struggle and life-threatening illness has been depression. When I say depression, I am not talking about a case of the blues or being... Read More