In this reflection from our newsletter, Jessica Sanborn reflects on Practicing home.
Practicing hope requires that we keep our eyes and heart open to it.
Practicing hope requires that we put Love into action.
Practicing hope means bearing witness, especially when it’s hard.

Discerning a calling rarely comes as a lightning bolt. More often, it’s a quiet, holy curiosity that won’t let go. Hear the story of one spiritual director finding her way through the path of discernment, listening deeply, and entering into spiritual direction training.

What if creativity is less about making art and more about a way of being with God? Explore journaling, art, dance, and music as everyday spiritual practices.

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.

What if creating is one way we join God’s ongoing work in the world? Creativity is more than a skill—it’s a sacred invitation. This reflection explores creativity as prayer, participation, and a way of noticing God in all things.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We are midpoint through the year and summer. Pause, breathe deeply and reflect.

Why spiritual direction now? What difference does it make in our world in a time like this?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.