Good morning... Walking toward the excruciating pain of the cross, Jesus is described as "a man of sorrows and suffering, knowing sadness well" (Isaiah 53:3, NLV). How well do we each know our own sadness? In our therapeutic community group, we explored the experience of sadness, the different forms sad can take. Big sad. Small sad. Light sprinkling [...]
Good morning... As shared in yesterday's blog post, Jesus came to nineteen year old Audrey DeShetler in a vision, washing clean her weary feet. "Audrey, you are well." She heard Jesus speak to her directly for the very first time. Then later in the day, another friend wrote to me: "After reading today’s blog, I had to share [...]
Good morning... I began my 62nd birthday week writing a blog post entitled The Art of Aging. Now, look what I just found tucked on our bookshelf - a book entitled The Art of Aging by Sherwin B. Nuland. I vaguely remember a generous friend giving me this gift a while back, and I had yet to open [...]
Good morning... In our reading for this week, our class discovered a unique quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on page 153 of Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. "Whatever your life's work is, do it well... If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep the streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare [...]
Good morning... Yesterday, I received this precious birthday card from my parents in Ohio. It blended beautifully with the touching poem I received at 7:30 am. "Birth-day" by Lucille Clifton blessed my inbox. The poem's first words and final words sum up our life at every age. today we are possible. what we will become waits in us [...]
Good morning... A handful of people disagreed with a quote I shared in our last post, a quote from John Mark Comer's book Practicing the Way. On page 74, Comer writes: “The spiritual teacher Pete Scazzero once told me a maxim that was passed on to him by an older, wiser mentor: ‘The best decade of your life [...]
Good morning... In the morning, I watched the trailer below, a trailer for The Barefoot Artist, an inspirational documentary about Lily Yeh. "Our world is full of darkness. What can an artist do?" asks Yeh. At 84 years old, Lily is fueled by the profound belief that people can instill social change by creating art projects in some [...]
Good morning... After our life-giving discussion, she sent us all a text: "I just read this poem and it makes me think of our book and the special bond within this group, as we each remind each other that the sun does indeed shine." ****** "Coping" by Audre Lorde It has rained for five days running the world [...]
Good morning... There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re [...]
Good morning... A friend sent me this image last night, and for some reasons it's etherial, earthy tones jogged my memory about tonight's unique full moon. A total lunar eclipse will occur at around 12:55 am tonight, taking up to 3 hours, 38 minutes for the Earth to pass in front of the moon. Because of the moon's [...]
