The Practice of Lovingkindness

The Practice of Lovingkindness

Extending Healing and Wholeness to All

Reflection By Robbin Brent

May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I live with ease.
- First prayer, for ourselves, in the Lovingkindness Prayer

It can seem daunting to love those who are not like us, who may have, in fact, caused us hurt or harm. When we encounter the scriptural call to love our neighbor, we may wonder how to move from obligation to genuine care. The Lovingkindness Prayer offers a contemplative practice for cultivating authentic compassion—first for ourselves, then for those we love, and eventually for all beings, including those we find difficult.

This ancient prayer practice helps us embody what we’re called to be: people who extend God’s love outward in ever-widening circles. At each stage of the practice, we offer loving wishes for well-being, peace, and freedom from suffering.

What makes this practice transformative is its gradual nature. We don’t begin by forcing ourselves to love those who are challenging. Instead, we start where love flows naturally—toward ourselves and those dear to us—and slowly expand our capacity for compassion. Over time, this practice softens our hearts, trains us to notice and nurture connection, and helps us see even challenging people through the lens of shared humanity.

The Lovingkindness Prayer reminds us that God’s love is always present and available, that there’s no “right” way to practice, and that whatever arises—comfort or resistance, warmth or numbness—can be held and honored within God’s loving embrace. As we practice extending lovingkindness, we participate in the healing work of creating a world where all beings are seen, valued, and held in love.

Making It Personal: Try the Lovingkindness Prayer practice this week. Notice what arises as you extend compassion to yourself, loved ones, and those you find difficult. How does this practice expand your capacity to love your neighbor?

Who’s Our Neighbor?

Who’s Our Neighbor?

Extending Healing and Wholeness to All

Reflection By Scott Stoner

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’
- Matthew 5:43-44

One of the criticisms of social media is that it creates bubbles where users tend to interact with content and people who fully align with their own views. Sometimes referred to as an “echo chamber,” this often encourages an “us” and “them” mentality.

Jesus was critical of the religious people who lived in the echo chambers of their own, dividing people into “us” and “them,” and focusing only on loving and caring for those who were like them. As a way to completely turn this thinking on its head, he uttered the words above, challenging us to love everyone—even those whom we may have been led to think are our enemies. In this same portion of Scripture, Jesus goes on to ask, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?” 

For Jesus, a neighbor is not limited to our family, friends, and people with whom we are comfortable interacting. A neighbor is not defined by affinity, but by need. “Othering” is a term that is sometimes used to distance and dismiss others who are different from us. For Jesus, there are no “others.” We are all neighbors, all brothers and sisters in Christ, all God’s beloved. 

Making It Personal: Who do you find it challenging to love as your neighbor? Are you aware of any “echo chambers” that you participate in that might influence who you think of as a neighbor, worthy of love?

Extending Healing and Wholeness to All

Extending Healing and Wholeness to All

Theme For Week Five

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Let us hold our broken world—and our own brokenness—in compassion, light, and love. For God’s love reigns forever, forgiveness is the key, reconciliation is the goal, and love is always, always, the answer.
- Westina Matthews

This week, we turn our attention to loving our neighbor, specifically, how we can participate in bringing healing and wholeness to the world. As people of faith, our call to wholeness always extends beyond just ourselves and those closest to us. Jesus taught that when it comes to loving our neighbor, there are no limits to whom we are called to extend our love. 

The quote above from Westina Matthew’s Sunday’s reflection captures our focus for this week: to hold the brokenness of the world, along with our own, in compassion, light, and love, and to be instruments of God’s forgiveness, reconciliation, and love. 

Given the overwhelming needs for healing in the world, focusing our attention on these needs can feel daunting. A story from a young man who visited Mother Teresa can be helpful to give us perspective. The young man asked her how he could return home and do something as significant as she was doing in her work in India. Mother Teresa wisely responded, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can all do small things with great love.” 

