“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” — Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
This week I spent three meaningful days with the leaders of the Franciscan Federation at their annual board retreat. We focused on important strategic work, making decisions, developing plans, and considering questions about the future. But, this work always felt connected to the spiritual tradition that called us together. Each morning, we started with prayer.
One morning, we meditated on a short letter Saint Francis wrote to Anthony of Padua. Anthony was a gifted scholar and teacher, and Francis gave him permission to teach theology to the friars. But he included one condition:
“I am pleased that you teach sacred theology to the brothers, providing that…you do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion during the study of this kind.”1
Do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotion…
Francis wasn't warning Anthony against learning. In his Rule, he had offered the same warning to friars engaged in ordinary work: whatever you are doing, do not allow it to “extinguish the Spirit of prayer and devotion.” His concern was not theology. His concern was what happens when our work, however worthy, consumes the interior life.
The same thing can happen to an entire life. We can know a lot about things we no longer truly experience. We might count our steps but forget the walk itself. We might take a photo of the sunset before really seeing it. We can keep up with news from everywhere but hardly notice what is happening inside ourselves. We can spend hours watching other people’s lives on screens and end the day feeling oddly distant from our own.
I don’t think this is just about lacking discipline. Much of modern life is built to capture our attention and turn it into profit. Our devices are made to keep us hooked. Workplaces expect us to always be available. Our economy relies on us always consuming. Even rest is sold as something to help us work better.
Feeling exhausted by all this does not mean we are weak. We are living in systems that expect people to act in ways we were never meant to. Francis offers us language for what the exhaustion feels like spiritually.
Something is being “extinguished.” We see it in diseases of despair. We see it in people numbing themselves inside technological ecosystems designed to keep them scrolling. We see it in our estrangement from the natural world and in the strange loneliness of societies where people are digitally connected almost constantly. We see it in ourselves when we realize that we have spent another week managing life without quite inhabiting it.
Now, these systems are starting to break down. In ecology, politics, the economy, and society, many structures built on constant growth are hitting limits they can’t avoid. This breakdown is scary. But when things fall apart, it can also reveal beliefs we have accepted for so long that we thought they were just the way things are. One of those assumptions is that a good life is primarily a productive life.
Francis imagined a very different reality. For Francis, creation was not just raw material. It was about relationship. Sun, moon, water, fire, animals, land, and people were all part of one sacred family. Prayer was not separate from daily life. The world itself called for devotion. Being alive meant taking part in a creation already filled with God’s presence.
That kind of spirituality changes the question from “What can I accomplish with my life?” to “What is my life devoted to?”
Devotion is a beautiful word because it holds love within it. We give ourselves to what we care about. A parent is devoted to a child. An artist is devoted to beauty. A gardener is devoted to the earth and the seasons. A friend is devoted to another’s well-being. Devotion brings our scattered attention to a place where it can truly rest.
The American mythologist Joseph Campbell once told journalist Bill Moyers that he didn’t believe people were searching so much for the meaning of life as for “an experience of being alive.”2
I think Francis would have understood. Feeling truly alive often comes in moments when we feel close to the world around us. We might be laughing with someone we love, working with our hands, standing under the stars, singing with others, holding an animal, or walking in the woods and suddenly notice we haven’t thought about ourselves for a while. For a moment, we are simply participating.
Maybe prayer begins there. It may not start with words spoken to a faraway God, but with such full attention that life itself feels like communion.
The question I am carrying home from these Franciscan leaders is: How can I live rooted in the Spirit of prayer and devotion? How can I stay awake to the call of Life?
I wonder what your answers would be. What helps you lose yourself in the best way? What stirs tenderness in you? What brings back your sense of wonder? What reconnects you with your body, with others, with the Earth, or with whatever you see as Sacred? Those questions are worth taking seriously.
Maybe the task before us in this unraveling age is not simply to preserve the institutions we inherited. Maybe it is to become inspirited again.
We need to find our way back to lives shaped by devotion instead of distraction, by relationships instead of extraction, by participation instead of consumption.
Francis feared that even sacred theology could extinguish the spirit if we confused studying faith with living faithfully.
Eight hundred years later, his warning feels remarkably contemporary. Do whatever work is yours to do. Study. Build. Organize. Teach. Lead. Repair what can be repaired. But guard the flame.
Don’t get so busy managing your life that you forget to actually live it.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
What in your life is currently extinguishing your sense of aliveness, wonder, or connection to the sacred?
When do you feel most fully alive, not merely entertained, productive, or distracted, but deeply present to your own life?
