A Spiritual Break

Posted on June 20, 2025 by Michael J. Cunningham · 1 Comment

I Am the Instrument

I Am the Instrument: A Reflection on Sacred Transparency

You know that moment when you pick up your camera and suddenly… click. You’ve taken a picture. But you can’t even remember deciding to do it.

This happened to me a while ago. Walking on the beach, some young children scare off the birds scurrying on the seashore. My footing faltered, yet somehow my phone was in my hand. The photo: the birds flying off, leaving the food buried in the sand below, in a flurry all around me. The Southern Californian sun was mixed with the sea spray. I stared at the image later, wondering. When did I take this? Why?

I am a camera, who cannot see, or even know why I took the picture.

We spend so much time trying to be good at things. Good photographers. Good musicians. Good writers. Good prayers, even. But what if… what if the trying is getting in the way?

Meister Eckhart knew something about this. He talked about the Grund—this deep place inside us where God lives. Not God as separate from us, but God as the very ground of who we are—the place we touch when we stop trying so hard.

My friend plays the flute. She used to practice for hours every day, frustrated that her music never quite captured what she heard in her heart. Then something shifted. She stopped practicing to get better and started just breathing into the instrument, letting whatever wanted to come, come.

I am a flute, who has the breadth, but not the sound, or from where it comes.

The music that flows through her now… it’s not hers, exactly. She has the breath. She learned the fingerings. But the melody? That comes from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper. And people stop on the street when they hear it. Not because it’s perfect. Because it’s true.

This is what Eckhart meant about detachment. Not coldness. Not not caring. But this letting go of our need to be the source of things. To be in control. To understand.

I write these morning reflections, and half the time I don’t know where the words come from. My fingers move across the keyboard and thoughts appear that I wasn’t thinking a moment before.

I write these words, as the ink bleeds from me, not knowing their form or meaning.

It’s unsettling at first. This not knowing. We want to be the author of our lives, our art, our prayers. But what if we’re meant to be something else? Something simpler and more mysterious?

What if we’re meant to be instruments?

Not tools that get used up. But… channels. Pipes with no blockages. Wires with no resistance. Waterfalls of God’s love, flowing through us into a world that’s thirsty for exactly what wants to come through.

The birds in my photo probably don’t know they were being photographed. The birds don’t know they’re beautiful. The light doesn’t know it’s falling perfectly. And yet… something is being revealed. Something is being shared.

I am a prayer, or sayer of thoughts, not of my making.

We can practice this. This not knowing. This letting go. We can learn to stop interrupting the flow with our need to understand it, to direct it, to take credit for it.

When you pick up your camera today, or your pen, or your instrument… try asking: What wants to be seen? What wants to be heard? What wants to be said?

Then step back. Breathe. Let your hands do what they know how to do. Let the light fall where it wants to fall. Let the words come from that deep place Eckhart called the ground of being.

You might be surprised by what flows through you when you stop trying to be the source.

You might discover you’ve always been the instrument you were meant to be.

I Am the Instrument

I am an instrument.

I am a camera, who cannot see,

Or even know why I took the picture.

I am an instrument.

I am a flute, who has the breadth,

But not the sound, or from where it comes.

I am an instrument.

I write these words, as the ink bleeds from me,

Not knowing their form or meaning.

I am an instrument.

I am a prayer, or sayer of thoughts,

Not of my making.

Posted on May 16, 2025 by Michael J. Cunningham · 4 Comments

The Sanctuary

The Sanctuary

We all have somewhere special that we like to hang out. It might be a coffee bar, a local pub, a place in the woods, or the beach. You get the picture. Recently, I was visiting a good friend in New Hampshire on a visit back east for the weekend. We had not seen each other for many years, and yet we picked up the conversation just like it was yesterday. Good friends are like that, they don’t seem to mind how long it takes to touch base again; but rather like the prodigal son, I end up being welcomed like no other person. We had a great visit.

The day was a perfect one in the mountains, just as spring was getting ready to pass the baton to summer, unlike the image above, which is the White Mountains in winter. The woods there don’t seem to mind what clothes they are wearing, or what time of the year it is, they always look interesting and inviting. Just like the friends I was visiting.

The property that my friend lives on is 62 acres on a mountainside in the White Mountains. To say this is beautiful would be an understatement, and after having a lovely lunch prepared by his good wife, we walked the property. My friend, Tom, was keen to show me the entirety of the property, which I had previously only visited during winter. We walked down the hillside and from a clearing with a large pond into the woods.