Making It Personal: What “small things” are you currently doing to offer healing to others? Take a moment to pause and pray for guidance on any additional small offerings of love that God may be calling you to provide to others.

The Crooked Made Straight Again

The Crooked Made Straight Again

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Reflection By Westina Matthews

Please give me, Lord, a clean heart,
I wanna walk much better.
- Margaret Pleasant Douroux

“Do you think you can run out of chances with God?” I asked my spiritual advisor during one of our sessions more than 30 years ago. Looking through tear-filled eyes, I anxiously awaited his response.

I had raised the question because I was recovering from a life-threatening illness, had been abandoned by my then boyfriend in the midst of my recovery, and my job was suffering. Flat on my back, my body wracked with pain, I had a lot of time to begin to think about my life as it was and how I would like it to be.

“No,” he gently reassured me. “You don’t run out of chances with God. It may take a while to ‘make the crooked straight’ again (Isaiah 45:2 KJV), but you don’t run out of chances with God.”

After 3,955 days, Tiger Woods won his fifth Masters and, at the age of 43, became the second-oldest winner of the Masters at Augusta National. After countless false starts, with personal and professional setbacks, on Sunday, April 14, 2019, Tiger Woods showed the world that he had not run out of chances. The crooked was made straight again.

Like Tiger Woods, I too, experienced plenty of false starts and wrong turns. The gospel hymn Give Me A Clean Heart (Psalm 51:9-12) became my personal anthem. And through prayerful listening and sacred conversations with the holy, I began creating a new covenant with God, continually affirming who I am, who I am becoming, and who I want to be.

Lent offers us an invitation to live into the belief that the crooked can be made straight again.

For forty days we are invited to remember the sacrifice of one life, thousands of years ago, so that we can experience a new life today. This is an invitation for healing so that even in our brokenness, we can be made whole again. This is the assurance that we don’t run out of chances with God.

And, it all begins with the forgiveness of ourselves and the forgiveness of others. Let us hold our broken world—and our own brokenness—in compassion, light, and love. For God’s love reigns forever, forgiveness is the key, reconciliation is the goal, and love is always, always, the answer.

The promise of Easter awaits.

Where the Grass is Always Greener

Where the Grass is Always Greener

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Attention is the beginning of devotion.
- Mary Oliver

Social media posts are often the highlight reels of people’s lives, and so it can be easy to envy the carefully curated lives of others. Our real lives and relationships may not feel as favorable as the ones we see online. We may end up feeling jealous as we compare the idealized outside lives of others to our own inside life. There is an old saying that captures this well: “The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.”

A few years ago, I heard a new version of this saying that I believe is ultimately much more helpful: “The grass is greener where we water it.” This is a masterful way of inviting us to redirect the wasteful energy of envy, to focus instead on what we can do to water growth in our own lives and in our relationships.

In all dimensions of well-being, what we pay attention to is what will grow. As any gardener knows, watering, weeding, and mulching with good nutrients create growth. The growth may take time, and it may not always be the exact growth we had planned or expected. However, with time, patience, and perseverance, new growth will appear.

Making It Personal: Pause and reflect on the influence, if any, that social media has on your relationships. What do you think of the quote, “The grass is greener where you water it?” As we conclude this week’s focus on relationships, is there a particular relationship in your life that you feel called to continue to water?

Letting Go

Letting Go

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Reflection By Robbin Brent

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.
- Luke 23:46

As we navigate the path of emotional and spiritual healing, we will likely find ourselves confronted with the need to surrender, to let go of our illusions of control and allow ourselves to be held by a love greater than ourselves. This can be terrifying, especially when we have experienced the pain of betrayal or abandonment. Yet, surrender is not passive resignation but an active choice to align ourselves with a greater reality. Just as Jesus, with his final breath, surrendered completely into God’s hands, we too can surrender ourselves to trust in a love that will hold us.

Surrendering involves a daily practice of entrusting ourselves to God’s care, acknowledging our limitations, and making space for grace to work in our lives. Understood this way, true strength often looks like surrender, especially in our closest relationships.

