Integrated Editing

Ali Kirkpatrick, Editor/Curator (Independent Contractor)

Integrating Head, Heart, and Hands

I work closely with Mark, the Managing Editor, reading and editing each draft of the Daily Meditations. As a head type on the enneagram, I love reading and knowing things, but I have also come to know that things like faith and love, justice and resurrection cannot be understood with our minds. They must be experienced and lived out. In editing, I look for material that can aid that process of integration: moving what we read from our minds to our hearts and out through our hands.  I ask myself: 

• Does this engage my mind?  
• Does this soften my heart?  
• Is my stance toward “the other” becoming less defended?  
• Does this meditation invite me to shift my behavior toward greater compassion, love, or justice?  

The Diverse Work of the Spirit

If the material is too heady, I try to speak to the heart. If the language is elevated, I work to make it understandable. If the authors are only Catholic, male, white, and clerical, I seek more diversity. I want to help make the Daily Meditations accessible and impactful for current readers and those I hope will find us in the future.  

Like many subscribers, I have been reading Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations since they were first published in 2007. Over the years, I have watched them grow in length, depth, and diversity while remaining focused on Richard’s core teachings and wisdom. The Daily Meditations serve as an entry point for many to Richard’s teachings, but my first exposure to Richard came when I was a teenager in the early 1980s. Raised in a Franciscan parish, my mother would bring home Richard’s talks on cassette tape for the whole family (though I may have been the only one of her four children to actually pay attention).  

Riding the Tricycle of Faith

This early theological foundation is critical to providing editing support for the Daily Meditations. It has given me an intimate familiarity with the major themes in Richard’s books and teachings—no matter when they were written. Relying on what he calls “the tricycle of faith,” Richard draws on Scripture, tradition, and personal experience to emphasize the unconditional love of God and the importance of discovering our true selves. This triad also reveals the inherent dynamism of a Spirit-filled life, the transformative path of contemplation, and the natural movement toward compassionate action that comes from any true experience of God. This last theme first drew me to Richard’s teachings and continues to serve as inspiration and focus.  

I know the Holy Spirit has used Father Richard as a “conduit” to share messages of grace and justice to millions of people over the last half-century. I am honored to participate in that ministry and help it continue in the decades ahead.