Pray: Prayer, contemplative prayer, is any practice offered with a full and open heart; singing, dancing, writing, working, yoga, caring for loved ones, meditation, poetry . . .  offering us a path beyond our self-centered ways. Such prayer invites us to be overtaken by grace. To come home to who we are rather than strive or fail to be someone else.  We don’t practice to prove something . . . it’s a prayer . . . the best we can bear.

Work: Offering oneself to an open-handed, open-hearted, open-minded way of meeting what calls us to the work we are given.  An expression of our deepest longing to create and share.  A sacred offering opening us to the deepest satisfaction.

Love: As a verb. An expression of the profound gift of boundless affection for a person, a community, a project, sharing, family . . .  It is revealed in our venerability to the bliss and heartbreak of what we deeply love.

Witness Beauty: We long for the presence of beauty.  As prayer, work, and love invite us forward, beauty is more available; a loved one’s voice, a flower, strolling a trail, a poem, an act of forgiveness, the courage of one in the face of calamity . . .  Not the single fleeting note of glamour but the symphony of true beauty’s breathtaking presence.