Healing Power Expands
Good morning... "Hi Sue!" she emailed after yesterday's blog post. "I absolutely love this statue! I wish this were our symbol for Christ! Risen and victorious rather than defeated hanging on the cross. I heard a priest say one time that wearing a cross as a symbol of Jesus is kind of like wearing a symbol of an electric chair. It is a weird thought but also true in a way." "I think [...]
“Life Wins,” She Said
Good morning... "Life wins," she said quietly. We watched green, vibrant growth crawling all over a fallen tree. Walking the trail at the Ignatius House Retreat Center, we noticed other tangible evidence of God's undeniable truth. "Life wins." We admired a tiny, tenacious fungus bursting from the center of another decaying tree. "Life wins." We marveled at a magnificent waterfall. Right before our eyes, the unstoppable power was widening, [...]
You Will Be Found
Good morning... "Have you ever felt like nobody was there?" begins the song. "Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? Have you ever felt like you could disappear? Like you could fall, and no one would hear." I think we all have moments when we would honestly answer "yes" to these gut-wrenching questions. "Well, let that lonely feeling wash away," the words from a Broadway musical continue. "Maybe there's a [...]
True Friendship Is Forever
Good morning... At 3:18 am yesterday, I completed my early morning hours of writing with God and pushed "send" on our message Fearing Our Best Friend? Then I climbed back in bed and drifted back to sleep. I woke at 6:53 am, returned a text to my daughter, made a pot of coffee, and sat down to re-read our blog post for the day. Our challenging morning message ended with a haunting question: [...]
Steve’s Thoughts On Worry
Good morning... As the upper school chaplain and the middle school wrestling coach at The Lovett School, a day school for kids from kindergarten through twelfth grade, my husband takes turns writing weekly devotional messages with his two chaplain colleagues. Steve's words of wisdom for this week help us to consider, "What are we to do when worry pulls us apart at the seams?" ****** Weekly Devotional for October 18th, 2021 by Rev. [...]
Fearing Our Best Friend?
Good morning... Bonding with our therapeutic small group at PAWkids this week, we were asked to fill in a handful of blanks, completing a series of sentences. One man's answers to two self-reflective questions captured my attention. My best friend ___________________. He answered: "God." I am afraid of ____________________. He answered: "God." I can totally relate to this young black man's ambivalent dilemma. How am I supposed to intimately befriend a God who [...]
When We Feel Wounded
Good morning... "Hi Sue," she emailed me this week. "We are visiting Eastern Europe and were in Vukovar Croatia 🇭🇷 yesterday. There was a terrible civil battle there between the Croats and the Serbs in 1991 when Yugoslavia broke up. This Christ figure survived though the Serbian Orthodox Church of St Phillip and Jacob, where it had been, was almost totally destroyed. They call it "the wounded Jesus"; it has a place of [...]
Praying Twice
Good morning... Following the surface chatter of saying hello, catching up, settling in, we begin each class with few minutes of silence. Meeting outside to minimize COVID concerns has been marvelous this semester, just marvelous. The breeze picks up and dies down. The birds chit-chat then quiet down. An occasional loud truck lumbers by as we deepen down. Down is the motion of us breathing together with God, down into our gut, down [...]
Please Stay With Me
Good morning... "Please stay with me on Monday," she texted our friend group from Sloan Kettering in New York City where their teenaged daughter will undergo surgery to remove her recurring cancer. "It will be a long 10 hours." Spirit to Spirit, from Atlanta to Idaho to NYC, the texts of our five friends came delightfully close. Love. Little stories. Longing, deep longing for God's healing power. "I did not make it to [...]
Football And A Funeral
Good morning... Yesterday, I muted Gameday football to watch the funeral of a thirteen year old girl who died last week in a small engine plane crash at a nearby airport. Afterward, I sat in bed and quietly wept. How did each of her parents speak of their only child with such soulful eloquence? How did her pastor lift up beautiful words from beneath the pile of such deep grief? I cried tears [...]
Living More In Our Lungs
Good morning... For the past twenty-four hours, I have been living more in my lungs. Inhale. Exhale. One breath at a time. Bedding down into my quiet center, I rest at peace with the Giver of each breath. Now up from my gut a Scripture verse dawns. “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply [...]
The Anatomy Of Peace
Good morning... A wise woman shared with me a powerful poem. Now I pass along God's peace to you. ****** The Anatomy of Peace (formerly titled "How to Live With My Body") by John Roedel (johnroedel.com) my brain and heart divorced a decade ago over who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become eventually, they couldn't be in the same room with each other now my head and [...]