Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine, has written an honest, eriudite and deeply moving essay in The American Scholar on language, love, faith, doubt, illness and one or two other things.

This passage conveys a sense of the whole:

There is a passage in the writings of Simone Weil that has long been important to me. In the passage, Weil describes two prisoners who are in solitary confinement next to each other. Between them is a stone wall. Over a period of time — and I think we have to imagine it as a very long time — they find a way to communicate using taps and scratches. The wall is what separates them, but it is also the only means they have of communicating. “It is the same with us and God,” she says. “Every separation is a link.”

It’s probably obvious why this metaphor would appeal to me. If you never quite feel at home in your life, if being conscious means primarily being conscious of your own separation from the world and from divinity (and perhaps any sentient person after modernism has to feel these things) then any idea or image that can translate that depletion into energy, those absences into presences, is going to be powerful. And then there are those taps and scratches: what are they but language, and if language is the way we communicate with the divine, well, what kind of language is more refined a nd transcendent than poetry? You could almost embrace this vision of life — if, that is, there were any actual life to embrace: Weil’s image for the human condition is a person in solitary confinement. There is real hope in the image, but still, in human terms, it is a bare and lonely hope.

It has taken three events, each shattering in its way, for me to recognize both the full beauty, and the final insufficiency, of Weil’s image. The events are radically different, but so closely linked in time, and so inextricable from one another in their consequences, that there is an uncanny feeling of unity to them. There is definitely some wisdom in learning to see our moments of necessity and glory and tragedy not as disparate experiences but as facets of the single experience that is a life. The pity, at least for some of us, is that we cannot truly have this knowledge of life, can only feel it as some sort of abstract “wisdom,” until we come very close to death

Read.

Over 20,000 people from all faiths in over 20 countries have already signed up to join the worldwide initiative, with businesspeople, schoolchildren, religious groups, dance groups and even 4,000 children from a refugee camp in Darfur joining in. The Religious Intelligence website reports:

The focal point of the Just This Day in the UK will be three minutes of quiet at St. Martins in the Field, in central London. Joining Elizabeth Edmunds will be representatives from the all the major faiths, including, the Bishop of Reading, Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, from the Muslim Council of Great Britain; Rabbi Alan Plancey, from the office of the Chief Rabbi; Bryan Appleyard, Vice-President and Chairman of The Buddhist Society, Mr SH Ruparell from the Swami Narayan Temple in Neasden and Brahma Charini Sumarti Chaitanya, Chinmaya Mission UK.

Mrs Edmunds says: “The noise and fast pace of life has made us prisoners in our own worlds, with little space for connecting with ourselves. Putting our mobiles and minds on silent mode for just three minutes and doing nothing will give access to stillness which I believe can truly change our own lives and the world for the better.”

The Anglican Bishop of Reading, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, author of the book ‘Do Nothing and Change Your Life’ which he famously publicised by handing out egg timers at a railway station, rediscovered his love for poetry in a moment of stillness. He says, “Our world is busy and in the turmoil we forget we all share the same space. Regardless of your faith, age or background, going into silent mode is something we could all do more of.”

Read it all here and silence your cell phone and your mind Wednesday at 10 a.m. GMT. Of course most in the US will be asleep so it should not be too hard.

Well known Episcopal commentator, Doug LeBlanc reflects on an essay by Buddhist blogger EJ Eskow about the challenge of balancing blog-inspired activism with Buddhist disciplines. LeBlanc mention[s] Eskow’s essay by way of confession. "Blogging is not my default setting as a writer, and I’m not sure I’ve ever found a relaxed, unguarded voice in this medium. Blogging has sometimes made it too easy to lapse from noting irony to indulging unkind sarcasm."

How do I blog without losing something important in my soul? For now, this is my answer: I must blog less, and do more long-view writing that generates joy — both in my life and, I hope, in the lives of my readers.

Read it all here

According to a recent survey adults who do not attend church are cultivating their spiritual life through retreats, prayer, meditation and other spiritual practices.

USAToday reports "a growing number of Americans are recognizing a need to develop their inner life — if not as a spiritual practice, as a way to cultivate balance and depth in an increasingly hectic, chaotic, 24/7 world."

To many people, focusing on their "inner life" means cultivating a closer relationship with God, perhaps by developing a meditation or prayer practice or developing other spiritual disciplines. To others, it may be a more secular quest for tranquility and connectedness.

"An inner life is something everybody has, but we lose touch with it," says Bill Dietrich, executive director of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Bethesda, Md. As Americans, "our lives don't support a contemplative lifestyle" so much as "a constant search for efficiency. We've got to have some way of breaking through to what's really important for us, and spiritual discipline helps us to do that."

Whether religious or secular in nature, Dietrich and others say, an inner life blossoms as its four key components are purposefully cultivated. These involve:

•Taking time for quiet and solitude.

•Cultivating some type of regular spiritual practice or discipline.

•Grounding this spiritual practice in the support of a community.

•Bringing reflection and heightened awareness to everything you do.

Read it all here

Turning 90 means taking a run down the slopes of Massanutten Ski Resort near Harrisonburg, VA, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:

For his birthday, Bill Egelhoff pulled on his helmet, goggles and jacket, stepped into his skis and glided down a mountain.

Not a bad way to celebrate turning 90.

"There's really something spiritual about skiing," said Egelhoff, a retired Episcopal minister, among other jobs he's held. "It's hard to identify and hard to explain, but it's a feeling of being with nature and, in a sense, being with God.

"Getting up on top of the mountain is almost like being in heaven and looking down on Earth. It's just a wonderful feeling."

