A Spirit-Filled Life

[revjenn]

Staying Awake

I heard Vladimir Kara-Murza speak in Baltimore this week. He’s a Russian journalist, historian, and political dissident who’s spent years speaking out against Vladimir Putin’s regime. He’s survived two poisoning attempts, served time in prison for his activism, and still refuses to stop advocating for democracy. Hearing him in person was powerful. He carries himself with quiet conviction, like…

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The Gift of Hospitality

One of the greatest surprises of traveling in Japan has been the way people welcome you before you even ask. Volunteers in blue vests in Tokyo guide visitors, already knowing what might help. In shops, staff step toward you with gentle eyes, asking if you need anything, often before you realize you do. At the train station one evening, a worker didn’t just point us to the platform. He walked us…

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Threads in a City of Millions

This afternoon we wandered through Kitchen Town, Kappabashi-dōgugai, taking in the rows of knives, shelves of chopsticks, and displays of plastic food that make menus come alive. In one small shop, as we picked through chopsticks, someone from the Kumano Kodo trail walked in. Nearly 300 miles away from the pilgrimage paths we had shared, and here we were, side by side again in Tokyo, a city of 34…

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Day Six: A Deep History Beneath the Neon

日日是好日 (Nichi-nichi kore kōnichi) — Every day is a good day. This phrase comes from Yunmen Wenyan, a Chinese Zen master (Tang dynasty).  With this new day, the hiking part of our trip is complete. It didn’t go exactly as we had planned, but we’ve seen God’s hand in it all. There were plenty of moments when we could have been stuck or discouraged, yet again and again we were looked after in ways…

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Day Five: Water Everywhere

This was supposed to be a full day of hiking. Instead, we slowed down. My hiking companion is still healing, and the pace of the day shifted with that. Yesterday I stood at Hongu Taisha. Today I visited the other two of the three grand shrines of Kumano: Hayatama Taisha by the river and Nachi Taisha by the falls. Together they are known as the Kumano Sanzan, the three sacred shrines tied to the…

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Day Four: Being-Time

Today we returned to Hongu with two friends we met on the trail. Yesterday we rushed through, pressed by an agenda, and it became our nemesis. We didn’t give ourselves the space to take in what was around us. Our friends invited us back to walk slower, and this time we did. In Zen, Dōgen wrote about Uji, or “Being-Time.” Time and being are not separate. Each moment is not something slipping…

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Day Three: An Unexpected Pause

Today looked different. After yesterday’s misstep, the doctor told my hiking companion she needs to take a few days off. So instead of boots on the trail, we found ourselves learning the bus routes. Thank God for Google Maps. We rode into Hongu to visit the Grand Shrine. The giant torii rose up ahead, an opening into something larger than us. Walking the gravel path lined with cedar trees, I…

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Day 2: Takahara to Chikatsuyu

The rain stayed with us today. It did not just fall, it poured down the cedar trunks and ran along the trail until the path itself became a rushing stream. At the base of the trees, the water foamed up in little white puddles, as if the mountain had decided to scrub itself clean. Every step was splash and squelch, roots slick with mud, stones rolling underfoot. The forest was alive with things…

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Day One: Takijiri to Takahara

We started at Takijiri-oji, the entry point for the Nakahechi route of the Kumano Kodō. The shrine marks the threshold. Pilgrims for centuries have stood there before stepping into the hills. Across the river is the Pilgrimage Center with a small display of the history of this path, a reminder of how many have taken the same steps. The climb begins right away. The guidebook called it moderate,…

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Beginning the Pilgrimage

For more than a thousand years this trail has carried emperors, monks, farmers, and families into the Kii Mountains. These forests, once called “the holy ground where gods dwell,” have been walked by those searching for heaven on earth. The imperial court of Kyoto once took this road, a month-long journey into the mountains. Over time the path filled with people from every class. So many came…

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The Green Fruit

Bags of aokiri mikan (green mandarins) stacked at the market. We started the morning on the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto, a quiet walk along the canal where even your footsteps seem to slow down. Later that day, wandering through a crowded market, I stopped in front of bags of mandarins. Not the bright orange ones I expect back home, but green ones, stacked in clear plastic. In Japan they’re…

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Walking the Senbon Torii

This morning, while sipping matcha, my friend read these words from Pope Leo XIV: “A pilgrimage has a vital part to play in our life of faith, for it removes us from our homes and our daily routines and gives us time and space to encounter God more deeply. Such moments always help us to grow, for through them the Holy Spirit gently fashions us to be ever more closely conformed to the mind and…

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When the World Seems Small

“As a bee gathers nectar from the flower and flies away without harming the flower’s beauty or its fragrance, just so the sage goes on his alms-round in the village.”  -Dhammapada verse 49 Today was full. I walked more than 20,000 steps, from bamboo forests to temples, from bowls of udon to matcha ice cream. I saw a little egret lift off from the riverbank and a gray heron stand still in the…

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Quiet Arrival

I arrived in Tokyo today. The airport was full, the subway cars were packed, and the bullet train carried us down to Kyoto. What surprised me most wasn’t the number of people, but the quiet. No honking horns. No loud phone calls. Even in the middle of a crowded train, there was only a low rumble, smooth and steady, almost like calm itself. Not screechy. Not restless. Just quiet. Back home,…

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Zen at 4am

“Zen is a present state of mind where one honors the task they are partaking of, even if the task is sitting still and doing nothing. Zen is engrained in the Japanese way of life. You can see it everywhere: when a sushi chef delicately slices a piece of raw fish, when a retired man watches an autumn leaf fall from a tree in the park, when a mother prepares and places a cup of tea before her…

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An Invitation to Be in the Moment

When I travel, I like to bring something with me that keeps me steady in a daily rhythm of reflection. For this trip to Japan, I’m taking along a small book of Zen readings that has been sitting on my shelf for years. I’ve never really opened it before, but it feels right to carry it with me now, in the place where Zen took shape. Zen is not so much a set of ideas as it is a way of paying…

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Journey of Gratitude

“Now the company of prophets said to Elisha, ‘As you see, the place where we live under your charge is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan, and let us collect logs there, one for each of us, and build a place to live there.’ He answered, ‘Do so.’ Then one of them said, ‘Please come with your servants.’ And he answered, ‘I will.’ So he went with them. When they came to the Jordan, they began…