Good morning... This virus exposes our bitter truth: stuck in this together, we are all aging dogs forced to learn new tricks. For the first time in my life, I am making room for Zoom, a virtual event where one person hosts a meeting and multiple participants communicate through the computer screen. With many of us working from [...]
Good morning... "We're adjusting to a new reality," musicians in this video admit, "and we'll have to find solutions in order to support each other. Creative forces help us, let's think outside the box and use innovation to keep our connection and make it work together. Because if we do it together, we will succeed." This energizing endeavor [...]
Good morning... "Hi, Sue," she responds. "You ask what creative gifts give us strength during this season of sequestering." Artist, photographer, and dear, dear friend Corinne Adams shares with me her intriguing art while we are held apart: "I have discovered my own Walden’s pond in the woods next door. The “pond,” an abandoned swimming pool filled with [...]
Good morning... Grateful to turn fifty-seven today, I am experiencing my most extreme birthday ever. The word "extreme" is a multifaceted one. As an adjective, "extreme" means very far removed from the ordinary or an outermost point farthest from the norm. As a noun, "extreme" means the highest degree, like "cautious to an extreme," or two things as different from each [...]
Good morning... When we gathered together for our final Friday class, we read these words out loud from the lips of ninety-four-year-old Betty Skinner. "The conscious and disciplined work of awakening our senses is vital to the life of the Spirit within us. It helps to move us from our heads to our hearts. The marvel of the [...]
Good morning... "Where's dad?" our twenty-one year old daughter asked. "He's on the back porch drinking bourbon with his brother." The sentence sounded super silly as it rolled right off my tongue, since Steve's only brother lives in Omaha, Nebraska umpteen miles away from our corner of the globe in Atlanta, Georgia. A new habit has formed in [...]
Good morning... Surprisingly, one of my supervisor's survey questions pierced a sensitive nerve, sort of like when the dentist finds a cavity and pain shoots everywhere. "When it comes to workload at Northside, how heavy is the burden or light is the load?" That was the question striking my nesting nerve. We were asked to respond on a scale [...]
Good morning... A friend ended her email with a quote from Pascal: "In difficult times, always keep something beautiful in your heart." What "something beautiful" - a hope, a thought, a feeling, a memory - rests in the home of your heart right now? Sense it. Savor it. Slip it into your soul. As you focus fully on this "beautiful [...]
Good morning... Unable to gather for our weekly class, she and I walked around the public park. We found our place into the spacious stream of smiling people and friendly dogs. During this strange season of social distancing, it was the perfect way to unpack our deep thoughts. Slow. Soulful. Simple. After finishing our sunny stroll she said, [...]
Good morning... I remember a poem read at the funeral of a dear friend who died of cancer. I search for it, I find it, and I adapt it to meet the deep need spreading across our globe today. ****** An adaptation of "What Cancer Cannot Do" by Dr. Robert L. Lynn Coronavirus is so limited... It cannot [...]
