Shows
The Viridescent CircleEastertide: Eyes to see the ResurrectionSeeing clearly in the season of the long sun. Believing in the resurrection while there is tragedy and tyranny in our world. 2025-05-0814 minThe Viridescent CircleLady Day: Mary and the MossEarly Spring on the prairies is ecstasy and agony. What can we learn from moss and from our mother Mary about how to live in the vicissitudes?2025-03-2515 minThe Viridescent CircleCarnival: Pressure, Catharsis and ConfessionWhen fall turns to winter we turn inward and slow down but on the long edge between winter and spring we are restless and combustible. Is there wisdom in the catharsis of the festival of Carnival before Lent?2025-03-0313 minThe Viridescent CircleCarnival: Pressure, Catharsis and ConfessionWhen fall turns to winter we turn inward and slow down, but on the long edge between winter and spring we are restless and combustible. Is there wisdom in the catharsis of the festival of Carnival before Lent?2025-03-0313 min
Contemplative at HomeLove was His Meaning: Lectio Divina with Julian of NorwichA 20-minute meditation with the writings of Julian of Norwich, using Lectio Divina. You are probably familiar with Mother Julian's saying "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well." On her deathbed, Julian was given a vivid and powerful vision of Christ on the cross. She revived from this extreme illness, and went on to spend the rest of her life as an anchoress, enclosed in a cell, that she might meditate on the meaning of this vision. She lived in medieval Norwich and her writings...2025-02-1719 minThe Viridescent CircleEpiphany: An Ode to the ColdIn the opening I say that this letter is an elegy to the cold. My mixing of ideas has brought in the feeling of mourning when I meant to praise. But perhaps my mistake points to a mixed truth. The cold puts us in discomfort, a trial we often lament, a hardship we want to end. However, with the intake of icy breath, the body calls us to attention, makes us ready for the end which is our beginning. 2025-01-1512 minThe Viridescent CircleSt. Lucy's Day: Catching the LightIn the midnight of the year a mirror finds the light there is to be found. Let it leap into the eyes of our hearts. 2024-12-1315 minThe Viridescent CircleAll Souls': The Veil is ThinWe are in between times; Fall is on the threshold of Winter. This liminal time pushes us to ponder the relationship between the living and the dead, and our own life and our own death. We can trust the good earth to ground us, the saints to guide us, and God to surround us with witnesses to the magnetism of Divine love.2024-11-0718 minThe Viridescent CircleHoly Cross Day and the Autumn Ember Days: Touch the Wood and WorkWe lean into great trees and know the miracle of mercy with fingers on wood. Holy Cross day invites us to root down into the sustenance which makes us capable of the work of our lives. 2024-09-2014 minThe Viridescent CircleThe Feast of the Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary: RestWe are at the midday of the year, the Angelus bells are ringing and we are called to sit with the Virgin Mary as she enters her eternal rest. It is good.2024-08-2416 minThe Viridescent CircleTrinitytide: The Ordinary within the MagnificentWith fingers deep in the mud we ponder the greenness of the daily and the doctrine of the Trinity. 2024-07-1215 minThe Viridescent CircleAscension: Looking up at the skyOn the Feast of the Ascension we must look up and gaze upon the vastness of the true blue of sky; and so we will, and we will speak of how the Word was made flesh in one place and time and ascended into heaven which fills all space and all time. 2024-05-0915 minThe Viridescent CircleHope is the bloom, and the fruit, and the leafThe lenten winter is over and now we sing hymns of the resurrection and feel the warm breeze on our cheeks. We need to speak of what the resurrection inaugurates; time has been pierced by eternity and now faith, hope and love are inhabitable. And hope is the bloom...2024-04-1214 minThe Viridescent CircleHoly Week: AttunementIt is the pinnacle of the Christian year and in this letter Kirsten speaks of the way which the drama Holy Week is purposed to draw the adherent and the seeker deeper into the love song of the Trinity in order that our lives might be shaped by it. The energy of spring sings its own part in this glorious music.2024-03-2326 minThe Viridescent CircleLent: Blue Skies on Ash WednesdayIn this letter Kirsten reveals the centrality of mercy in our Lenten Pilgrimage and wonders at the way blue skies teach us what we need to know about the height and breadth of the same.2024-02-2213 minThe Viridescent CircleEpiphany: The Silent Speech of a Frozen LakeThe feast of Christmas is come and gone for another year and we are set down in the daily life of a January Winter. In this letter Kirsten reckons with the speechless message of frozen lakes and newborn stars and probes the invitation to hear and receive the epiphanies all around us. 2024-01-1120 minThe Viridescent CircleAdvent II: Stillness at SolsticeThis letter is a short, stream of consciousness, poem-like thing. A meditation to inspire going out into the darkest night before the beginning of the feast. 