We have reflected on forgiveness this week as one aspect of healing. To forgive often involves surrendering—surrendering our need to be right or our need to get even. It also means surrendering to God’s wisdom and desires. As Henri Nouwen writes, “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly.”

Lent offers us the opportunity to practice both surrender and forgiveness, to loosen our grip on our own lives, and to allow ourselves to be held by the One who loves us beyond measure.

Making It Personal: What areas of your life feel difficult to surrender control? Is there a particular relationship that might be helped by a decision to surrender control or practice forgiveness? How might you practice letting go and allowing God to be more present in your life this week?

Practicing Forgiveness

Practicing Forgiveness 

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Reflection By Scott Stoner

It’s easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
- William Blake

The people closest to us see everything—our contradictions, our shortcomings, the ways we haven’t quite figured ourselves out yet. This intimacy creates a unique paradox: the very closeness that makes deep love possible also makes deep wounds possible.

Blake’s observation above takes on new meaning when we think about those close to us: it’s often easier to forgive a stranger than a friend or family member. Why? Maybe because we carry different expectations for those closest to us. We believe they should understand us better and treat us more carefully. When those needs go unmet, the sting lingers.

When hurt occurs within relationships, we face a choice: we can either talk it out or act it out. If we don’t choose the former, we’ll default to the latter. Think of friends or families who stop speaking—that silence isn’t an absence of communication; it’s a form of it.

Real forgiveness requires something counterintuitive: vulnerability with the very people who have the power to hurt us most. It means choosing difficult conversations over comfortable distance. Ephesians 4:15 says, “Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” The phrase we must grow names what forgiveness requires: the spiritual and emotional maturity to stay present when everything in us wants to retreat.

Making It Personal: Does Blake’s quote ring true for you? Have you found it harder to forgive those closest to you? When hurt in a relationship, what’s helped you move toward talking it out versus acting it out?

An Undefended Heart

An Undefended Heart

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Reflection By Robbin Brent

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. 
- C.S. Lewis

In the tenderness of a new love, I discovered that choosing to be undefended created a space where my heart could be completely open. I also discovered that while an undefended heart can be hurt and broken, it is also a wellspring of courage. To love this way after years of guarding my heart, I drew strength from Jesus’ reassurance that loving without reservation is always a path to healing and wholeness. When lovingly tended, an unguarded heart is a heart free to give and receive so much more goodness, sweetness, generosity, and love.

By opening his heart fully to the pain and brokenness of the world, we see in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection the power of an unguarded heart. His ultimate act of surrendering to love showed us that God’s healing love is at work in every dimension of our lives. We, too, in our most intimate relationships, can choose to let down our guard, to allow our hearts to be seen and known in all their beauty and brokenness.

As we journey with Jesus to the cross, can we risk loving without reservation by allowing our own hearts to be opened, knowing that it is only in this openness that we can fully give and receive the love that is our deepest response to God’s ceaseless love for us?

Making It Personal: How might you embrace openness in your relationships as a path to healing and wholeness? What would it look like to risk an undefended heart, trusting in the power of love?

Choosing What Clothes to Wear

Choosing What Clothes to Wear

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Reflection By Scott Stoner

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
- Colossians 3:12

One misconception about love is that love is primarily a feeling. That’s what many songs and greeting cards would lead us to think. The reality, though, is that love is mainly a decision.

Feelings ebb and flow in all relationships. Sometimes we feel warmth and joy, while other times we feel hurt or irritation. A Christian approach to love transcends feelings and grounds our love in the teachings of our faith and our core values. 

When we view love as a decision grounded in our understanding of Jesus’ teachings, the above passage from Colossians becomes more understandable. Just as we decide what clothes to put on each day, we are called to make the decision to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. What we “wear” each day is a choice we have in our relationships, independent from the current state of our feelings. None of us does this perfectly, but we continue to be faithful to cultivating a wholehearted commitment to love, even in difficult moments. 