As we entered the woods, he stopped me and, breathing deeply, waited for a few moments. I knew he was going to say something important.

Even though we had spent hours and days together over the years, we never really discussed our spiritual disposition. He knew that I was doing “stuff” with the church, but that was about it. And yet, we always felt we were on a similar wavelength. Compassion, love, and care for others were always on Tom’s list, which showed in all he did. There was no forcing of faith paths.

After this short pause, Tom declared with the precision of a poet. “Mike, this is my sanctuary … This is my chapel”.

The woods and the brook below were singing the song he wanted to hear, and they were his place of refuge. A place that touched his interior from the outside. A place where he was really “one” with nature and could contemplate safely surrounded by Mother Earth. It was a very powerful sharing moment. One that I am so happy he shared with me. I also felt the power of nature and creation enveloping me with some coolness from the slight breeze arising from the stream below.

We all have these places in our lives. Somewhere where the encounter with the marvel of God’s creation snuggles us tightly. Where we are, once again, in the womb that gave us life.

I wrote this reflection to describe that afternoon in Tom’s sanctuary. I was glad to be able to visit and see what moved his spirit. Of course, we all have our own sanctuaries, sometimes many of them.

Perhaps you can visit yours again soon.

The Sanctuary

Downhill, once more for the trip towards the stream

Who chuckles to herself, at speed now,

As the winter thaw begins;

In these sacred mountains

My feet begin to gain a spring today,

Despite their well-worn history,

As they gather me towards the longing,

The one within that drives me on.

The ground below is soft and tactile …

The result of years of nature’s carpeting

Never needing fitting or cleaning,

Just perfected by the seasons and her admirers.

I see it now, as the opening in the woods appears,

Nature’s chapel, my chapel, without disguise … she beckons

A heart always longing for her.

Final steps bring me to her center.

The path speaking directions,

The stream singing below,

The scene revealing my place in her heart.

Now I sit in the lean-to to which is my prayer mat,

A place of contemplation where hours turn to minutes,

And nights to seasons,

Her work within begins.

Here is where healing thrives,

As she, Mother Earth pours herself into me,

Like a lover without shame or guilt,

Where all that was seen can be consumed by her forces.

Leaving me rebirthed to face more days.

Days where the sights of pain and violence are replaced

By calls of love and goodness,

As she replenishes me.

For goodness and peace will remain.

As she remains in me.

This Mother Earth.

This book of creation.

Where I am but a sentence;

Encouraged now, by the writer.

Posted on May 8, 2025May 8, 2025 by Michael J. Cunningham · 1 Comment

Resistance

For those of you who recall physics in school or college you may remember the meaning of electrical resistance. The “resistance” of a wire determines how much current and voltage flows through it based on its character, its essence. During some recent retreats it seems this relationship can also be applied to the way we enter into prayer and communion with God.

Perhaps this is nowhere truer than in contemplative prayer, particularly meditative prayer forms where we are encouraged to “tune out” the rest of the world and listen for that small, still voice mentioned in scripture so frequently. Eucharistic Adoration, Centering Prayer and even imaginative prayer all call the issue of our “resistance” to listen and stay quiet to hear what God wants us to receive.

One major factor limiting our growth in this area is an unwillingness to give in to God’s will, but rather make requests to suit our own benefits. While there is intrinsically nothing wrong with prayers of petition; we all do them all the time … it does not place us where we need to be when we take a contemplative prayer route. In contemplative prayer, we are putting ourselves in a disposition of “opening our heart to God, without an agenda or goal”, we are trying “to rest in Him” and let go of all of our own needs. (St. Augustine comes to mind. “My heart is restless till it rests in thee”.) The Our Father and many places in scripture describe this fully in the words “Thy Will Be Done”, which also means, God’s will be done, not my will.

Placing ourselves in this position requires us to drop all resistance, which keeps the electrical current that God wants to provide us with… grace… flowing at full tilt. When we surrender to His will, the agenda, our needs, and our requests are gone. We place ourselves near the Cross and rest in Him.

During my own journey, I can think of many times when I was grateful to God, but I still resisted the call to be close to Him. No because He was not present, but rather because I was unwilling to drop my internal resistance. I was unwilling to be vulnerable, to be humble, to be open to His complete love by dropping my guard entirely. I needed to rest in His arms as a small baby would do in the arms of their parents or grandparents.

