Good morning... "I appreciate your efforts in presenting the 'Living Fully - Dying Well' series," she emailed me after we finished our six-week series on peacefully attending to various facets of the final season of life. On the last week we each brought symbols of loved ones who have gone ahead of us to heaven. A funny bow [...]
Good morning... "Jung divided life into two phases. The first phase, or 'morning,' is reserved for relating and orienting to the outer world by developing the ego," we read aloud as a class yesterday from page 9 of Sue Monk Kidd's When The Heart Waits. "The second half, or 'afternoon,' is for adapting to the inner world by [...]
Good morning... Remember? I shared with you that my parents, ages 80 and 81, moved away from our hometown of Berea, Ohio after living there for over fifty years. Following the lead of several good friends, on November 1st, 2018 they moved into a two-bedroom, two-bath villa in a continuing care, retirement community twenty minutes away. In early [...]
Good morning... What does the invisible love of God look like visibly, as the Holy Spirit morphs fluidly between our individuality and our cohesiveness? “Let there be spaces in your togetherness," says Khalil Gibran in his most famous literary work, The Prophet. "And let the winds of the heavens dance between you." "Fill each other's cup but drink [...]
Good morning... Inspired by our post about the unifying synchronicity of the leaf-feather-stick trio resting on the sands of Grayton Beach, Florida, one of you turned me on to the God-designed instinct implanted in starlings. "When you read about what murmuration is, you will see lots of possibilities for how groups/teams/families/systems might work together to flex and adapt [...]
Happy New Year, my friend... I wake thinking to myself, "Yesterday, the last day of 2018, summed up well the peaks and the valleys of my entire year." Thinking back over your own yesterday, how did that one day encapsulate your whole year? Observation #1: I woke in Grayton Beach, Florida in the cozy home of a generous [...]
Good morning... Many of you could relate to yesterday's post Sadness Is A Low-grade Fever. As I was editing the message to make it more meaningful, the sun came out after several grey days and a subscriber sent me this heart-warming video. "I hope this makes you smile, Sue," he wrote, understanding that sadness and joy are flip-sides [...]
Good morning... Another Mary has come into my life this holiday season. A subscriber wrote: "Sue, your readers may enjoy 'Making the House Ready for the Lord' by Mary Oliver. It's a favorite of my poetry group at St. Anne's Terrace." So I took his advice and I checked out this poem, written in 2006, by this new-to-me Mary, [...]
Good morning... My inbox was inundated after yesterday's post, I Was Just Trying To Help. Often we are blind to the ways our "helping" hurts. I will share three email exchanges fleshing out our tendency to addictively "help" without God's consent. Why do we think we are a better savior than our Savior? ****** Martha's comment: "Oh Sue what [...]
Good morning... "Blessed are the flexable, for they shall not be bent out of shape," says the church sign welcoming the holidays. To be "bent out of shape" implies that we start with a strong, solid shape in mind. Consciously or unconsciously, we think we know how the holidays "should" go, "should" look, "should" feel. Yet our best [...]
