Free Medicine Heals
Good morning... In our weekly therapeutic community group at PAWkids, we gather with men and women from different backgrounds, with different skin colors, different ages, different life stages. What do we all have in common? We all face various challenges in our daily lives. We all need God's healing power. We are all constantly learning what it means to live healthy, abundant lives. Last week we talked about forms of natural "medicine" that [...]
Healing Homelessness And Addiction
Good morning... In October, many of us contributed items to fill fifteen welcome bags for the Ignatian Spirituality Project (ISP) retreat for women recovering from homelessness and addiction. God's blessing shone all over our collective generosity. What a wild fishes and loaves experience! This morning, sixteen women from two nearby residential rehab programs will be picked up at the MARTA station and driven to Ignatius House Retreat Center for another ISP retreat. Again [...]
Every One Must Decide
Good morning... On this day of remembrance, I reflect upon my favorite quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Everyone must decide to walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness." Everyone. Every one of us must decide. Light or darkness? Creative or destructive? Altruism or selfishness? Creative altruism is the act of selflessly helping others without expecting anything in return. It’s about prioritizing the needs of others, even if [...]
When Tornados Rip Through
Good morning... Traveling to a weekend gathering with our small group from church, we drove down to south Georgia the day after treacherous storms. I snapped a crappy photo out the window as the traffic inched through a section of road where trees on both sides of the road were mangled, ripped up, stripped bare, toppled. A large team of people were still clearing the road of debris. Had a tornado wreaked this [...]
Somehow Light Find Us
Good morning... Light is sweet; how pleasant to see a new day dawning. When people live to be very old, let them rejoice in every day of life. But let them also remember there will be many dark days (Ecclesiastes 11:7-8a, NLT). In this season of Epiphany, when the light of Christ fans out to reach us in unpredictable ways, a friend sent me a touching poem to guide our bare feet. ****** [...]
I Have Been Insensitive
Good morning... "In a handful of relationships I have been insensitive," I explain to my friend. "I have dropped the ball. I have trampled over feelings. I sense my flaws so significantly right now. But the light of the sun still rises on me, and God's radiance breaks through anyway." "It's like the clouds on our last night at the beach," I recall. "They made the sunset shine with a different kind of [...]
I’m Not Who I Want To Be
Good morning... Her poem, delivered to my inbox in the middle of this ordinary night, says just what I am thinking. ****** Ambition by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer I am so far from the woman I want to be, so far from humility and simplicity. I dream of clearing not only the shelves, not only the closets, but also the cluttered inner rooms that crowd out the divine. Every day I search for ways [...]
I Want That
Good morning... I happened upon a book and felt drawn to a handful of words. ****** Excerpt from Poems from the Thin Places by Monica R. Lavia "My peace I give you," said Jesus. I want that. Not the kind of peace that is the opposite of war, but the kind of peace that is the opposite of fear. The kind of peace that would allow me to let go of things like [...]
Her Grieving Heart
Good morning... "It was often very tender and sometimes sore over the holidays," she texted about her grieving heart. "Longing. Causing plenty of tears of remembering and of grief over not enough life shared. All the family went away together and had a loving and kind respite. It was honest and a loving time. We let each other be however we were in the moment. A time of new healing. Tears. Laughter. Fun. [...]
I Spiral Down
Good morning... At 2:47 am, I am drawn outside by the light of a full moon. Brilliant. Bursting. Beaconing, "Come see." I step out into the chilly cold of January 7th and spiral down into new epiphanies. How did I not know that January 6th is the celebration of Epiphany? Along with Christmas and Easter, Epiphany (when three Gentile kings are drawn by a star to [...]
Enjoy This Epiphany
Good morning... Today, January 6th, we celebrate Epiphany. Alongside Christmas and Easter, Epiphany is one of the three oldest festival days of the Christian church. In Greek, epiphaneia means “manifestation." This Christian holiday commemorates the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, who are represented by the Magi, the three kings who traveled by the light of the star to visit the infant Jesus. Yesterday, to prepare our hearts to be guided [...]
Sign Up For Winter/Spring 2023
Good morning... "She will look back over the kaleidoscope of her life and notice how the fragments of experience that made no sense at the time were, all along, shaping a rather beautiful pattern." This is the sentence God used to snag me, to capture me, to coax me into teaching last semester's book, "Simple Faith" by Margaret Silf. What a marvelous selection. But what book would God draw us to study together [...]