Good morning... Today is a new day. The sins of yesterday need not expand into the sins of today. Ugly thoughts. Biting words. Selfish deeds. Together with God, we can nip these painful buds right off our branch, letting them fall to the ground, to become humbling hummus for the soil beneath our feet. As we allow our [...]
Good morning... Nosegay. When is the last time you heard the word nosegay? Tickling my attention, this weird word appeared in our recent post God's Message In My Dream. Often when the "indwelling Divine Guest whose Voice is spoken in the Silence" speaks into my ordinary life, the LORD's language sounds foreign. "God, what is a nosegay?" I scribble in [...]
Good morning... The healing power of the rippling river is our only hope. When flow from the heights is bullied and blocked, stifling sediment collects. Over years this happens between us. Division builds up. Loving expression slows down. Dry. Hard. Unmoving. Exposed is an ugly rock bed, separating "us" from "them." Within arms length, each side has stones [...]
Good morning... I lingered in silent solitude after a life-giving session with my spiritual director. Sitting still for as long as I needed, I soaked in the palpable presence of God. I quietly felt compelled to pull out my old IPhone 6S to take pictures of three framed sayings resting in the borrowed room. "holding onto anger is [...]
Good morning... We are a skipping stone. Skimming across life's smooth surface. In constant motion. At break-my-neck speed. We feel in control as we fast-forward to our goal. For a while. Newton famously says, "An object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." An [...]
Good morning... When life crumbles all around us, we cling to the God who gives us breath. During our Friday morning class, I read aloud these convicting words. ****** Excerpt from Paula D'Arcy's Seeking God With All My Heart On retreat in Indiana, I listened to a tape recording of a talk by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen was challenging [...]
Good morning... Seeing through the shadows of our pointy porcupine of self-protection, God continues our conversation. The Lord called out to the man and asked, “Where are you?” The man answered, “I was naked, and when I heard you walking through the garden, I was frightened and hid!” “How did you know you were naked?” God asked. “Did [...]
Good morning... What is God saying to you from the gaping hole between us? This is what I hear right now from my side of the gap. God lives on my side and God lives on yours. Leaning into our LORD, we are buffered by God's living love. You are not designed to meet my needs and I [...]
Good morning... I am repeating this image from yesterday's post because I love it so. It captures my experience. In overwhelming moments, it is so very "me." Much like the Cousin Itt character in the 1964 The Addams Family TV series, sometimes I feel like my wild-haired emotions cover my entire body, especially hiding my eyes, rendering me [...]
Good morning... Yesterday as a family, we donned disposable hair nets with plastic aprons and gloves to assemble meals for the homeless through Hosea Feed the Hungry. For the first year of this annual Christmas tradition, I left feeling badly about the gift we had given. To me, the meals we served in styrofoam boxes felt unfair and inconsistent. [...]
