Good morning... "Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows one to survive and, better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, humor, and style," reads the cover quoting wise spiritual mentor Maya Angelou. When I delightfully dished over ninety-nine cents last week at Goodwill, I had no idea this journal would capture [...]
Good morning... God has bound into my spiritual "bundle" ninety-five year old Betty Skinner. Let me tell you why her vibrant life is so very important to me. When I read the original printed version of The Hidden Life, published by Kitty Crenshaw and Dr. Cathy Snapp in 2006, the spirit of the main character, Betty, leapt from [...]
Good morning... Years ago I learned of a Quaker concept called "bundle." Over the years, God has enhanced my small seed of understanding. The main gist is that we are all born into this world wired for a unique "bundle" of people, people we are designed to spiritually influence and to be influenced by over our lifetime. Our [...]
Good morning... "Dear Friend," she wrote after yesterday's post My Five Year Headache. "About the time you wrote to me, I was stirring and ready to slip downstairs for coffee and a chapter or two from my current book Lighthousekeeping. I made coffee and read these words: Tell me a story . . . What story, child? One [...]
Good morning... This morning, I have no idea why my computer returned itself to emails from this very same week five years ago. Back then, a subscriber to our everyday blog had sent me the photo above from her back yard in Florida. In retrospect, now I realize I felt much like the silhouette of this lone little [...]
Good morning... After teaching our Zoom class in the cozy quiet of our newly decorated church parlor, I packed up my candle and laptop, I gathered my phone and purple notebook, and, after talking with a few friends on the staff, I walked out into the brick courtyard on the way to our car. Just outside the door, [...]
Good morning... On January 7th I received a very fun email: "We have a precious senior in high school who, for the past few years, raises money to purchase roses and Godiva chocolates and delivers them to our homebound church members for Valentine’s Day," wrote a friend from the Pastoral Care department at Northside Church. "It is an [...]
Good morning... Last Saturday Steve borrowed a tux, and we thoroughly enjoyed a highly anticipated black tie wedding with longtime friends. The dynamic wedded couple, who had dated diligently for over a decade, will now enjoy many, many more decades growing together in oneness with God and each other. The joyful wedding video from last Saturday is not [...]
Good morning... We are each a strange mixture of sometimes selfish, sometimes kind, sometimes building up, sometimes tearing down, sometimes annoyingly anxious and sometimes exuding peace. Each human heart is a many-faceted thing. We influence others as we are gradually transformed by God. Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know [...]
Good morning... As I was searching for a simple way to bring to life the first three chapters of Genesis, I ran into this really cool rendition of two artists' expression of Genesis 3. God also drew me to Luke 7:40-47 in the Message translation to balance our bad debt with God's abundant goodness. Up from our common [...]
