The Colors of Sacred Noticing

A Spiritual Break Reflection by Michael Cunningham, OFS

There’s something about creating a logo that forces you to stare at yourself in ways you hadn’t expected. When the designer sent me the final version—those flowing colors forming a subtle cross, my name spelled out beneath “Noticing the Sacred”—I found myself doing exactly what I’ve been teaching others to do for years: I began to notice.

The blues caught my attention first. They flow from deep navy at the top into lighter azure, like dawn breaking over the hills in the East Bay. I’ve always been drawn to that liminal time when night surrenders to day, when the world holds its breath before wake-up time. Perhaps it’s my Celtic roots, or maybe it’s simply that I’ve learned to trust the wisdom that comes in quiet moments. But there’s something about that particular blue that speaks of mystery, of depths ready to be fathomed.

The greens emerge next in the design—forest greens that remind me of the ancient oaks on our retreat grounds, the ones that have been practicing sacred noticing far longer than I have. These trees know something about staying rooted while pointing skyward, about finding the sacred in the rhythm of our seasons. They seem ready to be present to whatever each day brings.

Then come the earth tones—those warm browns and golds that speak of my journey from the green hills of Wales to my new home, the sun-soaked California landscape. I think about all the places where sacred noticing has found me, or perhaps where I’ve finally slowed down enough to find it. The muddy banks of the River Avon where I spent countless hours as a boy fishing, learning patience before I knew that’s what the word meant. The stone floors of ancient churches, where centuries of prayers had worn smooth pathways for seeking souls. The redwood forests where silence teaches you that some things are just too wonderful for explanation.

And scattered throughout this small logo, are these small elements that seem to be in motion—flowing, dispersing, awakening. I stare at them and see all the moments when sacred noticing has surprised me. This is what I mean by “life awakened”—not some dramatic spiritual transformation, but this gradual recognition that we’ve been swimming in sacred waters all along. We just needed to notice.

I recall the moment when this phrase first came to mind. I was sitting in my office here at San Damiano, struggling to find the words for what happens when people really begin to practice sacred noticing. It’s not that their lives become perfect or that suffering disappears. It’s more subtle than that, but no less profound. For myself, it was as if I had been living in a house for years without realizing there were windows, and suddenly someone showed me how to open the curtains.

Life awakened. Not life improved, or life fixed, or life perfected. Life awakened. Life seen with eyes that have learned to notice what was always there.

The cross formation in the logo wasn’t intentional, the designer inferred it from the brief of our work here, but there it is—subtle, organic, formed by the natural flow of the colors themselves. I found this very moving. Much of my spiritual journey has been about discovering that the sacred doesn’t impose itself on our lives like an external force demanding attention. Instead, it emerges from within the very fabric of our ordinary existence, waiting to be noticed.

This is what I’ve learned through years of retreats and writing reflections: the spiritual path isn’t somewhere we go; it’s where we are every day. The sacred isn’t something we add to our lives; it’s what our lives are made of.

I think about my journey from those early days in Wales and England, through decades in business when I thought spirituality was something you did on Sundays, to my doctoral studies where I tried to understand God with my mind, to today when I have given up trying to understand and just be. Noticing the sacred is the way I am now grounded.

The Celtic tradition of my childhood taught me that creation itself is God’s first book, written in a language older than words. The Franciscan path I’ve adopted as an adult has shown me that this divine manuscript is especially clear when we approach it with the humility of St. Francis, who saw Christ in lepers and heard sermons in the song of birds.

But it’s been the daily practice of sacred noticing—this conscious choice to pay attention to the present moment as sacred ground—that has slowly awakened me to what was always true: we are already living in the presence of the holy. We always have been. We just needed to learn how to see.

When I look at this logo now, I see my own journey reflected in those flowing colors. The deep blues of mystery and contemplation, the greens of growth and rootedness, the earth tones of human experience in all its messiness and beauty, and those scattered points of light that represent every moment when the ordinary has revealed itself as extraordinary. This is what noticing the sacred offers: not escape from our daily lives, but awakening within them. Not a spiritual practice we add to our schedules, but a way of seeing that transforms everything we already do. Not life improved, but life awakened.

I’ve come to believe that this potential for awakening is less about achieving some elevated spiritual state and more about returning to the wonder we knew as children, when everything was worthy of attention and nothing was taken for granted. Sacred noticing is the practice of growing up without growing numb, of becoming wise without losing our capacity for surprise. Without learning all the things we are not supposed to know about and instead being excited and discovering that the ordinary is not at all ordinary.

This is life awakened. This simple little logo on the screen represents a great deal to me. The logo sits on my computer screen, and I smile. It captures something true about the journey we’re all on—a gradual awakening to the sacred presence that flows through everything, connecting all things and making every moment an opportunity for an encounter with the divine.

May you find your own colors in this flowing spectrum of sacred noticing. May your ordinary days become doorways to wonder. May your life, however it looks right now, awaken to its own deep holiness.

Blessings on the path, Michael