Sunday Morning Café

09/08/2026

On November 8, I’ll be sitting down with St. Louis–rooted singer-songwriter Javier Mendoza (aka Hobo Cane) for Creating from the Soul: A Conversation in Story & Song.

Over his 25-year career, Javier has built a life around music’s power to heal, connect, and tell the truth about the human experience. This afternoon won’t be a traditional concert or lecture. Javier will share his story through music and conversation, and I’ll help guide us through the experiences, questions, and ideas that have shaped his creative life.

You’ll also have opportunities to join the conversation with questions of your own.

📍 Eden Theological Seminary
🥂 Happy Hour Prelude: 3 PM
🎶 Main Event: 4–6 PM
🎟️ $35 General Admission | $25 Students & Young Adults 25 & under | Discounts available in the event description.

Get your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creating-from-the-soul-javier-mendoza-aka-hobo-cane-dr-tom-wagner-registration-1995921988396?aff=social

09/06/2026

What does it mean to keep choosing love again, and again, and again?

In today’s Sunday Morning Café article, I share the readings Lisa and I proclaimed at our son’s wedding.

It explores how love may be as simple and difficult as this: bearing witness, helping each other carry what we can, and keeping the promise again and again.

☕ Read it here: https://www.tomwagnerspeaker.com/post/a-wedding-reading

09/02/2026

What do you do when the parts of yourself you’d rather get rid of keep showing up?

In the story Tara Brach shares of the Buddha and Mara, fighting the demon only seemed to give her more power. Eventually, the Buddha tried something different: he invited Mara in for tea.

Maybe our own “false self” needs something similar—not free rein, but recognition, curiosity, and acceptance.

☕ Link to this week’s article is in the comments.

(Photo from Tara Brach’s website)

08/30/2026

The ego is a pretty talented shape-shifter.

Accuser. Second-guesser. Prosecuting attorney. Defense attorney. Debater. Even violin player for the occasional pity party.

The invitation isn’t to hate or fight those parts of ourselves, but to notice them, get curious, and meet them with loving acceptance.

Explore the reflection “Warts & All” here: https://www.tomwagnerspeaker.com/post/warts-all

08/26/2026

My son is getting married in two weeks.

And as someone who has spent thirty years studying and working with marriages, I have a few ideas about what helps couples thrive.

So what’s a fella like me supposed to do with all that wisdom when his own beloved child gets married?

The answer I keep coming back to: Make space. Give this new couple room to create their own unique life together, without the unsolicited consultations of yours truly.

☕ Link to this week’s article is in the comments.

08/23/2026

What if one of the best gifts you can give someone you love is space?

In my Sunday Morning Café article earlier this week, I reflected on my son’s upcoming marriage—and on what decades of working with couples have taught me about knowing when to offer wisdom and when to pull back.

Sometimes love asks us to make room for the people closest to us to create a life that is uniquely their own.

Explore the reflection here: https://www.tomwagnerspeaker.com/post/making-space-for-a-new-couple

08/19/2026

I feel a little like what I imagine a monarch caterpillar feels when it gets the hankering to build a chrysalis.

Last week, on silent retreat, I tried something different in my contemplative practice.

Instead of having what often feels like a conversation with myself in God’s presence, I tried to sit wordlessly, thoughtlessly, and without images—in the gaze of the One who loves me with an enormous love.

Time will tell whether this is an evolutionary step forward in my spirituality.

But I have this hope that pretty soon… I’m going to get to fly!

☕ Read this week’s article or listen to the podcast version. Links to both are in the comments.

08/16/2026

More than thirty-five years ago, I stood beneath a eucalyptus canopy surrounded by thousands—maybe millions—of monarch butterflies. At first, I barely noticed them.

Then I heard it: a kind of whispering waterfall, the sound of thousands of butterfly wings flapping.

It made me not just want to keep quiet. It made me want to be quiet.

Decades later, I heard that same kind of sound somewhere I never expected: in the soft, unhurried voices of Benedictine monks praying together.

Both left me with the same invitation—to go deeper into silence.

Check out this week’s article (or the podcast version) for a reflection on contemplative prayer, sacred silence, and the hope of becoming something new.

📖 Read: https://www.tomwagnerspeaker.com/post/sousousiance
🎧 Listen here (or wherever you get your podcasts): https://www.tomwagnerspeaker.com/podcast/episode/2410b6e9/ep-23-smc-article-sousousiance

08/12/2026

I once entered a thirty-day silent retreat ready for spiritual battle. Fasting. Self-denial. Rigorous discipline. Whatever it took.

But my spiritual director had another practice in mind: The “harsh and rigorous discipline of self-compassion.”

It was not the challenge I expected, and perhaps it was the harder one.

Years later, I am still learning that intimacy with God and resilience do not require me to conquer every fear or limitation. They begin with compassionate acceptance of myself, just the way I am.
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☕ Is it easier for you to push yourself or show yourself compassion?
☕ What might a rigorous practice of self-compassion look like today?

Full essay linked in the comments!

08/11/2026