Making It Personal: What do you think of the idea that love is primarily a decision? Is there one particular attribute in the Colossians passage that speaks to you right now? If so, how might you decide to put that into practice right now?

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Healing and Wholeness in Relationships

Theme for Week Four in Lent

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Marveling at life can be experienced every day at the center of being alive.
- Lisa Senuta

Relationships are foundational to our lives. Few things affect the well-being we experience in our lives more than the well-being of our relationships. Even so, it is easy to take our relationships for granted and overlook their importance.

This week, our focus will be on healing and wholeness in relationships. We will reflect on ways to cultivate our relationships to help them grow and thrive. We will also consider steps we can take to heal a relationship when there has been hurt. 

One thought that will be helpful as we reflect on relationships is captured in Lisa Senuta’s quote above from yesterday’s reflection. When we can look at the people in our lives with appreciation and love, our relationships with others can be seen as treasures, even when they are imperfect and challenging at times. And as we will see, the more we tend to them, working on loving and forgiving as need be, the greater the blessing they will be. 

Our God is a relational God who thankfully provides us with the guidance and inspiration we need to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. As Scripture says, “We love, because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Making It Personal: Take a moment to pause and offer gratitude for the people in your life, past and present, who are important to you. Also, pause and reflect on whether there is a particular relationship that you feel God is calling you to nurture or strengthen at this time. 

What Is, Just As It Is

What Is, Just As It Is 

Fourth Sunday in Lent

Reflection By Lisa Senuta

Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.
- John 9:32-33

Like dominos when Jesus healed the man born blind, that act of mercy set in motion a long chain of reactions. The brilliance of the passage is in how it can help us recognize how disconnected we can be from what is. 

The blind man sees clearer than anyone the absolute miracle of meeting Jesus and of healing. His response is simple: awe and wonder. How? Why? It does not matter. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. 

What is just as it is,* guides us toward the heart of the matter. Whereas our opinions, our questions, our judgements often disguise reality and therefore the miracle at the center of being alive. 

This is comically illuminated in a cartoon Ronald Rolheiser describes in his book, The Shattered Lantern: Rediscovering a Felt Presence of God. The cartoon is of a family waking up in the morning. In the first frame the dad is driving his car to work and says to himself, “another dumb day, going to that same dumb office, to work on those same dumb numbers that I must have worked on a thousand times.” In the second frame the mom is cleaning the floor saying to herself, “Another dumb day cleaning this same dumb house I must have cleaned a thousand times.” In the next frame we see the older children on the school bus. One says to the other, “Another dumb day going to the same dumb school with the same dumb teachers working on the same dumb stuff we’ve been working on a thousand times before.” In the last frame we see the youngest child standing up in her crib, wide awake fresh for a new day, her arms up in the air facing the sun shouting, “Another Day!”

One thing that restores our health is to follow the man born blind and rediscover awe and wonder. Br. David Steindl-Rast describes this as Surprise. Other spiritual teachers call this “the second naiveté.” A state in which we, as adults, connect with the sacred center in life just as it is, just as we are. Marveling at life can be experienced every day at the center of being alive. 

The happiest people on our planet are the people who have enough to thrive physically, socially, and spiritually and to live closely connected to the miracle of life and the peace available at the center of everything we do.

Yes, we can, and often do, get in our own way. It is also true that faithful and authentic prayer is an act of courageous and compassionate trust that what is going on and where we find ourselves is also where God is, and that is a miracle. That place is where we experience what the psalmist put into the famous words, “my cup runneth over” (Psalm 23).

* I first learned about the concept of “accepting what is as it is” from James Finley’s book, The Contemplative Heart.

We All Take Turns on the Mat

We All Take Turns on the Mat

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Then some people came bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.
- Mark 2:3,4

When we read the story where Jesus heals a man lowered through the roof of a house on a mat (Mark 2:1-12), we learn an essential truth about Christian community: we all will take turns on the mat.

