Where Do You Find Food for a Hungry Soul?
Where to find good spiritual
take-out food for a hungry soul
Do you know any good takeouts? I am thinking of places to go for food when your soul is hungry and thirsty. Because I focus more on my body I can usually tell you without hesitating whether I want BBQ or Chinese and where my favorite take-out restaurant is located. (Exactly 1 mile and 5 minutes to great seafood!)
Spiritual hunger sometimes masquerades as bodily hunger. You know that is happening when you find yourself with a hand in the cookie jar right after a satisfying meal. Something within you is still hungry.
I decided to create a traveler’s guide for places to nourish your soul with reviews and recommendations. All of the following links are personal favorites of mine. You will find that some of them are offerings from Christianity and Buddhism, and some I turn to when I want to sleep, focus, or just relax.
When you need some guidance and a community
The founder of “Abbey of the Arts” online community, Christine Valtners Paintner, is more than just an author of spiritual books and poetry. She has been my friend and mentor for more than a decade. Christine spreads her Benedictine/Celtic/Creativity-inspired messages to an interfaith audience from her home in Ireland. When you visit “Abbey of the Arts” you will find a free prayer series with offerings from artists and musicians, as well as a library of courses in spirituality. Her courses are marked by the building of community amongst her students. Her most popular book, Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist, recognizes that within each of us resides both contemplative and creative natures. If you have a hungry soul you won’t find better fare anywhere.
When on a spiritual journey
Spirituality and Practice, Resources for a Spiritual Journey, established by Frederick and MaryAnn Brussat is a treasure house of resources that come from a vast interfaith network of writers, artists and speakers. Courses are not free but immensely affordable and they do provide scholarship assistance. I encourage you to check out their many offerings that range from 3-day samplers to 30-day immersion experiences. Courses are usually done through email, and often there is a forum for participants to share their insights and ask questions. And some folks have even found a life partner in a course. I know. I did.
When standing in the need of prayer
I have been listening to Pray As You Go for many years as a guide for Lectio Divina, which is a practice of savoring a tiny piece of a holy text. Pray As You Go is available in a free app for your phone or tablet, and each day’s reading takes less than 15 minutes. You will listen to a short passage of biblical text and then several questions invite you to go deeper. A great way to begin your morning or to wrap up your day. Be sure to listen with a pen and journal in your hand. The music is incredible!
When you can’t sleep
Do you have challenges with getting or staying asleep? My good friend Gillian Padgett is a psychotherapist who has made a wonderful sleep tape which you can get with her free course , “Imagine and Remember Gentle Relaxed Sleep” Just listening to her gentle voice will bring the sandman faster than you might expect.
When you want to meditate
Do you know about “Insight Timer”, an app with many teachers to guide you in meditation, and help you stay in the present moment? What I like about Insight Timer is that most of what they offer is free, and upgrading is reasonable but not necessary. There are many other apps with similar intentions, but over the years I have tried most of them I always return to Insight Timer because of their quality and their ethics. You can feel the difference in their generosity and low-key marketing.
When you need an answer to (tech) prayer
You may not think about iPhone technology as inherently spiritual unless, like me, you find yourself lost in cyberspace and standing in the need of prayer. One answer to prayer, if you own an Apple product, is my good friend Ellen Sweeney who has a free blog called “Ellen’s Tips for IOS”, as well as a YouTube channel by the same name. She is waiting for you to make a free call to ask her anything from how to access or share something you love, to troubleshooting a problem you are having with your iPhone.
When you struggle with anything
There is one person who I can point to more than any other who inspired me not only to write but to be active with my creativity. Jan Phillips’ book “Marry Your Muse” is an award-winning creation from a woman who overcame a deep wound from the Catholic Church because she is gay, and turned her experience outward to reach a much larger ‘congregation’ of faithful readers. If you have struggled with a perspective or doctrine from traditional religion, or wonder how to use your creativity for good, then this is definitely the book to read! Her new book, “Still on Fire – Field Notes from a Queer Mystic” just came out and is on my nightstand now.
These are just a few of my favorite ‘take-out’ places that feed my soul. I hope you find that one or several of them offer something to peak your appetite.
