Good morning... This week in our therapeutic community group at PAWkids, we were encouraged to pick a handful of cards, cards that somehow share our story. The five cards above are the cards I felt drawn to choose, arranging them just so. Take a moment. Really look. Now let's feel our way forward, down and out. Pondering the [...]
Good morning... Some darkness is so very dark, we are rendered speechless. A friend in our Friday group shared this Thomas Merton quote before terrorists slaughtered innocents in Israel. When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of [...]
Good morning... I remember sitting on the rug in a circle one morning during my kindergarten year. We quieted down from our giddy as we were each blindfolded. Then, one child at a time, our teacher tenderly held beneath our nostrils a series of everyday items. I was the only one in class who instantly knew the warm, [...]
Good morning... She read to me the Rachel Naomi Remen quote above and down, down deep it sank. Wisdom settled like a skipping stone at the bottom of my murky sea. "Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or [...]
Good morning... I pull out my copy of In the Shelter by Padraig O Tuama and turn to page 25. I read on from the sentence that first captivated me on Sunday. "Good writing, the adage tells us, is when we read something we've always known but never been able to put to words," writes Padraig. "I remember [...]
Good morning... I happened upon a gorgeous reading just posted by one of my favorite poets. In processing her own grief after her son Finn's death, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has become for many of us like the sweet sun rising in the dark of night. The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back [...]
Good morning... "I just read a beautiful essay on the need to slow down in the face of crisis," my friend emailed me yesterday, "because it’s not possible to do 'drive-by contemplation' — or 'drive-by loving.' I will send you this message…..because I know you will resonate with that phrase 'drive-by loving.' No such thing, either, as 'drive-by [...]
Good morning... "Silence guards the inner heat," writes Nouwen on page 45 in The Way of the Heart. "This inner heat is the life of the Holy Spirit within us. Thus, silence is the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive." Nouwen continues: "Diadochus of Photiki offers us a concrete image: 'When [...]
Good morning... This week the Summer Zoom Study group completed our first book, Henri Nouwen's The Way of The Heart. Thoroughly enjoying this read, we discovered several fascinating, new insights. One nugget of nourishment is found on page 63: "The Desert Fathers did not think of solitude as being alone, but as being alone with God. They did [...]
Good morning... My friend has a cat who companions her beautifully. Our little dog is a lot like her cat. Our precious pets teach us so much about love, about life, about God's gentle presence. I was recently nudged to email my friend: "This poem made me think of you, rocking with your cat curled on your lap, [...]