In every life, to everything there is a season. When our physical, emotional, and spiritual strength is strong, we can be like one of the four friends doing the carrying of the paralyzed man on the mat. Metaphorically, we can climb rooftops, and do whatever it takes to help a friend. At such times we can live out Jesus’ call to bear one another’s burdens.

But eventually, life humbles us all. Hard things happen to good people. It may happen when illness strikes. Or when we are overwhelmed by grief. Or when depression or anxiety paralyzes us. There are many ways we can become immobilized. In these seasons of vulnerability we discover the power of our faith and the power of community and that it is not weakness, but wisdom, the wisdom to acknowledge our need to be carried.

The question isn’t whether we will need the mat and the support of others at some point, but whether we will have the courage and humility to ask for the help we need. 

Making It Personal: How comfortable are you asking for help when you are in need? And is there someone in need that you feel called to embody the healing power of Christ, and to offer Christian community to right now?

Making Space for Rest

Making Space for Rest

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Reflection By Robbin Brent

When you slowly begin to believe and understand your inherent worth, rest becomes possible in many ways. 
- Tricia Hersey

In our near-constant busyness and the many demands we navigate every day, it can be easy to overlook rest and our need for regular periods of stillness and renewal. When we’re overcommitted and scrambling to squeeze another tiny ounce of time and energy out of the day, rest feels like a luxury, or even a sign of weakness, especially in a culture that prizes productivity and achievement.

Yet busyness isn’t always about an overscheduled calendar—sometimes our minds are the busiest part of us. When worry or repetitive thoughts spin through the same concerns over and over again, our minds and souls desperately need rest, even when our bodies are not in motion.

My own struggles with this have taught me that rest is not optional, but essential—a vital component of wellness and wholeness. When we find ways to step away from our congested schedules and quiet our racing thoughts, we create more space to simply be, making room for our bodies, minds, and souls to regenerate and heal.

This week, as we reflect on the theme of physical healing, we can discover and practice ways to prioritize rest, honor the natural rhythms of our bodies, and trust in the restorative powers of stillness and renewal. As we learn to incorporate more intentional periods of rest into our daily routines, we are better able to cultivate a deeper sense of balance and well-being in all areas of our lives. 

Making It Personal: When was the last time you allowed yourself to rest deeply, without guilt or distraction? How might you create more space for rest and renewal in your life—whether from an overcrowded schedule or from worry or repetitive thoughts? Reflect on a time when rest played an important role in your physical or emotional healing. What insights did you gain from that experience?

Healing, Cure, and Wholeness

Healing, Cure, and Wholeness

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Prayer doesn’t always change outcomes, but it always changes us. 

There is a beautiful prayer in the Ministry to the Sick portion of the Book of Common Prayer:

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen (BCP, p. 461).

I have prayed this prayer with many people who were suffering, including some who knew that they were dying. I prayed it myself during my bike accident that I wrote about last Monday. It reminds us that no matter our circumstances we can live in the spirit of Jesus, and that even in times of trial, we can still pray for and experience spiritual and emotional healing.

It is good and natural to pray for cures and miracles, for strength and courage. And it is good to remember that while prayer doesn’t always change outcomes, it always changes us.

Making It Personal: How does the idea that “prayer doesn’t always change outcomes, but it always changes us” connect with your experience? Consider praying the prayer above for a few days and reflect on what effect it has on you.

The Loving Truth: Listening to the Body

The Loving Truth: Listening to the Body 

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Reflection By Robbin Brent

Your body is talking. Are you listening?
- Dr. Neha Sangwan

I’d been an avid runner for most of my life before a neck injury brought it to a painful halt in early winter 2001. The next three years were a dark night of my body, mind, and soul. I could not sleep, drive a car, or carry anything over a couple of pounds. I lost trust in my body’s ability to heal and be well.

Fast forward to early March 2025. I was inspired to run again, thrilled by the feeling of wild exhilaration and freedom as my strength and stamina returned. It had been almost 25 years since I’d moved this way, and I was impatient, pushing myself too hard.

