Contemplative Outreach, Northeast Iowa Chapter

09/02/2026

Out of respect for Wendel Berry who died earlier this week (August 5, 1934-August 31, 2026), we share this poem by him called "The Peace of Wild Things." Blessings to each of you🙏

The Peace of the Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry RIP
~ My Photo: Lake Kanuga

08/23/2026

Greetings. We offer this today in support of your daily practice in the Presence. Blessings to each of you 🙏

-Sunday Prayer-

In contemplative prayer we seek to become the person we are called to be, not by thinking of God, but by being with God. Simply to be with God is to be drawn into being the person God calls us to be.�
— John Main

08/21/2026

Here's a simple invitation for today. Blessings to each of you🙏

08/17/2026

For your prayerful reflection today. Blessings to each of you🙏

07/01/2026

We offer today for your prayerful reflection this adaptation of the Lord's Prayer. Some of you may be familiar with John Philip Newell, a scholar of Celtic Christianity and writer. This "version" might be called a paraphrase of, or meditation on, Jesus' words from scripture, in the spirit of Celtic Christianity.
Blessings to each of you🙏

06/06/2026

We offer this today in support of your daily practice. May this become an invitation into stillness and there enter a time with the "prayer of consent" to the work of the Divine Spirit within. Blessings to each of you 🙏

06/03/2026

For you today. Blessings 🙏

05/27/2026

We offer this for your reflection today. Perhaps this may encourage you to enter times of inner stillness. Blessings to each of you 🙏

05/22/2026

Greetings in Christ. We offer this today for your prayerful reflection. Blessings 🙏

04/30/2026

Good morning 🌄 We offer this today for your prayerful reflection... visually and poetically. Blessings to each of you 🙏

Into The Mystic

Some places draw us out into this vast,
mystical expanse of earth and sky.

Enter and remove your shoes
for you are on holy ground.
O Come with your whole heart and being,
O Come into the Quiet.

This is a mystery far beyond us in every way
Walking into the shimmering unknowing
Breathing in awe and wonder,
Immersed in presence,
Soaking in grace
O this bottomless amazing grace.

We cannot but bow to kiss the earth
Being transformed,
Becoming from the inside out,
In that luminous glorious light of love

To embody such glory in our mortal bodies
Is to reveal the mystery of this Christ soaked universe.

The mystery is love
For those who would dwell in love
Dwell in God, and God in them
For God is love.

Such is the character,
And the fragrance
And the atmosphere
Of all who would walk in awe and wonder
Into this mystery with God as with an old friend,
In the cool of the day.

~ Bob Holmes