Friday Focus 🔎 journey | burden | manifestation

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Welcome to Friday Focus!

Welcome to Friday Focus, my weekly letter from PAX Renewal Center. I’m glad you’re here, whether you’ve been reading for years or just found your way to this little corner of your inbox.

A thread of rest and return runs through this week’s letter. I’m rereading an old favorite, Murray Bodo’s Francis: The Journey and the Dream, sitting with Jesus’ invitation to the weary in Matthew’s Gospel, and letting John Muir remind me how a mountain can stop us in our tracks with wonder. In this Year of St. Francis, we also hear how he met the end of his life with a song. For couples, you’ll find this month’s free conversation prompts and the second half of our series on when a marriage needs more than another promise to “try harder,” including a word of hope for the days when things feel hopeless. And we’ll close by looking up, where a New Moon gives us the darkest, starriest skies of the month.

As always, I hope something here brings you a little more peace to carry into the weekend.

Dan Jurek contributed to this week’s newsletter

What I’m Reading

Francis: The Journey and the Dream by Murray Bodo

This is one of my favorite books about St. Francis, his life, and his spirituality. Father Bodo writes with a poet’s reflective wisdom, drawing out spiritual truths and lessons in Gospel living for every Christian. It’s one of those special books you don’t just read. You pray with it, and you invite the Holy Spirit to inspire and transform you along the way.

A Free Resource for Couples

October Conversation Prompts

October has a way of slowing things down. The light softens, the evenings come a little earlier, and there’s finally a good reason to linger on the porch. This month’s conversation prompts are a simple way to use that time well. Pick one over morning coffee or on a quiet drive, ask it, and then simply listen. No fixing, no solving. Just two people getting curious about each other again.

Download your free October Conversation Prompts here.

A Passage From Sacred Scripture

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

~ Matthew 11:28-30

For reflection: A yoke is made for two. What have you been carrying alone that was never meant to be carried alone? What might it look like this week to let Christ (and perhaps your spouse) share the weight?

In This Year of St. Francis:

A Song at the End

“It happened at the end that St. Francis was resting a few days in one of his favorite places when he realized that the time of his death was near. He therefore summoned two of his brothers and spiritual sons and commanded them to sing joyfully and in a loud voice the praises of the Lord over his approaching life. Francis himself then sang, as best as he could, the psalm of David, which begins, ‘Yahweh, I am calling. Hurry to me. Listen to my voice when I call to you.’ (Psalm 141:1)”

~ Celano, First Life, 109

A Quote Worth Reflecting On

“The whole mountain appeared as one glorious manifestation of divine power, enthusiastic and benevolent, glowing like a countenance with ineffable repose and beauty, before which we could only gaze in devout and lowly admiration.”

~ John Muir, Steep Trails (1918)

An Invitation For Couples

A 2-Day Marriage Intensive with Dan 

The Covenant Repair Intensive™

When I was first learning to play the guitar, I noticed something. If I only practiced once a week, my fingers had forgotten most of what they’d learned by the time I picked it up again. But when I gave it a few focused days in a row, something finally clicked.

Marriage can work the same way.

Last week, I shared three signs that a marriage may need more than another promise to “try harder”: the same fight on repeat, feeling more like opponents than teammates, and running low on hope. Here are the last two.

4. Counseling isn’t building momentum. Let me be clear. Weekly counseling is good work, and I’ve done it for decades. But there are seasons when an hour every week or two simply isn’t enough. Arguments flare, hurts pile up, life gets busy, and by the next appointment it can feel like you’re starting all over again. Often the problem isn’t willingness. It’s momentum.

5. Separation or divorce has entered the conversation. Many couples assume that once divorce comes up, it’s already too late. The research suggests otherwise. Dr. Bill Doherty and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota found that roughly one in four people in the middle of a divorce were still open to the possibility of reconciling.

Underneath the talk of divorce, there is usually something else. Most couples don’t really want their marriage to end. They want the pain to stop. They want to find their way back to each other. That’s why, when divorce enters the conversation, I believe it’s time to slow down, not speed up.