My body began talking to me, quietly at first: a tenderness here, tightness there, then pain settled in. When I ignored those early “whispers,” it tried a little louder to get my attention. Finally, it got so painful I was forced to come to ground and listen to the loving truth: this body is not the same body it once was.

As we grow older, most of us wrestle with accepting and loving what is true about our bodies. We may need to grieve what we’ve lost before we can honor, embrace, and celebrate the amazing gift we inhabit. As we tune in to our bodies’ wisdom, we can learn to see them as holy temples, places where God’s Spirit dwells.

When we honor the intuitive intelligence of our bodies, we treat them with the same tenderness and reverence Jesus showed to those he touched and healed. As we navigate the inevitable highs and lows, we can practice kindness, patience, and grace, trusting the wisdom of our bodies and the One who made them.

Making It Personal: How might you practice greater reverence and care for your body? What is your body telling you right now about what it needs? What would it look like to honor your physical well-being as a gift from God?

God Loves Every Body

God Loves Every Body

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? … Therefore glorify God in your body.
- 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20

At Living Compass, we often say that many compasses are competing to guide our lives. The compasses of the dominant culture are strong, frequently giving us messages that are contradictory to those that our faith gives to us. This seems to be especially true in the messages we receive about our bodies.

Social media and consumer-driven ads often show us body images that are perfectionist, unrealistic, and are frequently obsessed with looking young. The message is clear: your body is not okay as it is, and you need our product/program/workout to create a body you can feel good about. Sadly, sometimes churches have even added to body negatively by falsely attributing sin and temptation to the body. 

In contrast, a healthy faith tells us that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that God loves every body. Our bodies are wonderfully created by a loving God who loves all aspects of who we are, no exceptions. This faith-based body-positivity celebrates our bodies and inspires us to care for the gifts that they are.

Making It Personal: Are you aware of any unhealthy body image messages you may have internalized? If so, what might help you move to a more positive image of your body, one that is grounded in the truth that your body as a miraculous gift from God?

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Physical Healing and Wholeness: A Holistic Approach

Theme for Week Three in Lent

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, just as it is well with your soul.
- 3 John 1:2

Eighteen years ago, I was hit by a car on my bicycle. I was knocked unconscious for several hours and ended up with multiple injuries, including a traumatic brain injury that took several years to recover from.

My physical pain was acute for quite a while, but gradually calmed down. Unbeknownst to me, but quite apparent to those closest to me, six months after my accident, my mental health was suffering. Like the Samaritan woman at the well that Rob Hirschfeld wrote about yesterday, the trauma I was carrying was weighing me down and becoming visible to those closest to me. With the support of family, friends, and my faith community—who spoke the truth with love to me—I was able to get help and recover. 

I learned a valuable lesson in my recovery. I, like everyone, am wonderfully created by God as a whole—body, mind, heart, and spirit—meaning that physical well-being is interconnected with all aspects of well-being. This is our theme for this week as we explore how our physical well-being both affects and is affected by our spiritual, emotional, and relational dimensions of wellness.

Making It Personal: Bring to mind a time when your physical health either affected or was affected by your emotional, spiritual, and relational health. Pause and reflect on what you might learn from this experience.

Seeing in a Fresh Way

Seeing in a Fresh Way

Third Sunday in Lent

Reflection By Rob Hirschfeld

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 
- John 4:15

Except when the Merrimack River in New Hampshire is frozen, I row in a single sculling shell almost every day. I row upstream a few miles, turn around, and row back downstream. It’s an activity I’ve “enjoyed” for over fifty years now. It sounds monotonous, more like chore than recreation. Sometimes I’m asked, “Isn’t it just so dull to go up and down the same body of water every day?”

