Time With Our Teacher
Good morning... All week we have been perplexed by an unusual sign. "What," we have wondered together, "is a traffic table?" One of you candidly wrote, "Still trying to connect God and Traffic Table, but I’m sure it’s there." In God's kairos time, a few minutes later another one of you privately wrote: "I too was curious about 'traffic table' and looked it up. It so makes sense. A traffic table is used [...]
Morph Into More
Good morning... Within a few short hours, yesterday's morning message morphed into more. Witnessing the Spirit expanding among us, touch base with God's organic growth in our past post, In Our In-Between. Listen to me now. Give me your closest attention. Do farmers plow and plow and do nothing but plow? Or harrow and harrow and do nothing but harrow? After they’ve prepared the ground, don’t they plant? Don’t they scatter dill and [...]
In Our In-Between
Good morning... After watching the captivating video in yesterday's post, many of you responded, "Surprisingly, I was moved to tears." God lives in our in-between spaces. Between stirring a bit and being fully awake. Between standing far off and accepting a hug. Between ending this thing and beginning what's next. Between noticing beauty and being filled with gratitude. Between sharing a meal and getting up from the table. Between wondering and knowing. Between [...]
Not-So-Subtle Signs
Good morning... The chapel was nearly full on Sunday night for our Crucial Conversation on MENTAL HEALTH. After two wise therapists shared their compassionate insights, the evening ended with a video of not-so-subtle signs filmed in Italy. Please, please, please give yourself the gift of watching God's love spread through this crowd of ordinary people. Everyone was trying to touch Jesus, because power was going out from him and healing them all (Luke [...]
Subtle Signs
Good morning... "Hi Sue," she wrote from Newton County, Georgia. "Saturday I tried and failed twice to message you, so perhaps the delay was providential." Then she told me her story: "Still seeking a new church home, Sunday I attended a nearby independent 'contemporary' church. Since I still love (and miss) singing in a really good choir, it was out of my usual comfort zone. But the message was part of a series [...]
God Makes Love
Good morning... "Hi Sue," from her home in Vancouver, Washington she wrote me after Saturday's blog, Sow This Love Song. "I loved today’s post. A phrase in the song you posted reminded me of my favorite line in “The End” on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album. Link is here: https://youtu.be/5tvSvjpcBuo Asking if I might share the short link with our online community, she replied, "Of course you can, Sue. I’m so thankful my [...]
Savor Sabbath: Slow Down
Good morning... As we were at the beach for fall break last weekend, I ran into a type of table I had never heard of before. Here is the sign that piqued my interest. "What," I thought, "is a traffic table?" My curious mind came home searching google for an answer. Here is what I learned. A traffic table is "a midblock traffic calming device that raises the entire wheelbase of a vehicle to [...]
Sow This Love Song
Good morning... "I have been fascinated with your posts about the many tables in our lives," she wrote. "So many come to mind! Display table. Side table. Thanksgiving table. The list goes on and on." She continued: "My daughter, living in Charleston, communicates with me in many different ways as she navigates a new city and her entry into adulthood. One way she bonds with me is by making a Spotify playlist. It’s [...]
Helping Hope Happen
Good morning... Yesterday I sat at two very different tables. Invited to sit at my dear friend's table, in the morning I attended the uplifting, inspiring Action Ministries breakfast at the Cobb Energy Center. "What starts as a meal, becomes a conversation," I copied in my journal the words of a spirited speaker. "Out of that conversation grows hope. Together, let's end hunger, period, for 10,000 children." Invited to sit at another dear [...]
Freedom To Fall
Good morning... "We are not helping our children by always preventing them from what might be a necessary falling," writes Richard Rohr on page 28 of Falling Upward, "because you learn how to recover from falling by falling! It is precisely by falling off the bike many times that you eventually learn what the balance feels like. The skater pushing both right and left eventually goes where he or she wants to go. [...]
Meaning From Migraines?
Good morning... As her migraines turned into debilitating vertigo, she was held home, laid low, centered down for weeks. Finally on Friday she returned to class in our living room. Because focussing on small print on the page made her condition worse, she had not read a word of our book for the semester, Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward. She came to be with us, to soak in our soulful discussion, and to share [...]
Center Me Down
Good morning... I pulled the bookmark from my signed copy of one of my favorite books, The Hidden Life Awakened, and I put the small slip of card stock beside the lamp on my bedside table. Centering myself on God's endless Source of life-giving energy, now I whisper aloud each night and each morning the prayer first formed in the heart of Christian mystic Betty Skinner. "Center me down, Lord, to the innermost of [...]