I recently read a lovely teaching about the "disease of being busy" by Professor Omid Safi from Duke University. He wrote that when asked "how are you?" so many of us reply with choruses of "I'm so busy...I'm crazy busy...so much going on..." He shared that there is a Persian and Islamic custom that instead of asking "how are you" one asks "how is your Continue Reading
The Spirituality of Nurturing
by Rabbi Wendy Spears Over the course of many weeks, I was privileged to be in partnership with my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Jill Zimmerman as we planned and shepherded a one-day retreat for a Mindful Journey Through Shabbat a few weeks ago, over the long weekend celebrating the birth of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.The retreat was intended Continue Reading
Mindfulness, Poetry, Prayer and Song to Open Hearts
At our beautiful all-day retreat last Shabbat, "A Mindful Journey Through Shabbat" we did a morning of chant/kavannah/music/silence. As leaders, we chose several key prayers (only a few) from the morning Shabbat service and went deeper into each one. For example, we started with Modah/Modeh Ani, which means "Grateful/Thankful am I" and offered a brief Continue Reading
