On the Feast of Epiphany

Arise shine; for your light has come,

For darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

and his glory will appear over you.

Nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your day.

They all gather together, they come to you;

your sons shall come from far away,

and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses' arms.

Then shall you see and be radiant;

your heart shall thrill and rejoice.  

Isaiah 60:1-5

There were days in my mother’s final months when her face was radiant.  Something would shift and she would transform from someone who slept most of the time into someone who was luminous, bright, radiant.  

I understood those rare moments as opportunities to see her Spirit.  Cynthia Bourgeault, one of my spiritual guides, teaches that toward the end of life there is an inverse relationship between physical decline and spiritual strengthening. On days when mom's face was bright, I thought about that teaching. There was no question that her body was failing.  But something else in her was shining. 

The day mom died, our family paused before calling the funeral home. Instead, we washed and anointed her body and gathered to pray the rosary.  There was a palpable sense of peace in the room, obvious even to those of us who were on zoom. 

Later, I went for a walk to see if I could tune into mom's spirit in her new state. All I could feel was a sense of joy and liberation. It was like mom was thrilled to finally be free. I was sorry for our loss but not for her.

As I was out for a walk, the funeral home staff were at the house. The peace of the first few hours after mom's passing was shattered as mom's body was moved from the living room to the hearse.  Several family members followed her out the door, distraught as she was taken from the home for the last time.  Suddenly, a flock of birds arrived, circled the house, singing cheerfully, settling on the trees in the front yard. As the hearse drove away, they circled the house again and then flew off.  Everyone there felt it was a mystical sign, a message from mom letting us know that all was well.

This side of mom's death I believe that her spirit is available to help her loved ones in ways that she could not do in her earthly form. It's as if a light has been unveiled and is available to us on an entirely different level; as if the heart of mom’s presence is flittering about, like those birds, and able to communicate love, the kind that holds our hearts, making it easier to stand inside of our giftedness. 

Arise, shine, for your light has come. 

Even so, there is darkness everywhere on this earth. I am heartbroken by unhealthy dynamics in my family and horrors happening in the world - war, economic injustice, meanness, addiction, oppression.  Our government has escalated its violence and imperialism this very week.  I feel powerless to change that.

But I am not powerless.

Because there is something else I see.  It’s that something else I am paying attention to - the near proximity of love. The near proximity of my mother's love.

What will be possible in my life now that wasn’t before? I believe - expect even - that my mother can and is helping in ways that she could not in her earthly form. What do I want to be possible?

My work is about building circles of community where people learn and offer care for each other, where people believe that the light of Christ is the most important thing and try to live from that center.  It’s small work - in the sense of scale.  But how many monks live at New Camaldoli Hermitage at any given time? Father Bruno Barnhart, one of the monks of New Camaldoli Hermitage, once said that monasteries exist to offer a nuclear reaction of love that moves into the world.  Community that emanates mystical love has a powerful light.

My mom accomplished little in her life. Her resume had one job on it.  Even so, the church was packed at her funeral.  With family.  With friends.  With my dad’s friends.  The heart center of love, which was her priority, mattered.

This year, I am clear that I want to stand clear and solid on that firm foundation of love.  I want to build communities that source our action from there.  I believe that is powerful, radiant work.  

Arise, shine, your light has come.

Treasures from Mom, Christmas 2025

I skipped Christmas this year.  

I did not go to the New Camaldoli Hermitage at Big Sur, as I have been doing for the past twenty years.  I did not put up a tree.  I did not have Christmas dinner with my sons.  We did not gather in the glow of sparkling lights and take turns exchanging gifts.   

No, my focus was on helping my grieving father and supporting my son who was discharged from the hospital early in the week. With mom’s death so fresh and my son’s health so fragile, I accepted that there would be no Christmas this year - not in the way I like to observe.

Even so, on Christmas Eve I found a quiet hour to go for a walk around the neighborhood.  I moved slowly, taking in the rising crescent moon and the thin line of red on the horizon that turned even suburbia into a peaceful winter scene.  Far from my Big Sur hermitage, I was grateful, for a moment, to sense the silent beauty of the Christmas mystery, even as I-95 buzzed in the distance.

Afterwards, I decided to set a festive Christmas table for the small group of us who had been left behind when others went on vacation. I opened the door to mom’s china cabinet and noted the shelves were covered in dust.  Mom rarely used her china, even though she took care with the dishes and saved the broken pieces for a future fix. 

I found a set of plates and placed them and her crystal water glasses on the table.  Then I moved to the drawers below, looking for festive linens.  The only ones I found were stained; they would have to do.  Opening the silverware drawer, I discovered a surprise, a single red cloth covered journal. Inside the front cover were a few mismatched post-its and sheets of paper penned with my mother’s meticulous handwriting.  A poem about Christmas. An ode to her first born child. A meditation on Autumn and what to do when life does not go your way.  Treasures, gifts from my mom.

Mom’s poems are windows into her inner life, the part of her she generally kept to herself. Each one is simple; Mom was not a published poet or a theologian. When I asked spiritual questions, she did not offer sophisticated responses. Her way was about love, everyone who knew her knows that.

Strikingly absent from her musings were any complaints.  Mom’s life was imperfect; she experienced trauma as a child and at times struggled with depression. When we were children, mom was often overwhelmed and lonely.  To cope, no doubt, she developed unusual compulsions, like filling drawers with rubber bands and ordinary stamps.  She had a very hard time throwing anything out, even junk mail.  She never fixed the broken pieces of her china set.

Reading her beautiful poems, I wondered what she would have been like if her father had been healthy or if her mother had stayed home when my mom was a child.  What would she have been like if my father had a less demanding career or if she had known how to access the kind of support my generation does?  What if the broken pieces had been glued back in place?

They never were. But underneath mom left a treasure, the purity of her heart.  The foundation of my life.

After setting mom’s table with china, stained linens, and pieces of silver that don’t match, family members gathered, graced by the presence of mom’s first great granddaughter, Clare, born last Easter. Instead of a prayer, we read mom’s poem about a Christmas where the only gift was love.