This is a difficult country, and our home. Edwin Muir Strive with all your might to bring your interior activity into accord with God, and you will overcome exterior passions Abba Arsenius When you walk through fire you shall not be burned. Isaiah 43:2 The desert is the primal scriptural symbol of the absence of […]
Nothing can overcome us, but only humility. AmmaTheodora Hearing that a brother was to be brought before the council, he came also, carrying a leaking basket of sand. He said, “How should I judge my brother when my sins run out behind me like the sand in this basket?” Abba Moses Nothing can overcome us, […]
The desert shall rejoice and blossom. Isaiah 35:1 The hunter said, “Father, if I keep my bow always stretched it will break”. So it is with the monk; if we push ourselves beyond measure we will break: it is right for us from time to time to relax our efforts”. Abba Anthony Have you a […]
This meditation is the first in Fr Philip Carter’s series Spirituality of the desert, the series that will accompany us during Lent this year. Desert: Uninhabited, desolate; uncultivated, barren. Waterless and treeless region…. It is difficult to conceive of either Judaism or Christianity without the desert. The austerity and relentless simplicity of the desert- and […]
Fr Philip Carter offers a ministry of spirituality, with a series of meditations on some questions that we may ponder as we consider our life in God. You will find here his reflections and questions for meditation, images, music and poetry to enrich your life’s journey. Welcome back to Spirit Matters for 2024. we hope […]
This post from Fr Philip Carter is our last post for the year 2023. we hope you have enjoyed the journey of meditation, through words, images and music. We will be taking a time of rest in January and will see you again in February 2024. “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us […]
Fr Philip Carter offers a ministry of spirituality, with a series of meditations on some questions that we may ponder as we consider our life in God. You will find here his reflections and questions for meditation, images, music and poetry to enrich your life’s journey. …to totter on planks we hope will become bridges […]
“To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow this star”. W H Auden “Mysteries mustBe our way of life. Without them we mightStop trying to learn and hoping to succeedIn the work we half-choose and giving thelove we need.” Elizabeth Jennings Image: Marian Hall, Desert landscape, Xenotopia II We are inescapably […]
“Love’s not love unless it’s vulnerable” Dennis Potter, in an interview only days before his death from cancer said that “Religion has always been to me the wound, never the bandage”. Being vulnerable is meaning to carry our wound (vulnus). It is not, as popularly thought, overcoming weakness and vulnerability, but accepting that this place […]
Fr Philip Carter offers a ministry of spirituality, with a series of meditations on some questions that we may ponder as we consider our life in God. You will find here his reflections and questions for meditation, images, music and poetry to enrich your life’s journey. “We live the given life, not the planned”. Wendell […]