silence

December 29, 2024

Intention at the year’s turning

Decades ago I stopped making new year’s resolutions. Now, rather than make resolutions, every year I renew just one intention, and I start with Jesus’ words to Martha. You remember Martha, the one who was worried and distracted by so many things. Jesus cut through all her worries and distractions and said to her – Continue reading

Ruminations

abundant life, Be still and know, distracted, Eugene Peterson, Jesus, learning, life, life that really is life, Listening, Martha, more and better life, New Year, new year’s intentions, New Year’s resolutions, one thing necessary, Parker Palmer, Psalm 46, silence, Thomas Merton, vocational advice
December 11, 2024

As Christmas nears

“Joy to the world!” we’re preparing to sing in little more than two weeks, “and heav’n and nature sing” with us, or we with them. We echo joy in heeding the invitation, “Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing, all ye citizens of Bethlehem” – and of Buffalo and its environs, too. I already Continue reading

Ruminations

Advent, awe, Christmas, mystery, silence
October 9, 2024

The top eight ways to hear God

I’ve often wanted to have a conversation with my twenty-something-year-old self, to share some wisdom from this end of my lifespan and to offer guidance to make his life not necessarily easier but more fulfilling. Some things I’d share, my younger self could never imagine. So I wonder about the wisdom I cannot imagine today Continue reading

Ruminations

ask and it will be given you, Be still, bible, conscience, David Letterman, Elijah, faith, God, God’s voice, guidance, guides, hearing, hearing God, Isaac the Syrian, Jeremiah, Jesus, ladder to the Kingdom, listen, Listening, living with full attention, new covenant, prayer, silence, sound of sheer silence, spiritual disciplines, St. Benedict, teachers, test what you hear, the ear of your heart, the persistent widow, the set of the sails, Top Ten List, Wesley’s quadrilateral, Will Rogers, wisdom
December 24, 2023

Out of silence, yes!

How do you make music? Some would say you do it by combining vocal or instrumental sounds, or both, to produce a pleasing form, harmony, and expression of emotion. Each Sunday at Holy Trinity we worship immersed in music that speaks to and for our hearts more deeply than mere words can do. But what Continue reading

Ruminations

4’33”, Advent, Annunciation, Be still and know, Debussy, deeper meaning, expectant hush, Gabriel, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Here am I, John Cage, making music, Mary, Metton, Miles Davis, music, music theory, pregnant pause, silence, stunned silence, the wind in the pine trees
June 12, 2022

Listening to the Spirit

The best place to start if you’re serious about living a Christian life is in a relationship with a spiritual guide or companion, someone who can listen deeply to you and help you explore your relationship with God. And the first and best spiritual guide we have is the Holy Spirit. Briefly, there are two Continue reading

Ruminations

action as spiritual practice, Christian life, discipleship, divisions, drawing water, Holy Spirit, hostility, Listening, living the gospel, reconciliation, Retreat, scripture, silence, spiritual companion, spiritual guide
May 22, 2022

First the silence

“For everything there is a season,” the Teacher wrote, “and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Eccles. 3:1, 7b). Following the murders at Tops Market last Saturday, it still feels to me like a time to keep silence – a time to “‘be still, Continue reading

Ruminations

a time to keep silence, advice for children, after religion, Antaeus, carpe diem, Elijah, Fred Rogers, God in community, God works for good, God's purpose, God’s temple, God’s will, Hercules, How Firm a Foundation, listening to God, look for the helpers, memento mori, mystery, New Jerusalem, number our days, perspective on life, seize the day, shooting at Tops Market, silence, tempus fugit, the shortness of life, why bad things happen, William Alexander Percy
February 12, 2022

Shutting the door

“Anyone can retire into a quiet place, wrote Evelyn Underhill, but it’s the shutting of the door that makes the difference. Solitude is a time for stripping away everything in order to focus on God. (Matt 6:6)” (Sue Monk Kidd). Lent is not far away, beginning in just under three weeks with Ash Wednesday on Continue reading

Ruminations

a quiet place, focus, Lent, music of the spheres, silence, Solitude, sound of sheer silence, still small voice, watching the news

About Me

Rich Neal is, in no particular order, a wordsmith and graphic designer; lover of typography, books, and publishing; photographer; contemplative; saunterer; and a retired and still-active pastor. He claims neither special wisdom nor particularly deep insight into life, only occasional glimpses of what lies behind the veil along the way. He shares them here in the hope of connecting the pieces of life’s puzzle that come to him in the journey and would consider it a gift if sharing them also connected him with others who travel an unmarked path toward the same unknown end.