Good morning... One mid summer night in 2005, God startled me awake: "Host a Bible study in your home." I recently pulled out the manuscript which chronicles my formation as a writer, a teacher, a daily God-listener. We now pick up the story after our life-changing move from a tiny town in Pennsylvania to the bustling city of Atlanta, [...]
Good morning... "Good morning, Sue," she texted today at 8:03 am. "This is the second morning your wonderful blog posts have a funky format and are not opening. Anyone else mention that?" God and I have been working on a computer issue with our web designer for the past thirty-six hours. Something with a server. Something with a [...]
Good morning... Photos like the one above capture a different day in time, when we could gather, meet up close, connect face to face as the body of Christ. As we consider what it means to "be the church" when many church buildings remain closed due to COVID, we wrestled with an important question posed in yesterday's post, [...]
Good morning... Sunday may be the day that feels most different during this world wide pandemic. For many church-goers across the globe who are used to gathering face to face, close together, week by week, online worship has replaced onsite worship for this unusual period of time. Churches are now negotiating, "What will it look like to come [...]
Good morning... As we wake on the final Sunday of July 2020, our minds meander toward fall. Masks. Social distancing. Balancing our need for safety with our craving for human contact. This will be an audacious autumn. In the shadow of a growing death toll, we are made keenly aware: "Life is short." Will we do stuff that [...]
Good morning... It seems to me, grey is the color of waiting. Not old, not new. Not now, not yet. No agenda, no time frame. No end of the tunnel, no finish line in sight. I think back to my most fertile times of waiting, when new life was gestating inside my womb, out of my sight, expanding [...]
Good morning... Her short text included one soulful sketch created by Atlanta artist Danielle Coke. Postive. Powerful. Process-oriented, right? And I will give them one heart [a new heart], and put a new spirit within them. I will take from them the heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh [that is responsive to [...]
Good morning... Walking our dog, I noticed this conglomerate rock resting in the grass. I picked it up, held it in the palm of my hand, and thought, "This feels like a symbol of me right now. So much new is rising up from the depths of me, moving steadily from unconscious unknowing into conscious awareness." I brought [...]
Good morning... "Our tendency is to run away from the painful realities or to try to change them as soon as possible," Henri Nouwen's morning meditation from yesterday joins our life-giving conversation. "But cure without care makes us into rulers, controllers, manipulators, and prevents a real community from taking shape. Cure without care makes us preoccupied with quick [...]
Good morning... "Loving can be a difficult business," writes Roberta Bondi on page 35 in To Love As God Loves. "It is impossible to grit the teeth and love, no matter how much we want to. That is because human effort is only one of the two basic elements necessary for the fulfillment of all Christian goals and [...]