One Step for This Week: Set aside twenty unhurried minutes, phones in another room, and ask each other one question: “What do you most wish I understood about you right now?” Then listen to understand, not to answer. Where focus goes, energy flows.

A Final Thought: After more than three decades of sitting with couples, I’ve learned that hopelessness is not the same thing as impossibility. What most couples need isn’t another lecture. They need to be understood.

Understanding creates clarity.

Clarity creates hope.

And hope creates the possibility of change.

Scripture reminds us that God can make “a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19). Even the deepest channels can change course.

When You’re Ready for a Few Focused Days

If your marriage needs more than an hour a week right now, that isn’t failure. It’s simply the season you’re in. The Covenant Repair Intensive™ gives the two of you unhurried, concentrated time to understand your pattern and begin practicing a new one together. If that sounds like where you are, let’s talk. Schedule your free 20-minute consultation with Dan. Your marriage is worth the time it takes to find out.

Schedule your free 20-minute consultation

And as always, you can email me at dan@paxrenewalcenter.com. I read every message.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

Night sky for October 9-15, 2026:

This week belongs to the dark. Saturday’s New Moon gives us the deepest, starriest skies of the month, and by midweek a slender crescent returns to the evening twilight. It’s a good week to step outside, let your eyes adjust, and rest a while under the stars.

Key Highlights (Central Daylight Time)

Friday, October 9 (evening): With no moon in the sky, this is a beautiful night for stargazing. Saturn, just past its brightest of the year, glows steadily in the southeast after dark. Higher in the east, look for the Great Square of Pegasus, four stars marking a big, tilted box.

Saturday, October 10: New Moon (10:50 a.m.). The darkest skies of the month. If you can get away from city lights, the Milky Way and even the faint glow of the Andromeda Galaxy are within reach.

Sunday, October 11 (before dawn): Reddish Mars passes right through the Beehive, a lovely little cluster of stars in Cancer. Look high in the east before first light. Binoculars turn it into a small treasure, and brilliant Jupiter shines below.

Monday, October 12 (just after sunset): One for the patient. Mercury reaches its widest separation from the Sun in the evening sky, with a hair-thin crescent moon beside it. Both sit very low in the west-southwest, so you’ll need a clear, flat horizon and binoculars about 30 minutes after the sun has fully set.

Wednesday, October 14 (evening): The easier, prettier sight. A slender crescent moon hangs close to Antares, the red heart of Scorpius, low in the southwest around 7:00 p.m. Look for earthshine, the soft glow on the moon’s darkened side.

Thursday, October 15: Before sunrise, Jupiter and Mars shine in the east-southeast, with the star Regulus just below Jupiter. After sunset, the crescent moon, now about a quarter lit, sits low in the south-southwest.

All week: The Southern Taurid meteors are few (around five an hour), but they are slow and sometimes strikingly bright. With skies this dark, it’s worth lingering.

Looking ahead: The Orionid meteor shower peaks the night of October 21 to 22.

“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of Earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things. All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without we cannot survive.”

~ Hildegard of Bingen

Clinician Spotlight

Dan Jurek

For more than four decades, Dan Jurek has made room for the weary: couples and individuals who arrive carrying more than they were ever meant to carry alone. A longtime acoustic guitar player, he knows that harmony rarely comes all at once. It comes with patient, focused practice, and he brings that same patience to his work. What he has witnessed again and again is that hopelessness is not the same as impossibility. Understanding brings clarity, clarity brings hope, and with hope, a way opens in the wilderness.

“We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home any who have lost their way.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi

These words are more than inspiration. They are the mission that shapes everything Dan does. Rooted in Catholic faith and grounded in decades of clinical practice, he brings warmth, wisdom, and professional depth to every encounter, meeting each person exactly where they are.

Daniel Jurek, M.Min., M.A., LPC-S, LMFT, AAMFT Clinical Fellow, and Certified Spiritual Director, is trained in the Gottman Method, Emotionally Focused Therapy, Imago Relationship Therapy, and Attachment Theory. He serves couples, individuals, and fellow therapists through marriage intensives, retreats, clinical supervision, and continuing education.

Contact us today to make an appointment with Dan! 

Blessings,

Dan and the Clinical Team at PAX Renewal Center