As I sit here this very early morning, the house is quiet. The world outside is quiet. The air even now is hot and still. (I will go outside in a moment to water my thirsty plants – all in pots.) It is the penultimate day of what has been a long year, with personal […]
On this Christmas morning, let us remember and pray most especially for our brothers and sisters who are without homes, countries or safety. We pray especially for our brothers and sisters held in detention on Manus Island, on Nauru, in detention centres in Australia, for all those denied shelter, dignity and hope. You are not […]
Dear Universal Heart Networkers I have been sending out Universal Heart Newsletters since the publication of The Universal Heart in 2000. That means some of you were with me during the year of my ordination (2005), and also during the year we started interfaith services at Pitt Street Uniting Church in June 2006. (Thank you […]
Remembering my perfect, beautiful, talented, unfailingly loving mother, Estelle Mary Brisco Dowrick, who died of cancer in December 1955, a month after her 38th birthday. It remains agonisingly incomprehensible to me that not only did my sister Geraldine and I spend most of our lives without her loving, reassuring, inspiring presence, but that she also […]
We must in all things seek God. But we do not seek Him the way we seek a lost object, a “thing.” He is present to us in our heart, in our personal subjectivity, and to seek Him is to recognize this fact. Yet we cannot be aware of it as a reality unless He […]
8 March 2016: International Women’s Day We have much to celebrate and a great deal still to achieve. Yes, you and I and everyone else surely wants every human being on earth to meet their potential and live in harmony and safety. But the difficulties and dangers that girls and women face remain specifically unjust […]
‘A mind that is stretched never returns to its original dimensions.” Oliver Wendell As the shorter, more reflective days of winter settle in, I am half way through my teaching months with the Faber Academy in Sydney, engrossed in bringing to my talented, serious, highly alert students all that I can to increase their pleasure […]
Finding peace…and sustaining it. Sublime refreshment inside & out: 1-4 October, 2015; 4-7 October Are you in need of lasting spiritual refreshment, offered in a most beautiful setting and from a genuinely inclusive spiritual perspective? Would you like to be more inwardly peaceful, knowing you can then meet life with greater compassion, interest, courage and […]
“Interfaith” is a word increasingly used. It’s used as an adjective. It’s used as a noun. We can even do interfaith in the sense of engaging with a range of activities that might include the local rabbi, imam, Buddhist monk, Hindu priest and Catholic nun sharing insights around an urgent social need. It has also […]
Bring greater joy, peace and simplicity to your life this Easter. Join Stephanie Dowrick for the annual Retreat at Easter at Mana Retreat Centre. 2-6 April 2015 “I know what a different person I would have been without Stephanie’s wonderful teachings at Mana. It’s because of her encouragement and wise words that I am able […]
In 2015, Dr Stephanie Dowrick will be giving fewer talks and workshops. (That makes those she is giving even more special.) She will be teaching writing once more for the Faber Academy in Sydney. The Writers’ Workshop runs from 20 April to 20 June, with 7 Monday evenings and one full-day Saturday. Numbers very strictly […]
Stephanie Dowrick is a life-long social activist and peace-maker. She reflects here on the wisdom of non-violence and the urgent necessity of our understanding this – and bringing it to life. Her many books include Seeking the Sacred. It is utterly heartbreaking to be sitting in my office in Sydney, on this entirely pleasant, early-summer […]