Good morning... This is the perfect week to learn from a training on trauma. School shooting. Images of war. Cancer returning. Laying to rest a beloved husband. Powerful pleas for God to heal. In my tiny corner of the world, I am processing a plethora of strong emotions. Do you feel the same? Two takeaways from our training [...]

Good morning... Yesterday I took magazines, glue sticks, scissors, and evocative pre-cut images to our PAWkids therapeutic community group. I also shared my growing deck of Soul Collage cards, providing an example of our creative activity for the day. When we checked in with one another, as we do each week, one woman quickly picked up the card [...]

Good morning... "Sue, Chris is in the arms of Jesus." My dear, longtime 'soul friend' texted on Saturday evening. "He passed away this morning. All is well. Love you." Wow, what a touching message. Having walked and talked through this journey together for years and years and years, Chris went to heaven at age 67. Early onset Alzheimers [...]

Good morning... In our PAWkids therapeutic community group last Tuesday, we used "Blob Ridge" to describe our feelings. We colored in the blobs with which we resonated most. I felt like the orange person on the far right, being hugged and supported throughout my best birthday week ever. At the same time I felt like the yellow person [...]

Good morning... I hold in my hand one of the Soul Collage cards created on my 60th birthday. I feel held, kept, carried. Eyes closed, focused inward, taking quiet time, I glide through these middle-of-the-night moments resting with God. I turned and witnessed something else under the sun: the race does not always go to the swift, the battle is not always won by [...]

Good morning... For my 60th birthday, my friend Ginna hosted a Soul Collage party for a small handful of individuals from various walks of my life. I knew each of the ten women very well, each represented special facets of my evolving story, but most did not know one another. Open to a creative adventure, we came together [...]

Good morning... As I wake in these wee hours on my 60th birthday, my thoughts turn to a story I met this week. I am inspired to savor some cinnamon toast. ****** "Great Things Have Happened" by Alden Nowlan We were talking about the great things that have happened in our lifetimes; and I said, "Oh, I suppose [...]

Good morning... The word mundane means banal. Lowly. Normal. Routine. Day-to-day. Humdrum. Lacking a sense of awe in the absolutely ordinary, we can miss the magic of the present moment. Adversity often amplifies the beauty of the commonplace. As 37-year-old Elizabeth endures harsh treatment for her advanced colon cancer, she writes about the divine dynamic of savoring the [...]

Good morning... A year ago this month, when we were with our 2022 group in Israel, I received a text from my dad reporting that my 83-year-old mom had fallen in exercise class and had broken her femur. That began a fiasco of a year. Surgery. Recovery at the care center in their senior living community. Rehab and [...]

Good morning... Flying back from a whirlwind weekend visiting family and friends in my hometown of Ohio, I nestled into the window seat. Scanning fun photos on my phone, a clear insight dawned: "People. It's the people that make life feel good." "And not just any people," my thoughts continue now, following a full night of sleep, "but [...]