Mindful Christians: Living Embodied Faith

Looking for a place to read or listen to nuggets about following the Spirit in your daily life? Join me on Substack and this podcast for weekly posts starting June 8th- the Spirit's Day!

This meditation is often used in the day retreat which is part of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) 8wk course. Engage the imagery & felt sense of being one with a basin of water. Notice how life can feel choppy and unsettled on the surface, and there is also a constant stillness beneath the surface you can anchor in as well. This meditation is calming in the moment of practice and can also can be called upon during stressful events to help anchor and ground the body and mind.

This is a 20m meditation breathing with the Spirit. First we allow the Spirit to breathe us, nourishing us. Then we open to the Spirit's breath nourishing our mind, heart and gut. Last we allow the holy light to be breathed by the Spirit through our whole being.

This meditation guides you through opening to the peace and love within, receiving peace and love from the world, and sharing a deep sense of peace and love with others. We are created, woven together with peace and love and have a beautiful capacity to intentionally share this peace & love with the world around us. Be sure to join us for live meditations on Insight Time: www.insighttimer.com/ccvogel

Many of us are searching for more joy in our lives. This reflection explores the natural joy that's already within us because we are created with joy. The Divine weaves us together with holy joy, peace, love. Joy (along with love & peace) is our birthright. Meditation can assist us in opening to the inherent joy within, assist us in receiving pure joy from the world, integrating that joy with the already with, and sharing joy with the world around us. We are vessels of joy. My hope is that this episode opens you to the reality and wisdom that you are a vessel of joy- able to receive, integrate and share joy. ✨

I hope you'll enjoy this episode where I interview my friend DeeAnn Dean. She has a big passionate heart for health and wholeness and a deep desire to bring people together in sacred community so they can experience Love in Belonging.

This 9 minute meditation will assist you if you're wanting work with your nervous system by slowing your breathing down using coherent breathing.

This episode is a double dose of good news. We cover the baptism of Jesus and Jesus calling the disciples to follow him. Jesus' life offers us many insights into how we can live our lives and ways to understand and appreciate the ways God calls us into loving relationship with him and each other. I've been asking the Holy Spirit “How seriously do you want me to take you?” Tune in to hear more and ponder for yourself, “How seriously does the Holy Spirit want me to take Her?”

This meditation is designed to work with restlessness in the middle of the night. We can utilize skills from our meditation and mindfulness practices to enhance our ability to shift from restlessness to restfulness.

This meditation moves through grounding in body and breath then moving into grounding in the heart space. As we experience more groundedness in body, breath and heart, we have greater access to peace. The second half of the meditation utilizes coherent breathing to deepens the sense of grounded peace within our being.

In the season of Advent we're given the opportunity to intentionally wait with patience. We wait for God to be made manifest in the world. It's an arduous task- waiting. As human beings we often have a difficult time waiting for anything much less the big things in life like waiting for hope to be made manifest in our lives and the world. This episode breaks open the opportunity to consider how we wait… do we wait with patience and trust that ultimately what we're waiting for will be made manifest and it will be full of joy and wonder? Or, do we give into the negativity bias of our brains and wait in fear and trepidation?

This is a heart meditation that grounds in body and breath and then drops into the heart space to cultivate self-compassion. Every time we practice drawing the mind back to the present moment, the body, breath, our own hearts, the more we have the opportunity to practice non-judgment and self-compassion. Given our practice in formal meditation, the greater our capacity to practice self compassion in our everyday lives.

On this 12th anniversary of my priest ordination, I find myself leaving church, a place I was never called to in the first place. After a dozen years of going where I haven't been called, I lean into the risk and vulnerability of going where I do. What does it mean to live into the call upon your life? What does it mean to honor the person God has called you to BE regardless of what you DO? Living an embodied faith requires being honest, wrestling, asking tough questions and calling a spade a spade. What do you yearn to live into that would allow you to more authentically embody your faith?

This is a meditation on equanimity. First we'll ground in body and breath then move to the heart space with intention and compassion. We'll build on the inherent strength of the heart to broaden awareness of our capacity to weather whatever comes our way in life- whether the storm be outer circumstances or inner emotional waves. Tapping into the wisdom and strength of our hearts can offer grounding and equanimity for our whole being.

Maya Angelou once said “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Jesus asked his disciples “Who do you say that I am?” We would be wise to ask God this question “Who do you say that I am?” And be intentional about listening, understanding and loving from that deep source of wisdom and truth God has woven within our beings.

This sermon weaves scripture from Ezekiel and the gospel of John. Can we let go of what binds us and allow the breath of God to fill us? Setting us free to experience resurrected living?

This sermon was preached Sunday, February 19th and reflects on the Hero's Journey using the illustration of actress Viola Davis' memoir Finding Me.

This is a sermon that weaves the wisdom of the persistent widow with Jacob's wrestling with an angel. We're all given spiritual gifts in our lives. How do we awake to them, honoring what they are and are not, and live into the fullness of those gifts?

