A friend of mine is a consultant helping businesses develop their annual strategic plans. She uses the same process of 10 reflective questions to help individuals create their own personal strategic plan asking what must I do to make this my Best Year Yet? Last year she helped me create my own plan—but of course, being me, well let’s just say it wasn’t exactly my best year yet. I didn’t keep up with the monthly online goal tracker, my 10 goals were far from being met, and …

“What do you want?” This is one of the most basic questions in Ignatian spirituality, but also, at times, one of the most difficult to answer. In my pre-Ignatian days, I used to think that, when faced with choices about a possible course of action, God would probably want me to pick the harder one, or the one that seemed less appealing, or the one the seemed “more spiritual” in whatever way I happened to be thinking “more spiritual” meant. It was something of a liberation to learn from my …

“Lovers keep on the road you’re on…” Coldplay’s latest album keeps getting stuck in my head; especially this line from Lovers in Japan. It’s beautiful. Maybe my spiritual director was listening to this song the day she told me that finding out God’s will is like looking at the way you’re already traveling and just continuing down that road.The other day a friend prayed “Lord, help us to do your will.” I asked him “What did you mean by that? Do you really think we can know God’s will, and if so – …

“There is nothing to eat,
seek it where you will,
but the body of the Lord.
The blessed plants
and the sea, yield it
to the imagination
intact.
 
—William Carlos Williams
I’m not sure about you, but I think about food a lot. Whether we realize it or not, food tends to organize our whole day, and in many cases, entire weeks or even months. How many of us plan our …