Good morning... One word sticks with me from this week's blog posts: yield. It strikes me that yield has a double meaning. The Free Dictionary tells us that to yield, on one hand, means to give up one's place to one who is superior, to surrender or to submit, to defer to or to concede. Day after day, we [...]
Good morning... This Easter morn, we remember back to the final moments of Jesus hanging on the cross. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” [...]
Good morning... "Because of my tech savvy ineptness, I couldn’t write about this picture of a pansy," she wrote me the day after our final Waking Up Whole Zoom class. "This pansy is from my garden," she explained in her follow up email. "I named it 'bloom where you don’t want to be planted.'" I like the persistent [...]
Good morning... As we head into Holy Week (tomorrow is Palm Sunday), I think Henri Nouwen's meditation from yesterday provides powerful perspective. ****** DAILY MEDITATION | MARCH 26, 2021 - Jesus’ Hiddenness I don’t think you’ll ever be able to penetrate the mystery of God’s revelation in Jesus until it strikes you that the major part of Jesus’ [...]
Good morning... Enjoying a homemade, outdoor birthday dinner with two besties in my bundle, I am so grateful I was born in the spring. Spring is new life, longer days, and bursting beauty. Spring is renewal, revamping, reimagining. Spring is what happens when we wait with hope through the dark, cold, harsh, winter after winter. The day after [...]
Good morning... On One Special Saturday while volunteering for Julie's Dream, I met a fascinating person. In his morning and afternoon talks, Omar Howard challenged the at risk teens from PAWkids to think wisely about their daily decisions. Omar, the founder of Freedom is a Choice Inc., is a successful individual with an incarcerated history. He uses his [...]
Good morning... Today is the final Friday morning class of this weird semester. We have gathered in an open space at church rather than the cozy warmth of our living room. We have pulled uncomfortable stackable chairs into a circle, six feet apart, rather than relaxing on our couches with pillows, blankets, and our furry, friendly dogs. We [...]
Good morning... This week I received a powerful poem from a forever friend who has taught me so much about grieving well and tenderly embracing every ounce of life. "A Center" by Ha Jin You must hold your quiet center, where you do what only you can do. If others call you a maniac or a fool, just [...]
Good morning... Rain whispers, "Stay home. Keep warm. Relax inside." Yet as I am home, I think of the vulnerable. As I keep warm, I pray for those who are cold. As I relax inside, I hold in my heart those tossed and torn up by stormy unrest. As rain [...]
Good morning... Yesterday morning's rising sun was hidden in a sea of thick, rainy grey. Then as we marveled at last night's setting sun, a Bible verse came to mind. In Genesis 8:22, God makes a powerful promise: "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will [...]
