Good morning... As I have invested hours upon hours creating a companion journal for our upcoming "Awake To Wholeness" Women's Retreat, I ran across these very life-giving words: "Only those who have confronted their pride and come to humility fully experience harmony in relationship with God, with others, and with self," says ninety-four year old Christian mystic Betty Skinner. [...]
Good morning... Watching a news story, I pulled out a blank piece of paper and jotted down four strong words. "Hate." "Hurt." "Hope." "Heal." Coupled together, they form opposite ends of the continuum upon which our daily life teeters. Hate/Hurt..........................Hope/Heal It is important to ask ourselves, moment by moment, "Which magnetic pull is grabbing my full attention?" God’s [...]
Good morning... As my husband was brushing his teeth yesterday morning, I walked into the bathroom and said, "Happy Ash Wednesday!" "I'm not sure those words really go together," he said. "Happy." "And Ash Wednesday." So I deepened my voice and dragged down my candescence, "Dreary and dreaded Ash Wednesday to you." Later in the day, as our [...]
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... "Many words rush along like rivers in flood, but deep wisdom flows up from artesian springs," says Proverbs 18:4 in The Message translation. "The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream," says Proverbs 18:4 in the New International Version. "The words of a man’s mouth are like deep waters [copious [...]
Good morning... "When you take a child and you sit a box on top of them, all they know is what is inside the box," said the quote that began this week's morning messages. "But if you remove that box then the rest of the world is at their fingertips." The same is true for all of us, [...]
Good morning... I have heard the expression: "Hurting people hurt." This week I was introduced to the flip side: "Healing people heal." Pondering this phrase in the wee hours of the night, I open an email from Jan Johnson, a California professor from my spiritual direction training program. For me, Jan puts flesh on the bones of these [...]
Good morning... Two quotes of divine wisdom creatively collided and fell into me yesterday. “There's a lovely Hasidic story," writes author Anne Lamott, "of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. One of them asked, 'Why on our hearts, and not in them?' The rabbi [...]
Good morning... The life-changing influence of my favorite book continues to expand. In the fall of 2007, I met the first edition of The Hidden Life Awakened when Becky Anderson, the beloved scribe of Christian mystic Betty Skinner, spoke at our church on the newly released book chronicling Betty's journey up from the valley of clinical depression to the peak [...]
Good morning... In my quiet time of prayer I think about our Jewish friends who witnessed the stabbing of hatred in the safety of their rabbi's home, the shock of Sunday morning worshippers fired upon by a gunman in the sacredness of their small sanctuary, and the complex grief of the family and friends of those misguided men [...]