What are you devoted to right now? Does the way you spend your attention reflect that devotion?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer To Rekindle What Is Alive in Us
Spirit of Life, There is something in us that longs to be fully alive. We feel it when beauty catches us unexpectedly, when laughter breaks through our seriousness, when we lose ourselves in music, when our hands touch soil, when someone we love looks into our eyes and we remember that we belong to one another. We feel it when the world becomes more than background and we become more than people rushing through it. Help us protect that aliveness. We confess how easily we give our attention away. We fill silence before we have heard what it might contain. We hurry through moments we once prayed would come. We become so occupied with managing our lives that we sometimes forget to inhabit them. Teach us the devotion Francis knew. Not devotion as obligation, but devotion as love. Help us recognize what deserves our finite days and our precious attention. Give us courage to loosen our allegiance to everything that keeps us distracted, exhausted, afraid, or numb. Return us to relationship with our bodies, with one another, with the living Earth, and with the Sacred presence moving through it all. And where the flame has grown faint, breathe gently upon it. There is still life here. Help us live it. Amen.
Spiritual Practice: Follow What Makes You Come Alive
For the next twenty-four hours, pay attention to your aliveness. Notice when something in you opens. Perhaps you hear a piece of music and your body responds before your mind has time to explain why. Maybe you step outside and the quality of the morning light catches your attention. Perhaps a conversation suddenly becomes honest, or you find yourself laughing harder than you have in weeks.
Notice those moments. Then notice the opposite.
When do you feel yourself contracting? What leaves you depleted, scattered, numb, or strangely absent from your own life? Which activities swallow an hour and leave almost nothing behind? Which relationships consistently require you to become less yourself? What kinds of media leave your nervous system agitated long after you put the screen down?
Don’t judge any of it yet. Simply gather the information.
At the end of the day, sit quietly for ten minutes and remember the moments when you felt most alive. Write down three of them.
Then ask yourself: What were those moments trying to tell me about what I love?
This is where Francis’s word devotion becomes useful. Devotion is not merely religious intensity. Devotion is what happens when love organizes our attention.
Look at the three moments you wrote down. Is there something there that deserves more of your life? Maybe it is music. Friendship. Solitude. Animals. Prayer. Movement. Making things. Teaching. Gardening. Justice work. Sitting beside people who need someone to listen. Being outside long enough to remember that the Earth is alive beneath your feet.
Choose one and give it a little more room this week.
Francis’s warning was not simply, “Remember to pray.” It was more searching than that.
Whatever work you are doing, however important it may be, do not let it extinguish the Spirit of prayer and devotion.
So pay attention to yours. Then protect what keeps it alive.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
My team and I launched a new experiment we are calling “The Commons.” It’s an online space centered around communities of practice: groups of people who share a common concern, set of problems, or passion for a topic, and deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. Join the community here.
September 8, 2026, 12:30 - 1:30pm ET, ONLINE EVENT with NY Times Best-Selling author and journalist, Sarah Wilson!!! Sarah has just published her latest book I Eat The Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World. Join us for this one hour conversation where we will talk with Sarah about how we face collapse, how we find beauty and who we can become in these challenging times. Scholarships are available. REGISTER HERE.
September 8, 2026, 7-9pm ET, ONLINE EVENT - I’ll be hosting a powerful online gathering on The Black Madonna: Sacred Wisdom for a World in Crisis with Matthew Fox, Alessandra Belloni, and Christena Cleveland. We will explore the Black Madonna as a symbol of resilience, liberation, sacred feminine wisdom, and healing in a fractured world through conversation, story, music, and spiritual reflection. If you feel drawn toward a deeper encounter with the Divine Feminine and the ancient traditions that continue to nourish movements for justice and wholeness, I hope you’ll join us. Learn more and REGISTER HERE.
September 14, 7-8:30pm ET ONLINE EVENT - I’m delighted to share that Dr. Margaret Wheatley is releasing a newly updated edition of her beloved book Perseverance: A Companion for the Journey this October. Written for those committed to serving the world with compassion in difficult times, the book offers daily wisdom and practical guidance for navigating grief, anger, exhaustion, and uncertainty while remaining rooted in love, courage, and presence. Meg and I will be in conversation to explore what perseverance looks like in this moment of history and how we can sustain ourselves for the long work ahead. I hope you’ll join us for what promises to be a deeply meaningful conversation. REGISTER HERE.
