Good morning... One week ago today, my husband and I sat on our back porch watching online the celebration of life service for a fifteen-and-a-half year old who died unexpectedly. Being ministry friends with his dad, our hearts broke for this faithful family and their many friends on that solemn Holy Saturday, before the resurrection power of Easter [...]
Good morning... I have been with people as they have taken their last breath. Sacred. Surreal. The eternal spirit leaves the still body. Life, lovely while it lasts, is soon over. Life as we know it, precious and beautiful, ends. The body is put back in the same ground it came from. The spirit returns to God, who [...]
Good morning... Grateful to turn fifty-seven today, I am experiencing my most extreme birthday ever. The word "extreme" is a multifaceted one. As an adjective, "extreme" means very far removed from the ordinary or an outermost point farthest from the norm. As a noun, "extreme" means the highest degree, like "cautious to an extreme," or two things as different from each [...]
Good morning... I have been pondering a portion of the Richard Rohr quote shared in our recent post Our Uphill Climb. "...do not waste a moment of time lamenting poor parenting, lost job, failed relationship, physical handicap, gender identity, economic poverty, or even the tragedy of any kind of abuse," wrote Rohr. In my heart of hearts, I [...]
Good morning... Last Friday night, November 1st, I attended my friend's Day of the Dead party, a sacred evening when we celebrate loved ones who have gone on to heaven. The photo above is the altar I built to honor two young men, two of my 24-year-old son's close high school buddies, who have died suddenly in the [...]
Good morning... Sometimes we meet soul-to-soul before we ever see one another face-to-face. This is the sacred situation occurring between me and a subscriber from Charlotte, North Carolina. Mary writes me periodically to fill me in on her painful process of grieving her son, Dalton, who died suddenly at age twenty-one. In previous posts on the topic of [...]
Good morning... As I read these words aloud to our class yesterday, I wished I could whisper them into the ear of the reader struggling with a sense of uselessness, the many strangers who have lost everything in fire or flood, and my sleepless loved ones worrying, "Has our daughter's cancer returned?" "What authentic work is mine to [...]
Good morning... I crossed my legs and closed my eyes as she privately read aloud to me an excerpt from Nan Merrill's paraphrase of Psalm 106. ****** May we become bearers of joy, we who are invited to share in the Cosmic Dance! We pray for the gift of wisdom, that the motivations of our heart might be [...]
Good morning... I woke to her email, short and deep. I wrote her right back, deep and long. Somehow God ministered to both of us as we unpacked our pain. Sharing just my private response, I invite you into our intimate expression. ****** Personal Email from Sue Allen - August 30th, 2019 Another suicide? Yes, it is completely [...]
Good morning... "Sue, Thank you for your post this morning," she wrote after yesterday's message Flip On The Light. "Watching the movie clip made me smile and cry, which surprised me. I think it is a lot of things wrapped into one." She went on to explain, "One of the greatest compliments that I have received, since our 7-year-old [...]
