Good morning... As the sun sets on 2020, we see more clearly the single purpose for which we are born. With all of this year's chaos and clashing, death and disconnection, unrest and uncertainty, our single purpose rests firmly in focus. Henri Nouwen said it well in a post from this week. ****** Henri Nouwen DAILY MEDITATION | [...]
Good morning... "Merry Christmas," she wrote after yesterday's post, A Nifty Poem. "I love this poem. Our special retreat in Blue Ridge is like an outdoor church for me with a beautiful open field and surrounding woods. I love to take long quiet walks. I can listen to the Bobolink and his bird friends sing their songs and [...]
Good morning... "Every year since we've been married, we've traveled to see our families," she said over the phone yesterday. "Today is the day we always leave, we head up north, we go to my parent's home to gather with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Then we spend time with my husband's family. For the first time, [...]
Good morning... "The grass isn't always greener on the other side," whispers my most recent Goodwill find. The grass isn't always greener on the other side of losing a job, releasing a loved one to heaven, facing life following an accident, an illness, physical diminishment. The grass isn't always greener on the other side when an alcoholic can't [...]
Good morning... At Goodwill, pre-pandemic, I was drawn to the ugliest necklace I have ever seen. Gaudy and overcrowded. Heavy and weighed down. Haphazardly strung together and hanging on by a thread. As I picked up the necklace, examining the creation more closely, I admired the individual stones. Natural, God-made gems. Each gemstone was unique, size, shape, and [...]
Good morning... Led by the Spirit, an altar is being created in our foyer with all of the tiny treasures I find on my walks. Things fall off. It's nature's way. Things fall off. Colorful feathers, black acorns, buckeye nuts, chipped off hearts made of bark or stone. When I walked and talked with a friend recently, we [...]
Good morning... Into the sacred space between us, we pop-corned our answers to these three poignant questions: "This month, what are you losing? What are you loving? What are you learning?" I made three different columns on my blank journal page to collect the words popping out of our mouths. Losing - Hugs. Trick or treat. Structure. Self-discipline. Motivation. [...]
Good morning... Quickly scrolling through some old text messages between myself and two best friends, what stood out to me from the long sea of words was the pictures. The three images below captured my attention before God added an encouraging commentary. Wearied by the world, can we endure the powerful process of [...]
Good morning... I woke this morning with a verse saturating my mind. I got out of bed, went to my Bible, and searched for the verse. Here's what I found. "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the [fermenting] wine will [expand and] burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the wineskins. But [...]
Good morning... "Nature, at a glance, is random and chaotic," my artist friend Corinne Adams wrote in her email. "Yet underlying this apparently disordered and complex system are intricate patterns, interconnected relationships, bold repetitions and a system of self-organization." "I am called into nature," she explains, "first, to observe what is there and to invite it [...]
