Good morning... Sarah Otto, the Retreat and Program Director at Ignatius House Retreat Center, reached out to me on Tuesday morning. "I realize I didn't text you about an upcoming ISP retreat!" she wrote. (Remember, ISP stands for Ignatian Spirituality Project, a program which offers quarterly spiritual retreats for people recovering from homelessness and addiction in our community). [...]
Good morning... Purple is the common ground created when red, white, and blue are combined with loving care. Purple taps into God's guiding power, creative, cooperative, collaborative. As I was pondering these thoughts, I was surprised to find and to follow an actual path in the woods clearly marked by purple blazes. On page 26, we pick up [...]
Good morning... After re-reading yesterday's post, This Unique Summer, I embodied a fresh prayer on my morning walk. "LORD, please help me to be grateful for each creature greeting me on my path, and help me to recognise an angel at every corner." Soon, I happened upon this stack of old tires. Piled up. Strewn about. Disheveled, in [...]
Good morning... Preparing to see Inside Out 2 in the theatre, I re-watched the original 2015 version of Inside Out. Inside Out tracks the inner workings of the mind of Riley, a young girl who struggles to adapt to her family's move, as five personified emotions guide her thoughts and her actions. One of my favorite parts of [...]
Good morning... Kyshona Armstrong is a singer-song writer who has performed on the shores of Florida's 30-A. Kyshona tenderly reminds us, "We are fallen people living in a fallen world. We're fallen people, people who who hurt." Having savored the song several times, it strikes me that "hurt" is a multifaceted word. "Hurt" goes both ways. Throughout our [...]
Good morning... For some unknown reason, this fun photo of my dad has gotten saved on my computer desktop. Without a technical bone in my body, I am a very unusual daily blogger. I am not on social media. I don't know how computers work. And I really have no idea how this photo got saved on my [...]
Good morning... "Why bother?" asks Sean Thomas Dougherty. Then, he answers his own question. "Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words." Painful wounds and healing words meet at the right moment. Here, at the crossroads of wounds and words, God's presence is palpable. Might the power of [...]
Good morning... I woke to the gift of a beautiful text yesterday. A friend in our Monday afternoon group shared the link to her daughter's telling of their family's grief journey. Listening to her vulnerable story was so life-giving to me, so I asked, "Might I share this link with others?" "Of course," she replied. "Our family has [...]
Good morning... Returning to our collective wisdom, I pulled out my page of notes from our therapeutic community group at PAWkids on Tuesday morning. These words strengthened me for unexpectedly hard moments ahead. We can’t selectively feel our emotions. We can’t choose the “good” ones without dealing with the “bad" ones. Our feelings are all intertwined. I don’t [...]
Good morning... In the middle of this droopy, drizzly night, I think back on the most meaningful two hours of this week. On Sunday night, Elizabeth, the 38-year-old daughter-in-law of our dear friend Joan, shared a really hard post, explaining that her colon cancer had spread. "Any chance you all can have lunch with Joan and I tomorrow?" [...]
