Being Bulldozed
Good morning... Our Writers' Group from church has been meeting regularly since 2008, supporting the growth of God within one another. On Tuesday night a small group of us enjoyed a spur of the moment, "pop-up" gathering in one woman's back yard. "Gals," the hostess wrote the next day. "Had I known our dinner last night would be the last in the shadow of our (borrowed) bamboo forest, I would have sat and [...]
Seek My Peace
Good morning... Walking our dog in the cool of the morning, I found a black acorn for the first time ever. Returning home, I googled, "Why are some acorns black?" Here I found a simple answer: "Producing black acorns is a sign of stress. Immature seeds die mid-growth, with the stalk, or pedicle, withering on the twig." Stress. Immature seeds. Dying mid-growth. Withering on the twig. I wonder to myself, "What are the [...]
The Circle of Love
Good morning... At the fun filled Open Air worship on Sunday night, one Friday morning Bible study friend said, "I have a book I have been meaning to drop off for you. My friend from Jacksonville, Florida gave it to me and I feel compelled to pass it along to you." I didn't think much about her kind offer until I returned from a Tuesday morning walk and talk to find this book, [...]
The Balm Of One Boy
Good morning... I woke with one word on my mind. Balm. I can't even remember the last time I used "balm" in a sentence. When have you thought "balm" recently? When a weird word wakes me, I love treasure-hunting for the gift God may want to give. Here is what I found. A balm is a soothing substance with a consistency somewhere between solid and liquid, a fragrant ointment used to heal. A remedy [...]
Be Captivated
Good morning... "Oh my gosh," I emailed the Creative Director collaborating with God and me to write from scratch our Gift from the Sea interactive study. "We simply MUST finish this powerful Week Four material with one awe-inspiring song!" (See the music video below.) After being captivated by this video, I thought, "No wonder I feel like I am birthing five babies every week. Look at the Daddy of these newborns!" The most common [...]
Our Sturdy Web
Good morning... She sent me a photo of the marvelous, massive web in her back yard. Fascinated, I googled, "How do spiders make webs?" I found some cool videos and an article explaining the four step process. The spider starts by creating a length of sticky silk which it dangles from a point. It is so light it gets caught by the breeze and sticks to a second point, the anchor point. This first [...]
Beneath A Full Moon
Good morning... Thank you, brave friends. Thank you for engaging in these challenging conversations with me. I have learned much from our two previous posts, "Who Will You Vote For?" and Let's Talk Politics. As many of us acknowledge, we naturally tend to gravitate toward like minded people, and our perspective is broadened as we listen to one another. Resting together under a big, bold full moon, one of your responses beams brightest [...]
Let’s Talk Politics
Good morning... There is a delicate pathway forward through our various sands of thought. As you can imagine, an avalanche of passionate responses were set off by yesterday's post "Who Will You Vote For?" I am choosing to share some with you anonymously, just so we can hold open the arms of our heart to receive all of these cells of belief, like multiple grains of sand on our common vast shore. Cell [...]
“Who Will You Vote For?”
Good morning... We wrapped up in blankets and sat in the cool autumn air beneath our back porch. Leftover stress lingered from the night before; we both had witnessed the ugly verbal street fight called a presidential debate. The leaf blowers from our neighbor's lawn guys were screaming loudly, relentlessly. It was symbolically perfect for the moment at hand. Noise. Noise. Noise. Quietly she said, "I'm having a hard time hearing God." I [...]
Pain. Fear. Anxiety.
Good morning... As we walked our dog along the bank of the Chattahoochee River, my husband told me about a Richard Rohr meditation that helped him visual prayer in a helpful new way. At my request, he shared with me Rohr's writing, and now I pass the important portion along to you. ****** Excerpt from Richard Rohr's morning mediation Transforming Our Pain, September 18, 2020 People who don’t pray can’t live the Gospel because [...]
Slow Me Down
Good morning... "The second week of our Gift from the Sea study brings to my mind a poem," she writes. "Slow Me Down, Lord" has graced my home and heart for many years and is a constant source of comfort and peace with the busyness of life." ****** SLOW ME DOWN, LORD (by Wilfred Arlan Peterson) Slow me down, Lord. Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. [...]
The Power Of Patience
Good morning... "The mind wakes, comes to life again," writes Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Gift from the Sea. "Not in a city sense - no - but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly round [...]