Good morning... When I look back on this week of growing spiritually with you, I must admit I was a bit embarrassed that I had written about God "easter-ing" in us on the Monday after a weekend revealing another senseless synagogue shooting. "Easter-ing" is about Christ living on in us, right? And our Jewish friends have different beliefs [...]
Good morning... "I will not die an unlived life," begins the Dawna Markova quote our friend read aloud to us in class. "I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible; to loosen my heart until [...]
Good morning... In my quiet time this morning, I am drawn to cultivate yesterday's controversial post, expanding the fertile, common ground beneath our feet. Whether we walk to the middle with God from the left or walk to the middle with God from the right, As we take into our body the broken body of Christ, we are united [...]
Good morning... Whatever life phase you wake up to this springtime Sabbath, God's endless love rains down fresh and gentle. “Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, As the light rain upon the tender grass, And as the spring showers upon the herb" (Deuteronomy 32:2, AMP). What teaching has the LORD dropped [...]
Good morning... As we savor this Sabbath, we look at the remnants of the spiritual onion we have been exploring together. Our posts from this week are developing in us the art of living through the layers of life (touch the "Previous" link at the top of this post to review our morning messages). Whatever season is surrounding [...]
Good morning... Yesterday's post by the Henri Nouwen Society explains the process of shedding our old self to gradually mature into our God-designed true self, "growing up in all things" into Christ, our Head (Ephesians 4:15). I wonder if somehow this is what happened to me when I moved from the close-knit cocoon of loving and being loved [...]
Good morning... From a retrospective distance, moving from life phase to life phase may seem seamless, but in the middle of leaving behind "what was" while waiting precariously for "what will be," we often struggle to be satisfied with the scraps of "what is." As I have shared with you before, I hit my deepest time of depression [...]
Good morning... I love the tense of the verb in Revelation 21:5a (NIV). “I am making everything new!” "I am making everything new," says the Sustainer of life. Not I will make everything new. Or I was going to make everything new, but I changed My mind when I saw humanity's mess. When we savor Sabbath, stopping and resting, [...]
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... On Saturday, August 4th, 2018, three of us hiked quietly through a mountainous forest near Cashiers, North Carolina. We came upon an interesting plaque beside a fallen tree. "Competition is fierce in nature," read the engraved words, "even among the beautiful trees, shrubs, and herbs in the forest. Sunlight, water, and nutrients are quietly 'fought over' by [...]
