So It Was With Marian
Good morning... "The Inner Meaning of Jesus' Parables," reads the subtitle of a Christian classic published in 1970 by John A. Sanford, who was an American Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest. I am an "inner meaning" girl. I love Jesus. I find his parables fascinatingly fun to ponder, so I am intrigued by Sanford's work exploring "the inner meaning of Jesus' sayings; that is, their relevance to the unfolding of the whole personality [...]
When Our Bough Breaks
Good morning... I am drawn back between the covers of an inspiring book I taught in our living room a few years back. ****** Excerpt from Brene Brown's The Gifts Of Imperfection People call what happens at midlife "a crisis," but it's not. It's an unraveling - a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're "supposed" to live. The unraveling is [...]
Our “I” Is Found Before Lost In “We”
Good morning... On this Valentines Day 2019, I will tell you an endless love story evolving in my life. One year at our church there was glitch in our ordering of the annual devotional books I wrote from 2006 to 2016. Our Women's Ministry would self published these babies, after hours and hours of hard, loving labor, then we would hand them out to the women attending worship on Mother's Day morn. The [...]
Can A Fish Climb A Tree?
Good morning... "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid," says the Albert Einstein quote at the bottom of my friend's email. Thought-provoking. Right? The unique fractal of God implanted in us is our genius, our soul, our hidden True Self (Gen. 1:26-27). We do not decide if we are like a frog [...]
Quietly Unraveling More
Good morning... In the early morning darkness, I quietly unravel more. My soul skips back to that verb from yesterday's post. "Unravel" piques my interest, so I google her definition on Dictionary.com to disentangle her many facets. clear up resolve disclose explain sort out unriddle To separate or disentangle the threads of (a woven or knitted fabric, a rope, etc.). To free from complication or difficulty; make plain or clear; solve (to unravel [...]
Our Slow Unraveling
Good morning... I waited impatiently for this morning's message to pop through my groggy brain. You know me, I wake when God wakes me and I lift onto my inner tippy toes, my soul stretching to sense a living Word from our loving LORD. Slowly. Today possibilities percolated slowly. Way too slowly for my liking. "...we've forgotten about the slow, sometimes torturous, unraveling of God's grace that takes place in the 'middle places,'" [...]
Savor Sabbath: Living Through Life’s Layers
Good morning... As we savor this Sabbath, we look at the remnants of the spiritual onion we have been exploring together. Our posts from this week are developing in us the art of living through the layers of life (touch the "Previous" link at the top of this post to review our morning messages). Whatever season is surrounding us, our soul is pushing through painful challenges to release into wholeness the multi-faceted gifts [...]
Betty’s 93rd Birthday
Good morning... Today Betty Skinner turns 93 years old. She wakes in Ponte Vedra, Florida. I wake in Atlanta, Georgia. We both wake increasingly more whole. In the fall of 2007, I met The Hidden Life Awakened in its original 2006 form, a captivating book chronicling the fascinating faith journey of Christian mystic Betty Skinner. For reasons way beyond my understanding, I poured through these holy pages and God stirred my soul. The Spirit [...]
Who Influences You Most?
Good morning... "Good morning Sue," she emailed me yesterday from Jacksonville, Florida. "Our hearts are in stereo again with the same verse. I shared 2 Corinthians 8:9 with my group of 7th grade girls on Tuesday." Remember? This is the same verse concluding our blog post yesterday. For you are becoming progressively acquainted with and recognizing more strongly and clearly the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (His kindness, His gracious generosity, His [...]
Naked Trees Remind
Good morning... Driving around Atlanta each and every February, my spirit cringes at the sight of crape myrtles cut back, harshly pruned, large limbs severed to their trunk. Pricked by their visual barrenness, I remember the long, hard season when the life of my dreams was severed, pruned, cut back to my very Core. Every year at this time these sharp, stunted branches reveal the rawest phase of our spiritual growth, being severed [...]
Living Through Loneliness
Good morning... I enjoy the mornings when God lets me sleep past 5:00 am. That is the time Henri Nouwen Society sends out their Daily Meditation. Sometimes I open the post and wallow in the wisdom. Sometimes I do not. Today I did and here is what I read. ****** Loneliness by Henri Nouwen, February 6, 2019 It is the most basic human loneliness that threatens us and is so hard to face. [...]
I Didn’t Sleep Well
Good morning... "Aren’t we all still like that 20 year old in some way?" she wrote after yesterday's post. "We too must wait..." She continued: "I didn’t sleep well last night. Awake for 2 hours, thinking about all that is uncertain and all that needs to be done. I just don’t want to miss any piece of the puzzle, anything that is mine to do. And then I think about the journey if [...]