Good morning... When I was growing up, summer was a unique season to savor. Back then, summer always started after Memorial Day weekend, and we didn't returned to school until after Labor Day weekend. School schedules have certainly changed, haven't they? With an early August start for many schools, the months of June and July now condense the [...]
Good morning... Do not allow this world to mold you in its own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing your mind (Romans 12:2a, VOICE). As a friend shared with us an intriguing Richard Rohr quote, I separated the sentences into stand alone truths, truths in which we now steep ourselves. "If we do not [...]
Good morning... Sometimes there is a "before," and then there's an "after." Developmentally, our magical thinking evaporates around at around age ten, replaced by concrete perception and object permanency. There is no recovering what is lost. Good-bye peek-a-boo, magic elves doing mischief in the middle of the night, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and make-believe worlds. We can [...]
Good morning... I have tried three times to write this Maundy-Thursday message. 1:30 - 3:30 am: My plethora of scattered thoughts just simply would not connect. I went back to bed. 7:00 to 9:00 am: After working diligently again, I touched one wrong random button. Away zapped all my hard, irretrievable work. Now it's 9:01 am: I give [...]
Good morning... As I received this image from a dear friend, I was reminded of a quote we read aloud in class this week. ****** Excerpt from page 43 of The Other Side of Chaos by Margaret Silf Transitions are messy. Transitions are chaotic. Transitions are where our hard-won order breaks down into disorder. I remember well the [...]
Good morning... This week, I took pictures of two trees in our back yard. The first photo in each set was taken on Monday. The second in each set was taken on Thursday. Will I open the wooden gate of my innermost self to notice the [...]
Good morning... When I walk and talk with one dear friend, she often notices stray worms inching aimlessly across the surface of the sidewalk. Gently, consistently she picks up every lost worm she sees, placing each in the familiarity of the soil beneath the soft green grass. "I know you love caring for stray worms," I wrote her [...]
Good morning... As I wake in gratitude for these early morning hours, I envision myself quietly living my favorite Mother Teresa quote: "I am a little pencil in the hand of writing God who is sending a love letter to the world." As I invest two or three hours prayerfully pondering, writing, and editing words during the wee [...]
Good morning... After journaling with God about the reflection question posed in yesterday's blog post, Monet This Morning, I emailed my church friend to thank her for the permission to share her photos of the stunning gardens of Monet growing just outside of Paris. As we exchanged emails, I was touched by the generosity of the Spirit blowing [...]
"Good morning," she texted after yesterday's post When We Are Weak And Weary, a post highlighting the soulful symphony of birds and the positive benefits of regularly taking at least seventeen seconds to focus on something soothing, something beautiful, something life-giving. "We are on the same wavelength," my friend wrote, "I recorded this cell phone video on Saturday! [...]