Read Egelhoff's tips for a long life and see a slideshow of him here.

A new study from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute finds "that while attendance at religious services decreased dramatically for most students between their freshman and junior years, the students’ overall level of spirituality, as defined by the researchers, increases. On hot-button social issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, the study finds that students become increasingly liberal."

Read an interview with one of the princiapl investigators, Alexander Astin, Allan M. Cartter Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at the University of California, who says:

It's important to realize that we don't equate religiousness with spirituality; there are students who are highly spiritual but not necessarily religious. The finding surprised us, however, because the two measures are related: Spiritual people tend to be religious and visa versa. If one declines, you'd expect the other to decline as well, but that didn't happen. We're looking for explanations of the apparent contradictions in the college experience and we've settled on two likely possibilities.

One is the fact that many of these students are away from home for the first time, and we suspect that, for some students, religious observance before college is influenced by the presence of the family. The second explanation has to do with the academic demands of the college experience: A greater deal of time is invested in studies during college than before college.

The Society of St. John the Evangelist has a web site with readings, videos and resources that takes the reader along the "The Road to Resurrection."

Every year Christians throughout the world join in retracing the steps of Jesus' final week. Join the Brothers of SSJE as they walk the road to resurrection, from Jesus' triumphal entry to Jerusalem to the Last Supper and anguish of Gethsemane, from the agony of the cross to the glory of the empty tomb. Each day will feature a sermon or reflection (or both!), as well as portions of the major liturgies.

Join the Monastery each day of Holy Week.

Matt Gunter, reflecting on the image of a Soviet sub's nuclear powerplant gone critical reflects on the parallels between the contamination caused by the leaking radiation and the way our sinful natures contaminate our relationships with the people who surround us in our lives.

"We are contaminated. What’s even harder for us to admit is that many of our actions and thoughts contribute to the contamination. The leaking reactor at the heart of the world contaminates everything. The reactor of our own hearts is contaminated. Like the crew on the K-19 we are trapped – unable to escape the toxic contamination.

Into this world comes one who is not contaminated. Jesus enters into the world and acts as a sort of holy Geiger counter setting off a click, click, click as he encounters the contamination radiating from Sin and Death.
Judas, a trusted friend and disciple, comes to him in the darkness. Perhaps it was greed. Perhaps it was disillusionment. Perhaps it as an impatient attempt to force Jesus’ hand and bring about the kingdom as Judas envisioned it. In any event, Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss.  And with that lip service, the Geiger counter goes click, click, click, click.

By most standards the high priests, Annas and Caiaphas, were probably decent enough men, trying to maintain as much independence for their nation as they could while appeasing the occupying Romans and forestalling the wrath of the empire.  But Caiaphas was the one who had counseled that it was ‘better to have one person die for the people.’ Jesus was just ‘collateral damage’ in the struggle to preserve the nation’s precarious security.  There is a logic to his thinking.  It is reasoning with which we have become familiar.  But the thinking is contaminated.  And again we hear, click, click, click, click.

Peter, the ‘Rock’, cracks under pressure and lies to avoid being associated with the one who had called him and whom he had followed. He denies Jesus not once but thrice and upon the third denial hears the rooster crow click, click, click, click.

Pilate cynically asks the one who is Truth, ‘What is truth?’ Unable or unwilling to accept the truth and the changes that must follow, Pilate, who claims the power to free or to crucify, hands an innocent man over to be crucified while seeking to remain free of the guilt. But he cannot escape the click, click, click, click measuring the contamination of his actions.
One way or another, each of the characters that Jesus encounters in the passion narrative (excepting only Mary and the other women, along with the disciple Jesus loved) demonstrates his contamination by the radiation of Sin and Death. Each alone and all together act out of fear, pride, and disbelief leading to betrayal, denial, desertion, deceit, collaboration, and the justification of violence."

Read the rest of the essay here.

Michael Kinman, the executive director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, has written a reflection on Christ's self-giving of himself for the world and posted it this Good Friday:

"Poverty and privilege have at least one thing in common -- they are both about choice, or lack of the same.

This first struck me most powerfully during my first trip to Ghana several years ago. I only had to be there a few days when I realized that my most valuable possession wasn't my laptop or my camera ... but my American passport. With it I had the choice whether to stay or to go. Whether to make a life there or leave and make a life elsewhere.

The privilege of choice that my wealth and education and other aspects of my (white) American life bring infuses every corner of my life. I can choose where to send my children to school. I can choose what kind of car to drive, what neighborhood to live in. I have chosen what kind of education I wanted and have chosen and continue to choose what kind of career I want.

My whole life has been and continues to be an embarrassment of riches of choice. Even the everyday choices ('Do you want fries with that?') when cast against a world where nearly 1,000,000,000 people go to bed hungry every night speak to the extreme privilege of choice I take for granted.

So I have the privilege of choice. I cannot escape it. Do I feel guilty about it? What now?

What word does Christ speak to me?

That word comes crashing through in the Christ hymn of Philippians 2 -- one of the most beautiful lyrics ever written. And it speaks of the events of today -- Good Friday -- in just these terms. Christ, the second person of the holy and undivided Trinity, was in the position of the most extreme privilege. Christ had the power of divinity -- talk about extreme choice! Christ could do anything.

And look at what Christ did.

Christ let go.

Christ let go of the privilege of choice. He saw that privilege not as something to be grasped, but emptied himself -- and even after emptying himself into human form, he continued to give up the privilege of choice and became obedient to the point of death ... even death on a cross."

Read the rest here.