Perhaps it is time to reexamine my own resistance to surrendering to God. Am I fully on board with “Thy Will Be Done” and leave my own will at the door? My answer is I still have some way to go.

So perhaps the old saw, “Let Go and Let God,” still has much relevance in my spiritual life today. I will work on it. Perhaps you are being called to look at resistance in this new light.

Just a thought.

Posted on March 21, 2025 by Michael J. Cunningham

Head and Heart

I’ve recently been reading a book called The Heart of Trauma by Bonnie Badenoch. Bonnie is a therapist who has been dealing with trauma patients for several decades. She is a well-known expert in this field. She has a great capacity to identify with the technical aspects of therapy and its spiritual intersection. Something that is often missing from modern therapy. Many enter therapy expecting results in a short period of time, in the same way as we have come to expect results from getting our car fixed or medication that will cure us of our illnesses. The results of this strategy are not good. A recent study shows that empathy amongst many in society has declined by a massive 75%, as society becomes more focused on self-fulfilling needs versus helping others less fortunate.

When it comes to the brain, and in this case the heart, life is not so simple, as we all know. Miss Badenoch explains that some of the single-minded thinking that seems to dominate our world today, comes from my reliance on using the left hemisphere of our brain more than the right. Now without getting into the details of her book the interesting observation that I made, was the relationship between the implicit results-oriented left brain, and the explicit meaning of what is happening in our lives that the right brain controls.

There has been some debate in these circles for many years, that the left brain and the right brain thinking tends to dominate our personalities. The simplistic view we have been given is that the scientific aspect of our brain is the left-hand side, and the artistic side is the right-hand side. It turns out, just in the same way as our lives, that both sides are dependent on each other. In the same way that our heart often determines our decision-making process, in conjunction with our head, therefore making decisions that have some meanings built into them rather than just opinions or results.

This interdependence between our head and our heart is the core of the healing that Miss Badenoch and her clients search for together in her therapy groups. In the same way, as we are searching for meaning in our own lives, we cannot deal with problems in isolation, we have to search for meaning and understanding in order to be able to reach some semblance of peace as a result.

I guess my point in this reflection is that science is starting to recognize that our heart, our spirit, and our soul are a much more important compass for us to manage our way through our lives. And of course, with God at the center of all of those, we can be assured that the movement that we make toward peace and reconciliation will be better as a result of being guided by Him.

Posted on February 18, 2025 by Michael J. Cunningham

No Matter What

No Matter What

Have you ever thought about what “no matter what” really means? We say it often – to our children, to our loved ones, sometimes even to ourselves. But do we truly grasp the depth of that promise? It’s easy to love when the sun is shining, when life flows smoothly like a gentle stream. But unconditional love asks for more.

This kind of love doesn’t pause to check the weather. It doesn’t measure the temperature of the room before entering. It simply is. Present. Constant. Unwavering. Like the sacred space within us that holds the divine, this love creates a sanctuary that remains intact through every storm.

Most times, we struggle with this concept because we’ve learned to put conditions on everything. If you do this, then I’ll do that. If you meet these expectations, then you’ll receive this reward. But real unconditional love throws away the rulebook. It doesn’t keep score or maintain an internal ledger of rights and wrongs.

Consider, for a moment, how God’s love operates. It doesn’t diminish as we stumble. It doesn’t withdraw when we question. It doesn’t fade when we forget to look up and acknowledge God’s presence. Like the air we breathe, it simply continues to sustain us, asking nothing in return except that we allow ourselves to receive it. And, it takes some effort to avoid breathing!

This is the kind of love that Francis of Assisi embodied when he embraced the leper, when he spoke to the wolf of Gubbio, when he called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. He understood that love transcends our human categories and conditions. It flows freely, like living water, nourishing everything it touches.

Perhaps the greatest challenge isn’t in giving this kind of love – though that’s certainly difficult enough – but in accepting it. In believing that we are worthy of being loved “no matter what.” In trusting that the love will remain even when we can’t see it through our tears or feel it through our pain.

Take a moment to reflect: When was the last time you allowed yourself to be loved unconditionally? Without trying to earn it, deserve it, or repay it? This is the gift we’re all offered, waiting to be unwrapped every single day.