Touchstones

Be Present as Fully as Possible. Make space and show up. Be here with your doubts, fears and failings, as well as your convictions, joys and successes, your listening as well as your wondering, your heart and body, as well as your mind.

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Extend and Receive Hospitality. Be kind to yourself and others. Create generosity and compassion through allowing space for NOT knowing. Give permission to be messy and imperfect.

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Invite Silence to be with you as a trusted friend. Silence welcomes space to pause and reflect, to deepen thinking, to develop empathy, and to rest in the present moment.

Embrace Brokenness as a Pathway Inward. It is not in our perfections that we find compassion, but in our imperfections. Through experiences of grief, suffering, and vulnerability we make way for love and healing within ourselves and in common connection with others.

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When the going gets rough, turn to wonder. If you feel judgmental or defensive, ask yourself, “I wonder what my reaction has to teach me about myself?” “I wonder what brought her to this belief?” “I wonder what he’s feeling right now?” Set aside judgment to listen to yourself--and to others--more deeply.

Embrace Curiosity. Trust in the power of questions. While answers and certitude can bring rigidity and closure, questions and curiosity can offer discovery and possibility. Perhaps the greatest spiritual practice of all is to hold a beautiful question.

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Welcome the Imagination. With a childlike freedom, the imagination has the possibility to enrich and enlighten our experience of life. It is a pathway to deeper knowing. Every human holds within the creative power of imagination.

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​Engage your body. Explore your senses. Although your thoughts and your feelings are important, your body can hold deeper truths and your senses can open you to a deeper awareness. Pay attention to what your body is revealing to you.

Believe in Your Innate Goodness. This is the understanding that your true identity is not your biography, your circumstances, your imperfections, or your woundedness. Your deepest being is good. Your true essence is an expression of Divine love (i.e., Imago Dei). As Meister Eckhart said, “There is a place in the soul that neither time nor space nor no created thing can touch.”*

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Trust in Your Own Inner Teacher. Known by many names— Divine Spark, Voice of the Genuine, True Self—the soul can be understood as the place where your spirit and the Divine Spirit are conjoined. There is an authentic place of wisdom held within. Learn to listen to the strength and character of your own soul.

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Embrace Nature as a Wise Teacher and Loving Companion. Imagine the natural world is an outpouring of Divine love in creative self-expression. Look to the earth and all her beings as a way to discover something of the sacred. Observe and study the many lessons offered to you by the natural world. Nature is much more than metaphor. She moves within us; we are part of her realm.

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Open to the Inner-Connectedness of ALL Living Things. The fields of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology support the understanding that we are part of a great web of belonging. Every living person and every living thing matters, and each manifestation of life is dependent upon the other.

Make Room for Mystery and Surprise. The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certitude. What is Ultimate cannot be defined or contained.

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Know It Is Possible ·to receive whatever it is that you need. Each day, each encounter, and each situation offers an invitation into something new. Life is continuously unfurling. The seeds planted here can keep growing in the days ahead.