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Have I Labeled Myself Into a Corner?

Have I Labeled Myself Into a Corner?

For many years, I introduced myself, quietly and without much thought, as the practical one. The businessman who happened to go on retreats. Not really a writer. Not a contemplative. Just someone who liked a good agenda and a well-run meeting, and who prayed on the side, the way you might keep a hobby in the garage.

I did not choose that label out of malice. It fit, or seemed to, for a long time. It explained why I was good in a boardroom and quiet in a chapel. It gave people a tidy place to put me, and it gave me a tidy place to put myself. The trouble is that a label, once it fits, starts doing something a description was never meant to do. It stops describing you and starts deciding what is allowed to happen to you next.

The Comfort of a Good Corner

There is real comfort in a label, and I do not want to pretend otherwise. Naming our patterns is not a small thing. Knowing that we are the anxious one, the peacemaker, the fixer, the introvert, the practical one, gives us a vocabulary for our own weather. It can be the beginning of real self-knowledge, and I have watched it help people enormously, myself included.

But a corner is still a corner, even when we built it ourselves and even when it is comfortable. The danger is not in noticing the pattern. The danger is in mistaking the pattern for the whole room. “I am the practical one” quietly becomes “I am not the kind of person who writes.” “I am not a natural leader” becomes “I do not get to try.” We reach for the label to explain ourselves, and somewhere along the way the label stops explaining and starts deciding.

The Ones We Hand Ourselves

We are quick to notice when someone else tries to label us, and quicker still to push back. Don’t put me in a box. You don’t know me well enough to say that. We defend the border of ourselves fiercely against other people’s descriptions.

We are far less vigilant about the labels we hand ourselves. I am too old for that now. I have never been the creative type. That is simply not who I am. These arrive so quietly, and so early, that by the time they are limiting us they no longer feel like a decision at all. They feel like a fact. Nobody argues with a fact.

I spent years believing, as a fact rather than a habit, that I was not the kind of person who put words on a page for others to read. It took a very patient nudge — first toward a journal nobody else would see, then toward a reflection I was too embarrassed to send, then toward this very practice you are reading right now — before I noticed the label might have simply been wrong. Not wrong the way an error is wrong. Wrong the way a coat two sizes too small is wrong. It had fit once. It no longer did. I had just kept wearing it.

Opening the Door Without a Label On It

Sacred Noticing asks something different here, and it is not what most self-improvement asks. It does not ask you to find a better label. It asks you to notice the moment you reach for one, and pause before you let it close a door.

Somewhere in the hallway of your life there is a door with no label on it. Not the door marked leader, or the one marked creative, or the one marked too late for that now. Just a plain door, unlabeled, that you have walked past a hundred times because every other door had a sign you already believed. What would it cost you to open it, just to see what is on the other side, before deciding it isn’t for you?

This is not an argument against self-knowledge. It is an argument against finality. You can know your patterns and still remain, underneath them, unfinished — which is a much better word than broken, and a far more honest one than complete.

A Different Set of Clothes

Franciscan spirituality has never had much patience for fixed identities. Francis himself traded the label of merchant’s son for nothing very impressive at all — beggar, fool, brother to lepers and wolves — and every one of those was a door without a sign on it when he first walked through. He did not know what he was becoming. He simply stopped defending the label he already had.

Maybe that is the real practice hiding inside this question. Not ever labeling ourselves, which is impossible and not even desirable. But holding the labels loosely enough that we can still be surprised by our own growth. Loosely enough to try on a different set of clothes, a different room, a different corner of the parish or the office or the family, without first checking whether it matches who we have always said we are.

The corner may be comfortable, but grace rarely knocks on doors we’ve already labeled closed.

 

 

Reflection derived from The Practice of Sacred Noticing: Transforming Your Spiritual Footprint

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The Yellow Light

The Yellow Light

A Spiritual Break Reflection

This morning, washing hands at the sink, soap bubbles catch the light and turn into tiny rainbows. For just a moment, my hands slowed in the warm water. Not because I needed to stop and have a “home-made” spiritual experience, but because something lovely was happening right there in my kitchen sink.

It reminded me of traffic lights—specifically that yellow light that begs us from motion into stillness. Not the jarring red that demands we stop, but that gentle amber invitation: something’s shifting here.

I sometimes notice these yellow light moments scattered throughout my days like breadcrumbs. They’re not asking for dramatic responses or profound revelations. They’re simply there, quiet invitations to notice what’s already present.

Sometimes it’s the particular way morning light falls across the lobby at the retreat house, turning ordinary wood golden. My mind pauses mid-sentence, not because I must stop and appreciate beauty, but because beauty has already stopped me. The moment passes, I return to whatever I was supposed to be doing, but something has shifted—a small opening where grace slipped in.

