Good morning... I received her email after I woke from my second sleep. "Dear Sue," she wrote yesterday. "This post (Give Kindness, Not Advice) really struck an accord in me. During my now four weeks of being a patient undergoing cancer treatment, I experience that some of my friends actually drain my energy by telling me how I [...]
Good morning... In class yesterday, we continued to unpack the concept of kindness, one of the fruits of God's Spirit alive in our hearts. We agreed, in the face of so much worldly unrest - polarization, violence, despair - there is one thing we all can do, each moment of every day. We can take a deep breath [...]
Good morning... "Sue," she texted yesterday. "It struck me in your speaking about kindness in this morning's blog - I wonder if you have seen the billboards with Dolly Parton. As I was driving back from the beach there was a horrendously congested intersection of construction - with long lines of cars and trucks - everyone doing their [...]
Good morning... With so much strife and pain around, one of our superpowers is kindness. A small, kind act can ripple out to share the love of God. ...the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we [...]
Good morning... Last Monday in the PAWkids Afterschool Enrichment program, we had messy fun. Paints. Pie pans. Pieces of paper. The kids made imprints of different images. One girl, who happens to be Mike Mike's niece, lost her grandmother in an unsolved murder last month. She said, "I want to make a chocolate chip cookie. My grandma always made [...]
Good morning... When the Holy Spirit in me meets the Holy Spirit in you, the love of God multiplies. But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with [...]
Good morning... As women came through our wooden side gate on Wednesday afternoon, we lingered in the warm sunshine. With a gentle breeze tickling the wind chimes, we collected beneath our back porch. For the first time this season, we held class on our outdoor furniture amid the symphony of the birds. Continuing to journey through our book, [...]
Good morning... We began this semester studying one book, Wintering by Katharine May. To our surprise, we will end this semester studying a second book, Parker Palmer's new 25th anniversary edition of Let Your Life Speak. We did not plan this expansion into more, but the seamlessness of these oddly orange book covers, set side by side, offers [...]
Good morning... Yesterday morning, I was expecting the highly anticipated Blood Moon effect of a total lunar eclipse, so I woke when it was predicted to be at peak. Instead of seeing the full moon mysteriously turn red, I saw clouds. Grey. Dense. Blinding clouds. "What a disappointment!" said the body language of our [...]