September 17, 2026, 7-8:45pm ET - I will be joining Jackie Sussman for an online session on practicing eidetics as a part of our “Reclaiming the Power of Imagination” monthly series. Eidetic Imagery is a powerful tool for pastors, denominational leaders, coaches, and spiritual directors working with others, and for individuals seeking deeper integration and healing in their own lives. Jackie is a psychotherapist, author, and leading expert in Eidetic Image Psychology, and has spent over forty years helping leaders and individuals unlock creativity, uncover hidden strengths, and move through limiting patterns. During this session, she will lead a live Eidetic process shaped by mythic imagery, offering a direct experience of the work. REGISTER HERE.
October 6, 2026 - 7-8:30pm ET, ONLINE EVENT - Matthew Fox and I are teaming up again to launch a series called Journeying with the Mystics. The mystics have always emerged in times of uncertainty. They appear when old certainties are crumbling, when institutions no longer provide easy answers, and when people find themselves longing for a deeper experience of the Sacred. Join us for an 18-session exploration of the teachings of St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Hildegard of Bingen, Kabir and Rumi, Meister Eckhart and more. This is more than a lecture series. It is an invitation into a living spiritual journey. REGISTER for the first session HERE!
October 18-21, 2026 - PREACH! 2026 Conference- I’ll be co-hosting PREACH in Minneapolis with Church Anew, a new gathering for preachers, storytellers, worship leaders, and spiritual communicators navigating what it means to speak with clarity, compassion, and courage in a changing world. If you’ve sensed that the preaching moment has changed and are longing for thoughtful community and renewed imagination for this work, I hope you’ll join us.
November 10, 7-8:30pm ET - I’ll be joined by theologian, writer, and professor Dr. Debra Rienstra for a special ONLINE conversation on Refugia Faith. In ecology, refugia are small places where life survives amid disruption, pockets of resilience from which life can eventually regenerate and spread. Debra invites us to consider what this might mean spiritually in an age of climate instability, political turmoil, institutional decline, and profound uncertainty. What if our congregations, communities, relationships, and even our own lives could become refugia, places where courage, compassion, beauty, wisdom, and possibility are protected and cultivated for whatever comes next? I hope you’ll join us for this timely and deeply hopeful conversation. REGISTRATION COMING SOON!
Fun Things My Friends Are Up To…
I get to work with such amazing, creative people. This section is my way of celebrating them—no paid promotions, just joy in what they’re creating.
My dear friend, Rev. Shawna Bowman has just launched a new podcast with musician Jennifer Knapp called “My Wise Friend Podcast.” They talk about it this way: “You might know Jennifer from her years as a touring musician and songwriter, weaving stories and songs together across the country. You might know Shawna from their work as an artist, speaker, and community leader exploring the intersection of spirituality, justice, and creativity. While our daily work looks different, we share a deep love for real talk, deep questions, and finding wisdom in unexpected places.” I am so excited about this! I hope you will check it out and support them. https://www.patreon.com/cw/mywisefriendpodcast
I’m delighted to celebrate the upcoming release of Wisdom Church: Abundant Life for Aging Congregations by my colleague, Rev. Dr. Anna Hall. Rather than seeing aging congregations as communities in decline, Anna invites us to recognize them as communities rich with wisdom, purpose, and possibility. Her book offers a hopeful vision for moving beyond anxiety about the future and embracing the unique gifts of older adults as beloved children of God. If your congregation is navigating these questions, this is a resource well worth reading. You can preorder the Kindle edition now, with delivery on August 17: https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Church-Abundant-Aging-Congregations-ebook/dp/B0HBXGYTWC
Starting again on September 7 for every Monday, 12pm ET - ONLINE WRITING GROUP - My dear friend, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, is leading a writing group open to all. This is a simple and spacious writing circle for people who want time to listen inwardly and put words on the page without overthinking, performing, or polishing. Meryl offers a prompt designed to invite reflection, imagination, and attunement to what is already alive within you. The practice honors writing as a way of listening, of letting images, memories, questions, and insights surface in their own time. Learn more here.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
Francis of Assisi, “A Letter to Brother Anthony of Padua,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume I: The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New City Press, 1999), p. 107.
Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, ed. Betty Sue Flowers (New York: Doubleday, 1988), p. 5.
Thanks so much! This is really critical, Cameron.
It is so easy to slide into a space of going through motions, whatever our age or situation. Another theologian, the late Bernard Lonergan, said the first step of real conversion, of seeing things differently, was to pay attention. St. Francis left us that fabulous legacy of deep attention to all around and in us.
Reverend Cameron, What a truly wonderful homily! God is in the present moment (is what my Mom would say. ) We all need to remember, to reconnect to our inner sacred space, and let go to let God. We are all in this together. Thank you! 🙏🏻