This is a 20m meditation that guides you through connecting to your body, breath and breath of the divine so much so that you become aware of being breathed by the holy. The beautiful vessel of your body moment by moment surrendering to and being breathed by the holy breath of The Spirit.

This sermon was preached Sunday, October 30th at The Episcopal Church of The Ascension. It pulls from the wisdom of Laurie Brock's new book God, Grace & Horses and weaves the story of Jesus' encounter with Zacchaeus. Not always knowing where we are is actually part of the walk of faith. Whether we're on trails that lead to somewhere or nowhere, God is here and using all of it for good.

This is a sermon preached September 25, 2022. Prompted by a podcast episode on We Can Do Hard Things, I venture into the question must of ourselves ask at some point in n life if not wrestle with on a daily basis in some form or fashion: “Am I a good person?” It is a deeply spiritual question which pulls for a deeply spiritual answer.

This is a meditation using three verses of Psalm 51- a meditation for your heart space to connect with your own breath & the divine breath. Focusing the breath in the heart space allowing the movement of the Spirit to dust off the heart creating a right spirit by way of The Spirit. And, connecting to the joy of receiving God's help over and over again. We are truly sustained by God's bountiful Spirit.

This sermon was preached in August 2022 at The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, TN. This sermon weaves the wisdom of Susan Cain's latest book Bittersweet with the narratives found in Genesis 15 & Hebrews 11. All of us have a bit of melancholy within us; some of us lead with it… a felt sense of the interconnectedness between the beauty & sorrow of the world. When we have the courage to get in touch with that which we long for, that which creates a homesickness we may just find ourselves drawing ever nearer to God and the heavenly city.

This is a reflection that was offered at the monthly Celtic Service at Church of the Ascension in Knoxville, TN. Have you ever listened to a song and found yourself in tears? The breath of the Spirit often uses music to crack open our hearts & bring us to a feeling of deep aliveness.

This meditation is an opportunity to create sacred space to be with and let be whatever might be restless within your mind, heart space, gut, body, soul &/or spirit. When we turn towards our own experience with compassion we have the opportunity to not only listen to whatever wisdom the restlessness might have to share, we also realize we come home to the presence of a loving God right there with us in the restlessness. Connected with the breath of God (The Holy Spirit) we can experience the divine breath transforming whatever is restless within us into a place of rest in a loving God. Saint Augustine once said "God, Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee." I might only add to the great saint's words by saying our hearts, minds, souls, bodies, spirits, energy are restless until they find their rest in thee. Meditation offers us the very opportunity to find rest in God allowing the breath of the Spirit to the transform our restlessness into rest in God.

This is a meditation that utilizes both body awareness, connection with the breath, Spirit and your own soul. Towards the end of the meditation is a brief body scan that prompts the opening to receive the fruits of the Spirit in every fiber and cell of our being in addition to our souls and spirits. 

This meditation works with how we might open ourselves to receive the fruits of the Spirit. Coming to stillness and coming home to our bodies and breath create the foundation to best connect with the breath of the Holy Spirit. Connected to the Spirit's presence and movement within us, we can open ourselves to receive any or all of the nine fruits of the Spirit- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The hope is that by the end of the meditation you might be more aware of the presence of the fruits within your own body and soul, able to be guided by the Spirit through these fruits and also better capable of sharing the gifts with others. 

This meditation is a Christian version of loving kindness meditation that works with the notion of grace- God's love and favor towards us. The meditation works with both receiving God's love, blessings, & gifts of the Spirit, while also offering blessings of loving kindness to others.

This is a meditation crafted after the LIVE meditations I offer every Saturday morning at 8am eastern on Insight Timer. You can find more information about these live events on my website www.carolinevogel.com. You can also find links to more recorded meditations both on my website and on my teacher page on Insight Timer.

This was a sermon preached Sunday, February 27th- Transfiguration Sunday. The sermon explores how part of our walk with God is opening and allowing ourselves to radiate the love of God.

We don't always have 20 minutes to sit in meditation and be mindful of a holy sense of blessing. We oftentimes need to be reminded of God's blessing when we're on the fly, in the midst of our hectic and busy lives. So, this 3 minute meditation was crafted to practice on the fly. Any time you have three minutes and want to come home to a sense of blessing, there you are. This meditation on blessing like the longer version (19 minutes) incorporates the use of John O'Donohue's definition of blessing "a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen." This definition comes from his amazing book- To Bless the Space Between Us. Blessings on your practice and a felt sense of blessing going with you throughout your day.

This meditation is created to bring to mind something or someone you're holding in your heart, mind, soul, spirit with a sense of blessing. We work with the definition of blessing offered by John O'Donohue in his book To Bless the Space Between Us. O'Donohue shares, "A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen." This meditation crafts sacred space for a felt sense of blessing both upon whatever your seeking blessing (whether that be a person, situation, or pain) and you the holder of intention.