Or it’s the sound of rain beginning while writing an email. That first gentle pattering doesn’t demand I abandon my work for contemplation. It simply offers itself, and if I happen to notice, the soundtrack of an afternoon changes from mental chatter to nature’s rhythm.

These moments seem to arrive most naturally at transitions. Walking from the house to the car, I may notice how the air feels different today. Shifting from one task to another, there’s often a brief pause where I remember I’m not just a person checking boxes but someone alive in this moment. Even breathing has these built-in yellow lights—that slight pause between inhale and exhale, where everything briefly suspends.

Last week, talking with my daughter, she said something that made her voice catch slightly. Such a small thing—anyone might miss it. But there it was, a yellow light moment. I found myself listening differently, not interrogating or fixing, just receiving what she was really saying beneath the words. The conversation meandered into places it wouldn’t have gone if I’d stayed in my usual efficient parent mode. She was happy to be talking with me, the words might be somewhat irrelevant.

I don’t think life is constantly signaling us to pay attention—that would be exhausting. But there do seem to be these natural pause points woven through our days, gentle as that amber light that says transition is happening, no rush.

The poet Rumi wrote about selling cleverness and buying bewilderment. Maybe these yellow lights are life’s way of offering that trade. For just a moment, we can let go of knowing exactly where we’re going and simply be present to where we are.

This isn’t about trying to notice everything or turn daily life into a spiritual practice. It’s more like discovering that ordinary moments have their own quiet wisdom if we happen to be available when they offer it. The way tea changes color as it steeps. How shadows move across the wall as the afternoon progresses. The peculiar and beautiful silence that overcomes when snowfall begins.

Some days, I’m moving too fast to notice any yellow lights at all. Other days, one small moment of recognition—a dog stretching in a patch of sun, the smell of coffee brewing, the feeling of soft socks on tired feet—creates a tiny opening. Not a door demanding I walk through, just a window showing me what’s here.

Awakening isn’t something we achieve through effort. It could be more like slowly recognizing what’s been glowing softly all along. The sacred is scattered throughout our hours, not as a test or a challenge, but as a quiet gift for anyone who happens to be looking when life gently signals: here’s something worth noticing, if you’d like.

Tomorrow morning, you might catch one of these moments. Or you might not. Either way, they’ll keep coming, gentle as light itself, marking the transitions between rushing and resting, doing and being, sleeping and waking up to what’s been here all along.

The yellow lights aren’t trying to stop us or make us more spiritual. They’re simply part of the landscape, faithful as breathing, available as morning. And sometimes, when we’re moving at just the right speed, we notice them. And something in us says oh, yes and slows down just enough to receive what’s being offered.

That’s all. That’s enough. That’s everything.

 

 

Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS

Posted on by Michael J. Cunningham

What Do I Leave Behind?

If I were trying to explain my idea of the Spiritual Footprint to a friend, I would not begin with a theory. I would begin with a question: What do I leave behind? Not what do I intend, not what do I believe about myself and not what image do I hope others have of me—but what remains in people after they have spent time with me?

That question is at the heart of the Spiritual Footprint. I use the image of a footprint because it is simple, concrete, and honest. A footprint shows that someone has passed through a place. It reveals presence, movement, and direction. In the same way, each of us leaves a mark on the lives we touch. Our words, tone, choices, attitudes, patience, impatience, kindness, silence, courage, and care all leave something behind. Some marks are small and temporary. Others are carried for years.

We may understand this most clearly when we begin by admitting that others have left a Spiritual Footprint in us. We carry the memory of people who encouraged us, wounded us, steadied us, dismissed us, welcomed us, or made us feel small. Their presence did not disappear when the encounter ended. It stayed with us. If that is true—if others leave something behind in us and with us—then why would we imagine that we do not do the same?

This is where our personal empathy becomes more than a virtue; it becomes a form of spiritual sight. The more empathetic we become toward what others carry, the more able we are to recognize what they may be carrying from us. We begin to see that people are not only reacting to our intentions; they are responding to our tone, our timing, our attentiveness, our impatience, our gentleness, and our willingness to make room for them. Once we see that, we cannot easily unsee it.

This is what makes the Spiritual Footprint so important. It moves spirituality from the realm of private feeling and into the realm of lived impact. Many people today think about spiritual wellness in terms of inner peace, balance, mindfulness, healing, or emotional health. Those things matter deeply. But there is more needed to press the question further. We ask ourselves to consider not only whether we feel centered, but whether our presence helps others feel seen, respected, encouraged, safe, and less alone.

