Begin your day with a meaningful, meditative spiritual practice. In Seeds of Devotion, Roger Butts delivers evocative and lyrical prose while sharing wisdom from some of the most powerful figures in spirituality today. Tidbits from Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and contemporaries like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton are sprinkled in this devotional as he reflects on life’s deepest mysteries. Written with an open heart and years of purposeful practice as a chaplain, Roger Butts offers immersive passages with Reflection questions allowing for further spiritual exploration at the end of each devotion. This book invites you to ask bigger questions of yourself and your life while immersed in meditative silence. These prayers and reflections are meant to guide you to a place of peace and spirituality but also challenge you to delve further into your grace. But most importantly, they are all designed to help you listen and connect with the deep wisdom of your heart. Yes, this a book you are holding. But it is also a conversation you are invited to enter. Along with you, Roger Butts has invited many voices, voices from the Bible and Sufi poets, from civil rights leaders and contemplatives, from Toni Morrison to Merton and Nouwen and some folks you've never met before. Roger is there as a capable facilitator of the encounters that ensue, but it is never about him. It is about the joy of discovery, of friendship, of beauty, and about waking up, once again, to the astounding realization that the One in whom we live and move and have our being is much larger than previously imagined. Don't read this book. Rather, enter it as if pulling up a chair at a table filled with people like and unlike you, all curious to see what will unfold. Rev. Dr. Benjamin Broadbent, United Church of Christ minister This volume reimagines the genre of the devotional for Franklin's "citizen of the world." It does focus on the 3 Abrahamic religions, yet inspirations from others, e.g., Buddhism, are included. None of the segments are so long as to be just another task on a tough day; to the contrary, most refresh with a personal assurance that none of us struggle alone. The format of most segments includes 1) Rev. Butts' vulnerable disclosure of his full presence in some experience of loss, joy, defeat, compassion, or bewilderment. 2) Prayer--often as poetry, sometimes from others' writings. 3) "Reflection questions" which are precisely that. They always turn the gaze to the self. Even when the topic is "the divine," readers are asked to look within & to value their own experiences & their feelings as sources of learning. The book is a call from awareness to awareness. Professor Phyllis Culham Roger Butts is a Staff Chaplain at a hospital system in Colorado Springs. A graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary in D.C., he is ordained in the Unitarian Universalist tradition. He is a long-time member of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship and the International Thomas Merton Society. After serving two UU congregations as senior minister, he traveled for a year organizing against the death penalty throughout Colorado. When he can, he sits with the Springs Mountain Sangha (Buddhist) at Colorado College. His prayers and an essay have been published in a number of anthologies from Skinner House Books. He is also a contributing writer for Contemplative Light. His writings have been published in the Boulder Daily Camera, the CS Gazette, and the Quad City Times. For many years he was a board member of the local branch of the NAACP and the Greenberg Center for Learning and Tolerance in Colorado Springs. He is married to Marta Fioriti, a minister in the Black Forest of Colorado Springs. They have three teenagers and a black lab. He believes humor and grace will save us all.