October 2026
Oct 2026 Issue No. 20
HONEST LIFE | SLOW GROWTH | DEEPLY ROOTED
WELCOME
Welcome to Invitations. My deep hope is that this monthly newsletter will serve as an invitation to consider ideas, practices, and images that will enrich your life. I hope you’ll find fresh perspectives on living a honest, spiritual life, deepening connections between God and others, and permission to grow slowly.
How we spend our days is of course how we spend our life.
-Annie Dillard
To practice.
The Examen is an ancient prayer practice passed down in the church that helps us reflect on the events of the day in order to discern God's presence and direction. It can help us see God's hand at work in our lives.
Consider these 5 parts from Ignatian Spirituality:
1. Ask God for light. Ask to see the day through God's eyes.
2. Give thanks, practice gratitude for the day.
3. Review the day: Where was life bubbling, and how can I make space for it to flow?
Where was the tension or resistance, and can I humbly learn and let it go?
4. Face short-comings, both in myself and around me.
5. Look forward to the day to come, asking, where do I need God?
But more than a practice of memory, it is a practice of release and rest. Emily P. Freeman says this: It’s just you being you in the presence of God, looking back on the day with intention and understanding that our daily life is not separate from our spirituality. This [is a] practice of looking back to notice where the light showed up, of releasing concerns, embarrassments, frustrations, anxiety into God’s care for the night. Perhaps this can be one way of praying that can remind you that you are loved and you are seen as you live the days that end up making a life.
Words to consider.
"There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading — that is a good life. A day that closely resembles every other day of the past ten or twenty years does not suggest itself as a good one. But who would not call Pasteur’s life a good one, or Thomas Mann’s?"
-Annie Dillard
To ponder.
Take a few moments to reflect on this image.
Where do you find yourself in this image?
What season are you in?
How are you being found by God?
What does God have to say to you in this season?
Prophets of a Future Not Our Own
Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit
Prayer from a 1979 Homily
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
Of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
That the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
But it is a beginning, a step along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
Between the master builder and the worker.
We are works, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.
A few things to take in. Mostly from Substack.
Chicakdees 101, for in creation we see the Creator. And quite frankly there's more to those little birds we may be so familiar with.
Kendall Vanderslice, on when we get it wrong, but also right. She gives us a short parable, one could say, on following Jesus.
You are No Longer Invited to Dinner. Derek Thompson, a writer for the Atlantic, dives deep into the hosting habits of Americans. Spoiler: The percentage of adults who have had friends over for dinner regularly has declined 70% since 1970. It makes me wonder, can we build something that acknowledges our need to be with each other?
The Subtext. On this podcast, Savnnah Locke and Lee C. Camp delve into Who Gets to Judge You? Suddenly Amish and The Myth of the Unjudged Self. "Six 'English' strangers try to go Amish for a month, surfacing big questions about autonomy, conformity, vanity, and discernment. This week we're talking about TLC's Suddenly Amish, a (very scripted) reality show where six outsiders spend a month living in an Amish community to see if they could actually join the church. Lee and Savannah use Suddenly Amish as a foundation for conversations around appearance and vanity, the "if it doesn't affect you, why does it matter" ethic of modern individualism, what Christian teaching has to say about all this, and whether any real community can exist without asking you to give up a little bit of yourself."
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