Perhaps the greatest gift that we have as a human family is imagination and, with that, our creativity and capacity for thought, expression, language (all the languages of body, vision, touch, as well as speech and silence, and also the languages of the land, oceans, air). Yes, imagination in its most familiar sense can be […]
Let’s declare Valentine’s Day as a day for all. Love has infinite expressions…Let’s open to their mystery, their beauty, and their healing. Let’s celebrate Valentine’s Day as inclusively as possible: all those lessons in love (some so necessary, so timely; some so hard), all those teachers of what love is or can be (some lost, […]
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 […]
Feeling “at home” in our own lives is essential for peace – and for safety and well being. Yet we face, in our world, unprecedented numbers of people seeking a home, or feeling profoundly unsafe within their own homes, often their own countries – or lacking a sense of meaning and belonging. Along with thinking […]
Deep apologies that due to health challenges, Rev Dr Stephanie Dowrick will not be offering the January Workshop, nor leading the Easter 2017 Retreat. We certainly hope that she will be well enough to offer the Spring Retreat later in the year: 5-11 October. All at Mana wish her well. “Our search for the sacred […]
On 19 June 2016, the tenth anniversary of our services at Pitt Street Uniting Church, Sydney, Reverend Dr Stephanie Dowrick spoke on the beautiful topic of deep appreciation. This is a radical, transformative quality when we allow it to be, dramatically challenging the competitive, aggressive, cynical way of life that can come to seem “normal” […]
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 […]
Writer * Social activist * Retreat leader * Interfaith minister * teacher “Stephanie Dowrick’s writing and career are characterised by motifs of renewal and re-imagining..Dowrick’s work is eclectically informed and pioneering…” Felicity Plunkett, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Reverend Stephanie Dowrick, PhD, is a leader and pioneer in interfaith, post-denominational spirituality and inter-religious understanding. […]
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 […]
Making Peace With Yourself Spiritual Renewal at Mana Retreat Centre, Coromandel, New Zealand, with Reverend Dr Stephanie Dowrick 29 September – 5 October 2016 A spiritual retreat offers a unique chance to step back from daily life to find and sustain far greater peace within. In the company of others, and in an exquisitely beautiful […]