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Month: June 2007

Benedictine/Christianity/Spirituality

Spiritual Formation and Briercrest

Posted on June 30, 2007 by stephen t berg / 1 Comment

My hour with the Spiritual Formation class–a diverse group, ages, backgrounds, professions–was actually a delightful experience. And I know Deb&rsqu...

Christianity/Spirituality

Contemplating Moments and Briercrest

Posted on June 23, 2007 by stephen t berg / 8 Comments

Wish me luck. I’ve been asked, by my Dr.-brother Sam Berg, to take an hour this Monday to bring my slant on God Awareness and Benedictine Spirituality to ...

Uncategorized

Just an Albertan

Posted on June 22, 2007 by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

Deb and I, checking the ally for PETA members just before we head out on another one of our weekly rodeo adventures. She ropes steers and I ride wild brahmas, a...

Christianity/Politics/Religion/Spirituality

Geez’s Summer Issue

Posted on June 20, 2007 by stephen t berg / 7 Comments

I’ve referred to geez magazine (see sidebar link) a couple times in past posts, but, forgive me, I need to make special mention of geez’s sixth issue becaus...

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Over the coming months, I’ll be slowly retiring Grow Mercy. This Easter marks 20 years and some 1500 posts. (And here, a deep bow to you, for reading and/or responding.) I’ll not, however, be retiring the impulse behind Grow Mercy, but will be shifting, exploring, following a hybridized urge, and a genre to suit. For me, what these decades have increasingly revealed is how writing is a spiritual path. Now, for whatever time and energy remains for me, I’ll be tilting more toward The Ragged Psalmist, still inchoate, but the handle feels like it fits. I do hope you’ll subscribe.

Why — The Ragged Psalmist?

Because some stubborn ember, still warm, compels me to write some cobbled songs — praise and lament, cries and sighs — and sound them back to the sacred Mystery.

To throw a wrench into a world geared up for business; to resist the moneychangers in their corporate temples — because poetry is political, and light is its administrative wing.

Because old lies and old words screw us over and must be remade to tell the truth; because our glossary of mockery needs burial, and the lexicon that’s left needs anointing.

To strive to honour the life of a sparrow; attend the spell of a dead star — whose light we still see; to feel, down to the bone, the quantum foam, we all flail in.

To thicken compassion and thin out aggression; to oppose injustice and hate in a way that excludes no one, not even the hater.

To let failure, discouragement, suffering and perishing have their say, without any spoon of bromide; to let joy, delight, and beauty come as they may.

To penetrate darkness and delusion — and so discover all this love in us.

Because mindfulness and mercy need constant oxygen.

Because in the time that’s left I want to tattoo the implications of our “forgiving victim” on the body suit of my heart.

Because reality points to unity — and we must hurry to catch up.

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