Reflections

Enjoy these thoughtful reflections from Sacred Ground Program Coordinator Jessica Sanborn and others. Rooted in our contemplative tradition, these writings offer gentle reminders of the spiritual enrichment Sacred Ground nurtures—both in our formation programs and in the broader rhythms of life and community.
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Jessica Sanborn Jessica Sanborn

An Invitation to Ignatian Imaginative Prayer

Prayer doesn’t have to be talking to God in words. St. Ignatius of Loyola developed the practice of imaginative prayer to help us enter into a deeper, felt relationship with Christ. Whether you’re new to imaginative prayer or it’s a regular part of your prayer practice, we invite you to open your creative mind with these guided prompts.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

A Year of Spiritual Growth at Sacred Ground

As 2025 draws to a close, we’re filled with gratitude for all the ways our community has gathered, grown, and journeyed together. From Groundings lectures to formation and fellowship, we’re reflecting on a year of spiritual depth—and looking ahead with hope to 2026.

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Jessica Sanborn Jessica Sanborn

Advent Examen

Before racing ahead to the future, Advent invites us to sit with the present moment. It offers a pause to reflect back before focusing on what comes next. An Advent Examen can be a helpful prayer practice as you meet this moment of reflection.

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Jessica Sanborn Jessica Sanborn

Calm the Chaos: 5-Minute Prayer Practices for Advent

Even if you don’t have much time to spare during this full season, contemplative prayer is always accessible to you. We invite you to explore these simple Advent prayer practices that can fit into even the most chaotic days.

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Jessica Sanborn Jessica Sanborn

The Sacred Waiting: Finding God in Liminal Space

Liminal spaces are times of transition. They are transformative but can be uncomfortable. The Advent season honors these times of liminality and waiting. As we prepare for Christmas, we invite you to honor the presence of liminal space in your own life.

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Jessica Sanborn Jessica Sanborn

Praying an Examen: an invitation to what gives you life

Praying the Examen helps us to pay attention to our lives and to God’s presence and activity in us and around us. As we notice patterns of gratitude, connection, and aliveness, the Examen helps us to discern who we are created to be and how God is inviting us to show up in the world.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Seeing God with Practice

How can we see God at work and at play in the world around us or in the people in front of us? How do we keep our hearts open and receptive to God and to others, especially in times of fear and distraction?

With practice.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Honest God

Each story we hear, each conversation we have, is an opportunity to open our hearts to another. To see the world for what it is and to respond with courage and love.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Spiritual Practices

Engaging in spiritual practice is a way of showing up for the world as it is and orienting our hearts to the sacred invitations that hide within the moments of our days.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Good Company

We need good company. We need the kind of company that ignites and guards the light of courage and love in our hearts.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Gardening and Living Life

Every gardening season is accompanied by an invitation to explore any number of rich metaphors for living life.
What do you want to cultivate?

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Spiritual Directors Listen Deeply

We believe that this work of deep, compassionate, non-judgmental listening is an essential and desperately needed healing gift in a world longing for wholeness and meaning.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Openess

Hearts and lives wide open. This is both an invitation and a prayer.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Beloved, Love Together

I want my heart to be open and receptive, and the experience of the Beloved dwelling in my heart fills me with transformative hope. And the need to love together, the need to love in and as a world-wide community, feels like a necessary invitation today.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

LOVE

God loves us with particularity and delight. Experiencing the specificity of God's love changes the very core of our being.

And God's love invites us to a Love that seeks the flourishing of all. 

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Radical Welcome and Hospitality

When we experience such unconditional welcome and love, it transforms us. We are then also invited to live that welcome and love to the people and world around us.

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Michelle Carroll Michelle Carroll

Neighbors

The world needs neighbors right now.

I love how in the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus turned the question "Who is my neighbor?" into "Who was the neighbor? Go be a neighbor."

What does that mean for you? For me? Today? In this time that we are in?

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