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Recent Posts
- Psaltery & Lyre’s New Site
- 123 Psaltery & Lyre: “Agricola Dreams of Flying” by J. Rose Lara
- 122 Psaltery & Lyre: “Communion: a love poem (a villanelle)” by Rachel Bollinger
- Book Review: Philip Metres’s Sand Opera
- 121 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Horsehead Nebula”
- Book Review: Monica Ong’s Silent Anatomies
- 120 Psaltery & Lyre: Rachael Matthews, “Return, pt. III” and “Gaia”
- Book Review: Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
- Book Review: Matthea Harvey, If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
- Book Review: LoterÃa Cards and Fortune Poems: A Book of Lives
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Unexpected Spiritual Experiences Archive
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Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Lost and Found
Posted on August 31, 2012 | 2 CommentsWhen I showed up the next week (closer to 10:10 a.m. this time), the little old lady said, "You came back." I had found my spiritual home. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Light and Shadow
Posted on August 30, 2012 | 8 Comments"I don't know much," I think to myself, "but I know there is truth in their steady breathing, and in their dirty laundry scattered on the floor." -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: The Feminine Divine
Posted on August 27, 2012 | 3 CommentsShe pointed to two girls and told them, then she pointed to me. "You, with the blonde, your Goddess is as clear as the blue sea on our coasts. Your Goddess is Iemanja." -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Coming Out
Posted on August 26, 2012 | 7 CommentsThe premonition was followed by two additional thoughts. I needed to come out of the closet. I needed to resign formally from the church. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: I Don’t Know How It Ends
Posted on August 19, 2012 | 6 CommentsDoesn't matter what you call it. What matters is that it calls you. It's been calling poets and preachers, artists and alcoholics all along. People who see things that aren't supposed to be there. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Sacred Artifacts and Rituals
Posted on August 17, 2012 | 4 CommentsI'm a faithful skeptic, a doubting believer; this is why these spiritual experiences were so unexpected. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: An Object Lesson
Posted on August 14, 2012 | 11 CommentsI have felt those same feelings in and around mosques, synagogues, and churches of many different Christian denominations. Let's add mountaintops and porch swings, too. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Mormon Soccer
Posted on August 13, 2012 | 2 CommentsIt all feels organic and authentic in a way Church no longer does. Yet something about the early morning routine, the weekly exercise and exhaustion, the socializing with people I otherwise wouldn't-it somehow feels like Mormon soccer to me. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Spirit or Ghost?
Posted on August 12, 2012 | 4 CommentsWas it all in my head? Maybe. Was it a product of my environment? Maybe. Was it the result of a physiological condition? Maybe. But regardless of the cause, the results are the same. I am, without a doubt, a believer in spiritual experiences. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Letting the Sea In
Posted on August 10, 2012 | 9 CommentsThis wasn't how it was supposed to be. That thought thrummed constantly below the surface, a drumbeat following me everywhere. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: The New and Everlasting Covenant
Posted on August 7, 2012 | 14 CommentsThe three of us met in a park one night and I basically gave them permission to date. It was weird, but at the same time, I felt like God was somehow preparing us to be the pioneers of polygamy IN the church at this period of time. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Redemption from Pride
Posted on August 6, 2012 | 15 CommentsI kept toward the back, filled with the peace that comes from doing the right thing. I carried a sign that read, "Sorry We're Late" and took in the positive response from the spectators. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: More Than Meditation
Posted on August 3, 2012 | 3 CommentsGod knows that I have some deep and abiding struggles--religious conundrums with which I have grappled for years. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: What If?
Posted on July 31, 2012 | 12 CommentsNow I was laughing, giddy with freedom. "I don't know if You're there! I don't know what any of this means!" The more I said it, the more it filled me, that burning in the bosom, that unbridled peace. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: You Don’t Have To
Posted on July 29, 2012 | 3 CommentsMore valuable than being obedient was the reminder that I have a personal connection to the Divine, and while a third party's interpretation may be useful, it is not necessary. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: And Have Joy Therein
Posted on July 27, 2012 | 22 CommentsEven then I knew my dream of open, inclusive temple worship was idealistic, unlikely to be realized. For now, however, everything was right. Somehow the experience had turned out perfectly. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: The Mystery of Spiritual Experience
Posted on July 24, 2012 | 11 CommentsAnd it all comes down to one thing: experiencing a sense of Connection. Connection with God. Connection with other people. Connection with the natural world. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: That Amazing Grace
Posted on July 23, 2012 | 9 CommentsIt goes on and on, this tapestry we weave with the Divine that moves in and out, going from the seen to the unseen, letting us know that behind it all are threads that connect everything. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Letting Go
Posted on July 22, 2012 | 6 CommentsI realized that I'd always had it backwards. Spirituality didn't come from holding the power of God inside your body like a form of light. It didn't come from knowing all the answers, from soothing other people's pain or from living a perfect life. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Afraid to Pray?
Posted on July 13, 2012 | 6 CommentsI only know that I wasn't strong enough to let the lamplight keep glowing, tiny as it was. I snuffed it out. -
Unexpected Spiritual Experiences: Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Posted on July 10, 2012 | 8 CommentsI got into gear. This was the main event. We took out our scriptures and flipchart. We only had about 25 minutes left, so we skipped right to the apostasy, the first vision, and the Book of Mormon.