Community of Fellow Travelers

God’s Faint Path fellow travelers

Over the past years, I’ve been walking what I call God’s Faint Path—a quiet trail of spiritual seeking shaped by wilderness, silence, scripture, and the voices of saints and mystics across the ages. I’ve shared reflections along the way, not as a teacher with answers, but as a fellow pilgrim wondering aloud.

But here’s what I know: the faint path can be a lonely road.

James Finley once wrote of Thomas Merton, his beloved friend and spiritual guide as “an elder brother on the lonely road to God.” I’ve often felt the ache and gift of that truth. And like many of you, I’ve longed for the company of kindred souls—those who hunger not for religious performance, but for depth, transformation, and union with the Living God.

So I’m extending an invitation:

Would you like to journey together in a small circle of fellow travelers?

I’m imagining something simple:
• A space for shared reflections and spiritual conversation
• Periodic Zoom gatherings rooted in presence, silence, and honest sharing
• Occasional audio meditations or contemplative teachings
• An online hub for encouragement and soul friendship

Next Zoom Gathering July 22 at noon Mountain

We agreed to meet for an hour on Zoom on the fourth Tuesday of each month at noon Mountain. Responding to a suggestion that we take a deeper dive into some of the topics on GodsFaintPath, we will dialog about Divine Indwelling at our next gathering on July 22. Here is the link to the Zoom.

Inaugural Community of Fellow Travelers Zoom 6/23/25

Dearest God, We are fellow travelers on a faint path through the woods. From many directions we have come, many paths we have trod, yet we have all emerged into a clearing. We are wondering who are these other people in the clearing why we have crossed paths, and what wants to happen. May your Spirit point the way, and may we each discern the still. small voice awakening our hearts. May we speak from soul and listen intently that we might know one another in a deeper way. In all your many names we pray. Amen

Sangha as Spiritual Community

At its heart, Sangha refers to a community of fellow travelers committed to the spiritual path. In this broader, more inclusive sense, it’s not limited to monastics or awakened beings, but includes any group of people practicing together with shared intention.

The essence of Sangha is spiritual friends walking the path together.

Thich Nhat Hanh on Sangha:

It is very difficult to practice without a Sangha. The Sangha is our body, and the Sangha is our refuge. It is only in the Sangha that we can build our collective energy of mindfulness and concentration. The next Buddha may take the form of a Sangha, a community practicing understanding and loving-kindness.

Introduce yourself, tell us what you are seeking here

I want this to be a place where all voices are heard, and we all feel seen. Today, Ned Breslin will share a reading from his soon to be published poetry book. Ned and I were in the same Living School Circle Group for two years. After we finished, Ned spent a year leading efforts in Ukraine to feed people displaced by the front lines of battle. He has written a book about thin places in a war zone. Hear him now.

Ned read a poem from his book, as we contemplated the picture of the woman whose words we heard. She had lost her husband, her apartment, her friends and family to Russian Missiles. She now lives underground and feeds people every day. She wept as she said she used to be a baker and did not even have an oven. “I can’t even remember what cake tastes like.”

We were powerfully touched and spent twenty minutes doing Lectio and reflecting on the reading.

Then we heard Gregg’s story: After a trip to the ER in a blizzard, we were confronted with the fact that it has become too difficult to live offgrid so far from medical care. As Florrie and Andy pushed us to move out of the mountains, to walk away from the log cabin we built 25 years ago, we didn’t want to hear it.

We went through the stages of grief, starting with Anger.

At the time, I was working on a post on Intuition & Discernment. In his book Your Life as Art, Robert Fritz quotes Candice Carpenter’s book Chapters, talking about the profound cycles of change a life can take. The first stage she calls:

The Gig is Up. You know that what you have been doing is over. When you try and hold on, change will be thrust upon you with greater and greater force until you let go. The more you try to hold on, the more the intensity of the tornado that is pulling you out of the present unworkable situation

We knew at some point it would be true, and the next weeks would show it was time to move on.

Fritz continues, The next stage is

Falling: disengaged, disidentified and disenchanted, we fall into disorientation

Then comes

A Walk in the Desert in which you reflect on the most existential issues of your life

Next comes

Stirrings: all the threads of your past ultimately will be woven together into a new path forward.

This stage is followed by

A Stake in the Ground: you begin to focus and then commit yourself to your new way of life.

Change is often a death followed by resurrection. To create something new, something old must end. Die to it well, my friend.

Spend 3 minutes in silence contemplating where you have had an experience like this……..