I see the point. There is some tedium to this lonely sport. But then I notice that it’s always a different body of water on a river. Sometimes there’s mist. The greens of the trees, from early spring to full spring, to summer vary from day to day. Often a blue heron shows up on the riverbank. It’s not the same river each day, though it is. Either full of energy or tired, I am not the same sculler from day to day, though I am.

There’s no such leisure or recreational activity for the woman at the well. She goes back and forth in the monotonous drudgery of getting water for her household. She carries with her memories she would rather not share and just as soon forget. Her life, even her love life—if we can call it that—probably seems a chore, a series of tedious repetitions in the empty hope that something new might arise. What would it be like not to carry the weight of the tedious awareness of past traumas, past patterns, past sins with their accumulated shame?

Perhaps I am drawn to water—rivers, ponds, streams, or lakes—because they have a way of praying me, of cleansing my soul. This life-changing encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria has to take place by a well. It has to involve water. The well where Jesus meets her is really a kind of baptismal font where she is given a new way to see her life. 

Jesus’ acceptance of us gives us our tainted stories back to us but without the stigma of shame that keeps us from being in community with God and each other. As we approach the celebration of baptism at Easter, we are invited to see our lives sprung from the monotony of our sense of sin. Though we don’t forget our past and the moral complexities of life, our lives are seen in a fresh way. 

Our stories are drawn into God’s own memory. The best re-creation of all.

Is Self-Care Selfish?

Is Self-Care Selfish?

Healing and Wholeness in Heart and Soul

Reflection By Scott Stoner

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
- Prayer of St. Francis

Christians sometimes wonder if it is self-centered to focus on their own emotional and spiritual wellness. Isn’t it our call to love and serve others, not ourselves?

My thought is that if our only goal is our own well-being, that would be self-centered. However, when our goal also includes being well so that we can serve others effectively, we become instruments of healing and wholeness in our world. In that case, we are better able to fulfill our desire to love our neighbor as we better love ourselves. There is a significant difference between being self-centered and having a centered self. 

The opening words of the St. Francis Prayer above are a prayer for being able to be instruments of God’s peace. It can be helpful to think of this in musical terms. If our own instruments—our hearts and souls—are out of tune, it is difficult to share the gift of beautiful music with others. When I am not emotionally or spiritually well, it is difficult for me to convey well-being to others. 

But if we regularly tune the instruments of our lives, we can then truly be God’s instruments for spreading the peace and healing described in the Prayer of St. Francis.

Making It Personal: Have you ever wondered if self-care is selfish or if it is always better to prioritize the needs of others over your own? Looking back on this week’s reflections, what thoughts or practices will continue to be helpful for you in nurturing and tuning your emotional and spiritual well-being?

The Gift of Tears

The Gift of Tears

Healing and Wholeness in Heart and Soul

Reflection By Robbin Brent

Tears are a gift. We tend to apologize for them, but actually they are jewels in the crown of human feelings. They express what is inexpressible in words. Tears reveal our innermost wounds.
- Macrina Wiederkehr

Tears can be deeply healing. When we’re carrying emotional or spiritual pain, giving ourselves permission to cry releases some of what we’ve been holding, opening our hearts to God’s loving presence. Even Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35), and in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). His tears remind us that expressing sorrow is not weakness, but part of being fully human.

In times of pain or grief, finding a safe place to let our tears flow freely—without judgment or shame—is an act of deep kindness and self-compassion. As the Psalmist writes, “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (Psalm 56:8). God cherishes every tear we shed, holding us with boundless love through it all.

We often feel pressure to hold back our tears, afraid they will be seen as a sign of weakness or lack of faith. Yet, tears are a natural and necessary part of who we are. They allow us to process and release intense emotions, helping to cleanse our hearts, minds, and souls so we can make room for healing. When we give ourselves, and others, permission to cry, we open the way to deeper connection with ourselves, others, and God.

Making It Personal: When was the last time you allowed yourself to cry freely, without holding back? How might you create a safe space to welcome and honor your tears this Lent? Reflect on a time when crying brought you unexpected comfort or clarity. What did your tears reveal?