There can be a painful gap between the person I believe I am and the person others actually experience. I may think of myself as kind, but do people experience kindness from me? I may think of myself as caring, but do I take time to listen? I may value honesty, but is my honesty also gentle? I may believe I bring strength, but does my strength protect others or overpower them? The Spiritual Footprint helps bring those questions into the light without turning them into shame. It is not about perfection. It is about awareness.

I think this is why this work becomes especially relevant for our time. We live in a culture that measures almost everything: productivity, influence, performance, health, popularity, and success. Even spirituality can become something we try to manage, improve, or display. The Spiritual Footprint offers a different measure. It asks whether my life leaves behind peace or tension, hope or discouragement, warmth or coldness, healing or harm. It asks whether the people around me are more burdened or more blessed because of my presence.

This does not mean living for the approval of others. The idea is not about trying to control everyone’s opinion or becoming anxious about every interaction. It is about taking responsibility for the atmosphere we help create. We cannot control how others interpret us, but we can pay attention to how we speak, how we listen, how we repair what we damage, and how we treat people when there is nothing to gain. In that sense, the Spiritual Footprint can be a daily examination of love in action.

What I appreciate most is that the Spiritual Footprint is formed in ordinary places. It is shaped in family conversations, workplace pressures, friendships, difficult decisions, apologies, interruptions, disappointments, and passing encounters with strangers. It has helped me. Legacy is often spoken of as something that belongs to the end of life, but I believe this visibility makes legacy immediate. My Spiritual Footprint is not only what people may say about me someday; it is what people experience from me today.

That changes the way I understand spiritual wellness. Wellness is not only the state of my inner life; it is also the quality of my presence. A spiritually well person is not simply calm, reflective, or personally grounded. A spiritually well person becomes, over time, someone through whom others encounter mercy, steadiness, honesty, humility, courage, and peace. The point is not to appear holy. The point is to become less harmful and more healing.

This is why the Spiritual Footprint is both encouraging and demanding. It is encouraging because every day gives us another opportunity to leave something good behind: a kind word, a patient silence, a sincere apology, a moment of courage, a willingness to listen, a choice to be gentle when we could have been harsh. It is demanding because it reminds us that our lives are never neutral. We are always contributing something to the emotional and spiritual climate around us.

In this sense, it gives us a practical way to think about holiness without making it abstract. Holiness is not only what happens in prayer or worship, though those are essential. Holiness is also what remains after we leave the room. Did someone feel more seen? Did a wound begin to heal? Did fear soften? Did peace become more possible? Did my presence make it easier for someone else to believe that goodness is real?

If Sacred Noticing is the practice that can help transform the Spiritual Footprint, then the Spiritual Footprint itself is the larger invitation. It asks us to live with a deeper awareness of consequence. Every conversation, every decision, every act of kindness, every harsh word, every apology, every moment of patience or impatience leaves a mark. The question is whether we are willing to notice the mark we are making and choose, with humility, to leave behind more peace than unrest, more courage than fear, and more love than indifference.

One way to make this real is to imagine taking a camera with you for a day—not to photograph yourself, but to notice what others might be seeing or glimpsing as you move through the world. What does your face communicate when you are rushed? What does your tone leave behind when you are tired? What does your silence say in a difficult moment? What does your kindness make visible? If you could see the day from the other side of your presence, what would become clear? Once we begin to see our lives from that angle, we cannot simply return to not knowing. Awareness changes responsibility.

That is why I would tell a friend that the Spiritual Footprint matters now. In a world crowded with noise, speed, self-promotion, and anxiety, it restores one of the simplest and most searching spiritual questions: What do I leave behind? The answer is not written only in our intentions. It is written in the experience of the people we meet, the relationships we shape, the wounds we repair, and the love we make visible through the ordinary pattern of our lives.

 

Reflection derived from The Practice of Sacred Noticing: How to Transform Your Spiritual Footprint

Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS

 

Posted on by Michael J. Cunningham

A Walk on the Beach


A Walk On The Beach

 

Gone was the smell of rubber, normally ingrained in my father. My mother’s singing voice amplified and persisted more than usual. Strange phenomenon that I only really noticed during family holidays. Let me explain.

My parents were from the West Coast of Ireland; my mom was a “city girl” from Limerick, and my dad a country boy. Even though Limerick is technically on the coast, it cannot really be called a beach town, as the main waterway that dominates the city is the mighty River Shannon.
When the family moved to England in the early 1950s for work and children started to arrive, my parents’ “go to” place every year was the beach. Specifically, the wonderful and sometimes wild coast of Cornwall, home of the novel Poldark, Cornish pasties, and the best clotted cream in the world. (In my opinion).