2023-12-2208 minThe Viridescent CircleAdvent: Landscapes and The Holy ScripturesIn this letter Kirsten is taken in by the narrative potency of the Advent Lessons and Carol Service. She effuses about the nature and expansive beauty of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures using many metaphors and possibly mixing them. 2023-12-1132 minThe Viridescent CircleMartinmas Fast: Chasing Will-o’ the-wispsIn this letter bright red birds sit in trees and epiphanies incite a profound longing to chase wisdom. Kirsten explores the lost tradition of the Martimas fast which the King's College Chapel seems to remember, and writes about what spiritual discipline has to do with a longing filled pursuit of truth. 2023-11-2124 minThe Viridescent CircleAll Saints: Spruce Trees and TheosisIn this letter Kirsten mourns the loss of colour as the weather takes a turn, she looks to spruce trees for their stalwart greeness and speaks of a particular tree that sheltered her in a time of grief. Thoughts about the shelter offered by great beings leads to an exploration of what it is to be a saint. 2023-11-0126 minThe Viridescent CircleEvening Prayer: Conversations in the Darkening LightIn this letter, Kirsten explores the different work asked of us in the summer light and autumn darkness. She explores the beauty and importance of good company when the lights go dim and as we take up the task of discerning the good, the true and the beautiful within the complicated and the prickly. Finally, she talks about prayer and why it is our sustenance as we stumble together and try to stand and search in the dim light. While she talks of all this, you will hear the waves of the lake and wonder why. It is because th...2023-10-2520 minThe Viridescent CircleWind: MichaelmasIn late September the wind blows in the change of seasons, the birds get ready to migrate. This sends Kirsten off into a metaphor about the wind and meaning making, which leads her to Jesus’ comparison of wind with the Spirit in the Gospel of John. Kirsten talks about the difference between Angels and Humans and how, with their wings, Angels can navigate the wind far better than we humans can. The letter ends pondering guardian Angels and urging listeners to learn to lean on the ones who are near us, who knows how to navigate the wind. 2023-09-2724 minThe Viridescent CircleDawn: Morning PrayerIn the early morning Kirsten writes to one who is loved. She
explains the meaning of this loving address and the pressing reasons for her writing to students and others in this time in history.
She sets out the intention of her project and sends you off to say your morning prayers.2023-09-2714 minThe Viridescent CircleIntroductory InterviewAidan Ingalls interviews Kirsten about the work of Theologian in Residence at the chapel of King's College Halifax. Aidan asks about whether a chapel theologian can communicate with the broader university and what she might want to convey. Kirsten talks about 'infinite love' and the theology of Julian of Norwich. Renunciation and love of the world, and Charles Williams' notion of 'coinherence' are reflected on.
Kirsten and Aidan discuss how time and eternity might be defined in this podcast and how they intersect, and they reflect on how the rhythms of nature and the rhythms of feasting...2023-09-2748 min
From The NarthexEpisode 22: Let's Talk About Kirsten Pinto Gfroerer's BookWhy should we address our suffering? This week, we were thrilled to invite Kirsten Pinto Gfroerer, a writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to talk about her new book "Anchorhold: Corresponding with Revelations of Divine Love." We talk about what inspired Kirsten to write this book, why was Julian of Norwich such an important piece to these correspondence letters. Join us every Wednesday. Follow us @fromthenarthex on Instagram and Twitter for updates. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review! 2021-05-0550 min
saint benedict's tableideaExchange | Kirsten Pinto-Gfroerer on "Why we should not give up on sin"Audio from our January 31, 2012 session of ideaExchange, with Kirsten Pinto-Gfroerer on "Why we should not give up on sin; or, how being a sinner isn’t an insult after all" 2013-04-231h 08