Good morning... "Our spiritual life is not one slice in a loaf of bread with others slices representing family, work, church, neighborhood, and so on," says author and spiritual director Jan Johnson. "Our life with God is the leaven permeating the entire loaf. And when we ignore God's presence in all of life, our soul weakens and we shrink [...]
Good morning... My forever writer-friend emailed me. "Loved your post about tweaking your final tweet. We are in constant edit mode, aren't we, as we listen harder, hear more? Reading a book of poems called A Maze Me: Poems for Girls by Naomi Shihab Nye this morning and loved this one. I thought you would, too. ****** Because of [...]
Good morning... The night before the memorial service, I had an intense dream. It was like I was traveling through an invisible, physical barrier between earth and heaven. I felt as if I was in one of those airplane movies where people hold on for dear life and their faces contort in unimaginable ways as they fight through strong, [...]
Good morning... A few days back, a sobering announcement came into my blog email. It took away my breath and brought me to tears. Your list has lost a subscriber: Julie Harlan. I thought to myself, "What an understatement. We have lost much more than a subscriber." Julie was a devoted wife and mother, a beloved daughter and friend, [...]
Good morning... In my message yesterday morning, I honored my faithful friend Julie Harlan and by mid afternoon I got word that Julie had passed on to heaven. Her husband's words posted earlier this week have met their sequel. Chad wrote on Julie's CaringBridge page, "EVERYONE wonders how this rare form of cancer could happen to a healthy, fit, [...]
Good morning... In class, I made an observation, "God gave us two ears and one mouth. I think He designed us to listen twice as much as we talk." One woman leaving our study said, "I never thought about that, but it is so true. I cannot envision how two mouths would work on my face!" When I reflected [...]
Good morning... Millions of people around the world turned out for hundreds of simultaneous gatherings on Saturday. More than one million people joined marches in the United States, including hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C., for the Women’s March on Washington. “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy,” President Trump tweeted. “Even if I don’t always agree, I [...]
Good morning... "Our minds are always active," said Henri Nouwen's 1.14.16 morning meditation. "We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is 'unceasing.' Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, [...]
Good morning... "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you really are," says Carl Yung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. 'Who we really are' is established by our Creator long before the day of our birth. Each of us whispers in wonder the words of Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT). "You made all the delicate, [...]
Good morning... Following our opening prayer, we began a new semester. "As I read aloud the first paragraph of our book, notice which words pop out to grab you." Together we listened attentively. "When applied to the spiritual life, the metaphor of a journey is both helpful and somewhat misleading. Helpfully it reflects the fact that the essence of [...]