Family time there always included time on the beach every day, regardless of the weather, which, being England, did not always co-operate with the summer season. These were wonderful days. For my parents, because neither of them could swim, the walk on the beach, with toes in the water was a wonderful break for them. My father had a fresh soap odor. This replaced the rubbery taste that had accompanied him for years of working at the Avon Tire Company. My mother’s step became lighter, and she would sing more than normal. We never knew if that was gift, but we took it as one. And having Fish and Chips a few times during the week was a real bonus. Especially as the fish was likely fresh off the boat and not some frozen specimen as we might find inland. Everything; the sea breeze, the food, the atmosphere, all tasted better.

We all have these places that represent a “walk on the beach”. Somewhere where pondering or reflecting seems to be better, freer, more in contact with nature and with God. Regardless of the weather!

Why is this? What does the ocean wash away that our steady, asphalt-filled, media-entrapped world cannot release from within? I think we may not be able to name it, but we can feel it. There is a release that this wide open place tells us about the doors and passageways of our regular lives. There is something else out there. Something requiring our immersion and permission to enter. Or perhaps expecting us to give ourselves permission to be present to it. Nature. Seasons. The place where land meets sea. Not just physically, but spiritually.

For myself, this taste of the ocean and the coast was always a desirable location to be. Now, located near the Pacific in California, it is always a place of refuge and enjoyment. The openness, the wildness, the calming nature of the waves, all contribute to why so many of us love the sea and the seashore.
I think we all feel this way, even when the ocean can be scary and intimidating. We have a certain respect for our own powerlessness when it rises up to meet us in a way we cannot contain. Just as life is that way sometimes. I wonder what your own experience of the ocean and shorelines is? Is the sea capable of washing away something in your soul, beyond the surface sand, and the daily tides?

All of life may not be a walk on the beach, but still, we look forward to one when we can get there.

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2026 Michael J. Cunningham OFS

Posted on by Michael J. Cunningham

Why Can’t Every Day Be a Spiritual Day?

I have been asked this question more than once over the years. Sometimes by retreatants leaving San Damiano on the last morning. Sometimes by people who attend the Monday gatherings. Sometimes, honestly, by myself.

The literal answer is that, of course, it cannot be. The world will not stop for you. The meetings will be scheduled. The emails will arrive. The unpleasant colleague will still be sitting across the table tomorrow morning. We cannot turn each day into a retreat.

But the question contains its own answer if we are willing to look at it differently.

What we are really asking, when we ask that question, is whether the peace we found on retreat can travel home with us. Whether the silence that opened something can keep opening it on a Tuesday morning. Whether God, who felt so near in the chapel, can be near in the conference room too.

The answer is yes. But it requires a different kind of seeing.

I spent thirty-five years in the competitive high-tech industry. Some of that time was spent trying to help people in discord work toward a common goal. We usually had the goal. What we sometimes did not have was a culture, or a set of behaviors, that matched it. People in the same meeting could agree on the destination and still treat each other in ways that made the destination impossible. I watched it for decades. I sometimes contributed to it.

It was in those years that I came to believe Karl Rahner was right when he said the Christian of the future will be a mystic, or will not exist at all.

That sentence is often misread as a warning about decline. It is actually a description of what is required to remain human. Rahner was not talking about visions or ecstasies. He was talking about the lived experience of love, of goodness, of God — directly, in one’s own life, not borrowed from a teacher or absorbed from a book. He believed that without that direct experience, faith would not survive what was coming.

I think he was describing not just the future of faith but the future of any meaningful day at work.

So, I spent more than a decade trying to figure out how the peace of the monastery could travel into the ordinary. The Celts knew how. The desert fathers knew how. The Sufis, the Hasidim, and the Zen masters knew how, each in their own language. None of them taught withdrawal as the goal. They taught a way to stay present in the midst of what is, without losing the thread that connects you to God.

This is what I have come to call everyday mysticism. It does not require a different life. It requires different attention. The same conference room becomes a different room when you walk into it, noticing, pausing, and responding from a settled heart rather than a reactive one. The unpleasant interaction is not transformed by avoidance. It is transformed by the trace you leave inside it.

That trace is your spiritual footprint. It is the soul leaking out around the edges of whatever you do. And it can be formed.

So no, every day cannot be a spiritual break day. But every day can carry the same mystical possibility, if you are willing to bring it in yourself. The retreat is not the place. The retreat is the disposition. You can leave the chapel and take it with you, or you can sit in the chapel and never receive it.

The choice is interior. It is yours. And it is available tomorrow morning at nine.