This meditation was crafted to assist all of us who get too busy in our lives and forget to come home to a loving God dwelling within us. The meditation offers the practitioner the opportunity to ground in the body and breath and then lean into the wisdom Jesus shares with Mary in Luke 10:38-42. Though Martha truly believes her actions are superior to her sister's, Jesus sheds light on in the reality that Martha is "worried and distracted by many things" when there is really only "need for only one thing." When we take the time to deepen out connection to a loving God, we can more easily access God's presence, love and guidance at any moment in our day. 

This sermon was preached Christmas Eve 2021. The sermon highlights the reality that following God rarely leads to a predictable path. From the human eye, our lives of faith can look like one curveball after another. What if the curveballs are portals for God to meet us- the Emmanuel- God with us? 

This is an Advent sermon focused on how we can live into a greater sense of joy even amidst the darkness.

This meditation invites the listener into a time of quiet stillness to honor the season of Advent using The First Song of Isaiah. Surely, it is God who saves me; I will trust in him and not be afraid. For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.

My grandmother didn't go down in history as famous; she didn't accomplish anything grand or exceptional. Yet, she was very much a Saint to me in that she shined the Light of Christ into my life, shared God's love with me, and drew me closer to our loving God. The celebration of All Saint's Day is an opportunity to remember all the saints in our lives- those we can no longer see or touch or feel, those who continue to walk alongside us, and the saints we've yet to meet.

This sermon is a shout out to all my fellow Ted Lasso fans out there woven with the gospel reading Mark 10:46-52. Our belief in God and ourselves can truly set us free to follow The Way. Thanks be to God!

This sermon speaks to the reality that disagreements can be difficult to work through in loving relationships.

Do you ever feel as if you're carrying around a lot in a metaphorical backpack? Worries, fears, preoccupations? This sermon looks at how lightening our load can empower us to live into the wisdom of Ephesians 4:25-5:2. God can do infinitely more with us when we receive God's peace that surpasses all understanding.

Ever think about how God uses the pieces of our lives to stitch together a tapestry of Hod's goodness? This sermon reflects on this idea and how we are called to share with good friends and the world God's goodness in our lives. Our faith is always emerging, and we have so much to learn from each other. ♥️

Living an embodied faith encompasses worshipping in a mindful way. Over the last year and a half I've enjoyed and come to greatly appreciate worshipping in the Celtic Tradition within The Episcopal Church. This episode reflects on the inherent wisdom and mindful practices embedded in the the Celtic Tradition, the ease of rest in the quiet & stillness, and the connections this tradition offers our souls, the earth and the divine.

This sermon was preached for The Diocese of East Tennessee in the celebration of Pentecost. The story of Pentecost is powerful, informative to our faith and relevant to how we live our lives even in 2021. May you experience the Holy Spirit guiding you into all truth and may you have the courage to go where She leads.

A version of this sermon was preached to the Foothills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on May 2, 2021. Everyone has a heartsong- the notes that sing from within that tell the story of who we are and our deepest longings. One of the many gifts of novels, memoirs, movies and tv shows is that we have the opportunity to draw connections and watch patterns emerge as characters develop. Noticing these patterns can become incredibly helpful in understanding our own patterns of relating to others, ourselves and the world. Hearing the heartsong in others helps us identify and claim our own heartsong better which empowers us to be co-authors of our own lives rather than being thrown to and fro by the curveballs of life. May you discover your heartsong and by the grace of God may you sing it aloud.

A version of this sermon was preached Sunday, April 18, 2021 @ The Episcopal Church of the Ascension. Scripture readings are for the third Sunday in Eastertide including 1 John 3:1-7 & Luke 24: 36b-48.

This sermon is about taking on grace in the wilderness of Lent, trusting God’s love & favor reaches us even, especially in our struggles. A version of this sermon was preached March 14, 2021 on the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Includes verses from Ephesians 2:1-10.

This an Advent sermon for the third week of Advent. It pulls from Isaiah 61, Psalm 126, & 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24. The third week of Advent asks us to lean into the joyful anticipation of Christ arrival. How do we honor the real grief and sorrow of our pandemic reality and adhere to the wisdom of joyful anticipation? Can we integrate our full experience for a greater sense of wholeness?

This is an Advent reflection offered at a Celtic Service. As the darkness of winter sets in and the virus numbers rage on the prophetic words of Isaiah & gospel message take on a new perspective and promise of hope.

A version of this sermon was preached Sunday, November 22, 2020. It reflects on the passages from Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24, Ephesians 1:15-23, & Matthew 25:31-46 and incorporates reflections on Henri Nouwen’s book “Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World.”

This was a sermon preached on Sunday, October 18, 2020 in Knoxville, TN. Scripture readings are from Exodus 33:12-23 & Matthew 22:15-22.

A version of this sermon was preached on Sunday, October 4, 2020.