Good morning... "...the people who plant seeds of a movement make a critical decision: they decide to live 'divided no more,'" observes Parker Palmer in Let Your Life Speak, the book I will be teaching on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays next semester. "They decide no longer to act on the outside in a way that contradicts some truth about [...]
Good morning... I love, love, love my black, well-worn Frye boots. Yesterday was the first day I donned those precious puppies as autumn tips toward winter. When I pulled my boots over my socks, I thought of a phrase that appears in one of my favorite verses in the Message translation of holy scripture. A green Shoot will sprout [...]
Good morning... In an unusual act, I set my alarm for just before 3:00 am, intending to pause and to change the message I had pre-programmed very early in the morning. A fifty-five year old husband, father, and friend to many was laid to rest yesterday, four days after he died in a freak car accident. I wanted to [...]
Good morning... After Jesus' death and resurrection, the world's power people were trying to silence the apostles. "Stop talking about this Jesus!" they demanded. When pressed to choose between obeying God and obeying men, the first followers chose God, sharing personally about Jesus everywhere they went. When the council members heard this, they became so angry that they wanted [...]
Good Morning... His emaciated body was loudly struggling for each breath. As I curled up beside him in bed, I rested my hand on his boney back and whispered in his ear, "You're doing a great job getting yourself to heaven. You're almost there. In just a little while, you'll be welcomed home." The next day he passed over [...]
Good morning... After reading yesterday's post, One Sacred Moment, our friend Cathy Smith described to me a beautiful experience. Her daughter, Abby, journeyed with cancer for five years before going to heaven at age seven. With Cathy's permission, I share with you her story. ****** When we were on Abby's Make a Wish trip after she had first relapsed [...]
Good morning... So many of us have seen and loved the movie Same Kind of Different As Me, yet there is one sacred moment I miss from the book that did not appear in the Hollywood version. “Early in the morning, the doorbell rang,” writes Ron Hall on page 182. “When I opened the door, I saw Denver standing [...]
Good Morning... Four words will always stay with me from the book I am teaching on Mondays and Fridays in our modest living room. "When in doubt, wait," Jan Johnson writes in When the Soul Listens. Deciding this, that, or the other. When in doubt, wait. Compelled to vent anger yet trying to walk in love. When in doubt, [...]
Good morning... "In all of creation, identity is a challenge only for humans," writes David Benner in The Gift of Being Yourself. "A tulip knows exactly what it is. It is never tempted by false ways of being. Nor does it face complicated decisions in the process of becoming. So it is with dogs, rocks, trees, stars, amoebas, electrons [...]
Good Morning... A generous friend gave me tickets to see the musical version of The Color Purple at the Fox Theatre. For years and years, the main character, Celie, languished under the silencing power of incest, emotional and physical abuse, and the debilitating pain of being labeled "ugly." Reaching her breaking point in the second half of the play, [...]
