Companioning Center Blog

How the Birds Teach Me to Notice

Many birders have a “nemesis bird,” insider-speak for a bird they just can’t seem to find, no matter how long they try. I once went on a guided tour with a woman who’d been studying Harris Hawks in South Texas for three years but had never seen a Cactus Wren. “They’re not even that rare here,” she told me, “but I just can’t seem to find one.”

Consolation/Desolation

Death/Grief

Lament

Lent

A Time to Mourn, Grieve, and Lament

It’s the first Monday of the Advent season. This first week focuses on hope, especially in the midst of liminal spaces, which are times when what once “was” no longer “is” and what is “yet to be” has not yet come into fruition. In other words, hope in this first week of Advent is about remembering the reality that the ancient world was once waiting for the Messiah to be born, and he was and is “God with us”, which in today’s world prompts hope as we wait for and believe this same Messiah, Jesus, will return again one day…all while we operate in the midst of the liminalities we face in our world today.

Beauty

Lent

Consolation/Desolation

The Art of Contrast: Living Lent and Easter

What is your favorite work of art? A painting, perhaps, or a piece of music, or a film that has stayed with you? I struggle to choose favorites, but a few come to mind: the film Tree of Life with its epic scope and poetic unfolding, the choral music of Eric Whitacre with its tight harmonies and transcendent melodies, the architecture of Antoni Gaudí—stepping into the Sagrada Familia was like entering an entirely different world of light, color, and a paradoxical earthy transcendence. Perhaps you have your own work of art that has taken you on a similar journey.

Restorying for Restoring

For the last few months, I have been accompanying children in reading C.S. Lewis’s gift to humankind, The Chronicles of Narnia. Together, we are exploring what it means to know God, to walk in friendship with Jesus, and how God looks at us, all within the context of the stories of Narnia. Listening to children with curiosity and a secure openness has opened pathways for me to experience the depths of the Holy Spirit’s engagement with children, creating space for an awe-inspiring encounter with the Triune God.

Feasting On Hope: How Embodied Practices Make the Gospel Tangible

As a writer, I tend to live in my head. Sometimes my kids will be talking to me and I don’t hear them because I’m deep in mid-thought. Or I’ll be driving to the grocery store and make a wrong turn because I am distracted by an idea. But this tendency toward disembodied thought isn’t just a problem for certain personality types; it is also ingrained in many of us as the definition of discipleship.

The Companioning Center Blog

Join In As We Listen Together With A Variety Of Soul Companions

How the Birds Teach Me to Notice

A Time to Mourn, Grieve, and Lament

The Art of Contrast: Living Lent and Easter

Restorying for Restoring

Feasting On Hope: How Embodied Practices Make the Gospel Tangible

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