Good morning... Blinking open his five senses to novel sights, smells, and sounds, the newly born Jesus ...was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice (John 1:10b, MSG). Noticing Immanuel, God's powerful presence with us, does not happen immediately. Often, especially during the hectic of the holidays, we have a hard [...]
Good morning... In my dream I had gotten a brand new car, and the next morning I woke thrilled to spin away on my spiffy fresh wheels. Pushing the automatic opener attached to my pristine sun visor, I opened the garage door to make my car's maiden voyage. Fiddling with the new feel, I put the car in [...]
Good morning... In the quiet of right now, I envision my mind slowly lifting her inner sails, trying to catch the power of God's steadily stirring winds. I do not pray so I can change the brilliant mind of God. I pray so God transforms the changing mind in me. And do not be conformed to this world [...]
Good morning... Remember the hard labor I experienced last month? I felt like I was birthing a 12-pound baby as I delivered into the world the manuscript for this year's Advent devotional entitled With God Weather Life. Well, since I pushed the words into this world, we fine-tooth-combed her full head of hair and took gorgeous black and white [...]
Good morning... "Life is all about practicing for heaven," says Richard Rohr (Falling Upward, 101). "We practice by choosing union freely - ahead of time - and now. Heaven is the state of union both here and later. As now, so will it be then." In my mind God translates this quote into a three word directive: "BE ONE [...]
Good morning... I hate it when I spend early morning hours crafting a blog post, and then a misguided mistake makes it vanish, disappear, blip away in an instant. Of course it's me. I swipe wrong. I touch something I shouldn't. My non-technical mind makes some errant error. I hate it when I spend early morning hours crafting [...]
Good morning... Being with my spiritual mentor Betty Skinner last weekend reminds me of the "Be the Ball" scene from the 1980 movie Caddyshack. Traveling to Ponte Vedra, Florida to visit with 93-year-old Betty, I had questions about life, about faith, about God. I have admired the way Betty has landed herself in the center of God's will for [...]
Good morning... I just happened upon a Scripture verse that sums up our Source of eros, life-giving energy. 1 John 5:6-8 in The Message translation says: Jesus—the Divine Christ! He experienced a life-giving birth and a death-killing death. Not only birth from the womb, but baptismal birth of his ministry and sacrificial death. And all the while the Spirit is [...]
Good morning... I was captivated by yesterday's post on The Hidden Life Awakened website, a website beautifully created by the co-author of a book with the same name, my dear friend Kitty Crenshaw. The blog post reminded me of the life-giving wisdom I soaked in from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm last Friday at the University of Georgia [...]
Good morning... "Dear friend, as always, I am SOO PROUD of you for this wonderful birth," she wrote after yesterday's post, I Just Birthed A Baby. "You are just in an amazing season of being highly in tune with God's rhythm." She continued: "When you asked the question of us however, what am I pregnant with? I burst [...]
