Good morning... "...circumstances in life can shift in the blink of an eye," said the book quote my friend texted me. "Just like that, the forces in life can shift us from rich to poor, from poor to rich, from married to single, from sad to happy, from imprisoned to free, from calm to chaos. Again and again [...]
Good morning... "Thought you would like this," a friend texted me the photo above. She continued: "From a wonderful collection on the Black experience. She has a beautiful poem by the same title." I was intrigued by the quote. "Joy is an act of resistance." To be honest, joy and resistance somehow seem like opposites to me. Oil [...]
Good morning... My mind wakes from sleep filled with a short sentence. "This is an incredibly broken place." What an odd first thought for me, an eternal optimist. When I experience odd, unexpected, surprising, I figure the Spirit of God is somehow rising up to shed light on something new. What might this strange revelation mean? "This is [...]
Good morning... As I was searching for a simple way to bring to life the first three chapters of Genesis, I ran into this really cool rendition of two artists' expression of Genesis 3. God also drew me to Luke 7:40-47 in the Message translation to balance our bad debt with God's abundant goodness. Up from our common [...]
Good morning... "I'm afraid God," I reread my handwriting in yesterday's journal pages. "I finally deepen down to feel my fear. I am afraid of not listening well enough to be Your scribe for a class of seventy-plus women awaiting this week's study segments. I fear that, for sake of timeliness, maybe these words will become my concoction [...]
Good morning... We deepen down into the statement, "When we emerge from this global pandemic, we will be either a drunk, a hunk, a chunk or a monk!" Do we see the two-sided invitation of each temporary state? The drunk may be driven to surrender, craving an intimate connection to our Higher Power. The hunk may get caught [...]
Good morning... Each time I go on a trip, the question is not, "Will I forget to pack something?" The reliable question has become over the years, "What did I forget?" As I shared in our morning message from Sunday, I am spending the week working to finalize this semester's study with God, Waking Up Whole: Mind, Body, [...]
Good morning... As vulnerable babies, we are born in relationship, born into the experience of Genesis 2:25: In those days the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed (VOICE). Then our innate self centeredness elbows others out of the way. Our "Me. Mine. I." begin to run our show. We devour what is not [...]
Good morning... Fifty-eight years ago today, my husband Steve surprised his parents by arriving three weeks early. From the pulpit as a Presbyterian minister, his father was able to announce a double meaning at each Christmas Eve service, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given!" Fast forward to now. Do you remember that [...]
Good morning... Over the phone, she describes in detail her favorite painting of the newborn Jesus with his mom and dad. She notices the image as her guide for this unusual Christmas. She begins, "It's a dingy stable room instead of a soft warm space. The setting reminds me of the small, one room apartments we would encounter [...]
