Good morning... This weekend I have returned to Ohio to visit with my parents and to meet up with my best high school friends to celebrate our 60th birthday season. We have remained connected through a text string for years and years and years, but it has been a very long time since all six of us have been together. Our tenth high school reunion in 1991 may have been our most recent [...]

Good morning... Since our family found its spiritual home at Northside Church in 2003, we have been praying for Elizabeth Potts. Sunday after Sunday, year after year, her name has been read aloud from the collective prayer list, and as a church family we have diligently prayed for God's healing touch to support the life of Elizabeth. Being diagnosed with a malignant, inoperable brain tumor as she was turning four years old, Elizabeth [...]

Good morning... Our written word community has come alongside 37-year-old Elizabeth as she journeys through treatment for advanced colon cancer. Many of us follow her PostHope blog. We admire the beauty of the raw, real words she regularly shares. We lift prayers for her and for her young family. With permission, I share with you from the soulful web of support which God continues to weave around Elizabeth. ****** Excerpt from Elizabeth's PostHope [...]

Good morning... Awake in the mid of night, I return to a simple poem to feather my inner nest. ****** Let Awake Be Awake by Rosemerry Wahtola Tommer Oh to wake in the middle of the night and not wish to be asleep. To not wish for anything but what is, which is, in this moment, being awake. To let the mind wander because that is what the mind is doing. To let [...]

Good morning... With little time to catch his breath, my husband Steve sent out his chaplain's devotional for the Lovett School community first thing Monday morning. His reflection continues to bring to life God's invitation to participate in the peacemaking plans our Creator is orchestrating, inside and among us. ****** Chaplain Devotional for 3/13/23 by Rev. Steve Allen, based on John 4:5-42 I spent the past 10 days in Israel. It’s a fascinating [...]

Good morning... We left the hotel in the dark of night, around 3:45 am Jerusalem time, which was seven hours earlier than our time zone in the states. Flying through Paris, we returned to Atlanta in the dark of night, around 8:00 pm on Sunday evening. My tired brain could not even compute how many groggy hours it took to journey home. Yet after five hours of sweet sleep in our own bed, [...]

Good morning... Yesterday an unusual word repeated itself. Pilgrimage. "In his morning writings Richard Rohr has been talking about pilgrimage, about taking time to consciously process the steps we are taking in our daily lives," said a friend on our bus traveling through Israel. Within a few hours, my husband Steve used the uncommon word in his teaching by the Pool of Siloam. "A pilgrimage is an outward journey to an inward healing." [...]

Good morning... Like Dorothy who left Kansas, we are not in Galilee anymore. We have left the calm, connective beauty. The lush, lavish land. The soulful serenity of the Sea of Galilee with its history of miracles. In Jerusalem, we have driven on thin streets with unbelievable traffic jams. We have stood in long lines with a large crowd of strangers. We have faced [...]

Good morning... Waking in Jerusalem beneath the bright fullness of the moon, I think of the first line of a poem texted yesterday by a friend. "Why do people keep asking to see God's identity papers when the darkness opening into the morning is more than enough?" I ponder the thought. This darkness opening into this morning in this multifaceted city is a silent symphony orchestrated brilliantly by the Creator of life. Now [...]

Good morning... As I sit outside 2:00 am in a plastic hotel chair beside the Sea of Galilee, the air is dark, calm, cool. I collect my thoughts. I reflect back on another amazing day in Israel, in the region where Jesus, a beloved young Jewish rabbi, fed God's agape love to everybody, prostitutes, tax collectors, those labeled "sinners." Unlike the other seasoned rabbis, Jesus welcomed all who felt their need for God. [...]

Good morning... As a group of thirty of us are in Israel, guided by my husband Steve, we have traveled two days in the desert, learning essential lessons. When we are stripped down to the core of our being during dry, deserted times, we savor any "strange graces" we happen upon. Small things become big. Breath. Breeze. Shrubs. Shade. Rest. Streams of living water which bubble up before us. [...]

Good morning... I met a powerful poem, a poem I have shared repeatedly this week. In person and over the phone. With our small groups and with a few soul friends. Reading slowly, reading twice, we have noticed together the words which touch us most deeply. Like Moses leading beloved followers through the wilderness, today might this poem lifts its arms and bless us each profusely? Read slowly. Read twice. Notice what touches [...]