Good morning... “The accumulated sorrows of your exile (your being barred from comfort, your being kept from closeness, your inability to feel completely at home) will dissipate,” whispers the LORD through the pen of an Old Testament prophet. Zephaniah 3:19-20 in the Message translation continues: “I, your God, will get rid of them, your sorrows, for you. You’ve carried [...]
Good morning... When I meet a new word, I am exceedingly grateful for Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia. Yesterday I was introduced for the first time to the noun "liminality." Wikipedia teaches me, "In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning 'a threshold') is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, [...]
Good morning... I sit at a red light behind this bumper sticker: "Neither one 2016." My mind yearns to exchange this old sticker with a new one: "All of us 2016." I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s [...]
Good morning... Often the truth God teaches me daily, personally is echoed in the online meditation I receive from the Henri Nouwen Society at 5:05 am each morning. Yesterday was no different. I put a microphone to God's whisper, "Blend your 'being' with your 'doing' so all becomes an energizing prayer." Then I opened Nouwen's 11.17.16 devotional: "All Jesus' [...]
Good morning... Usually I am not a list maker. But yesterday when I happened upon a few open hours, I prayerfully doodled a list and happily discerned my most pressing "have to's." Bank. Grocery. Flower shop. Goodwill. UPS. Gas station. Check. Check. Check. Tons of important tasks delightfully accomplished. As a person who focuses much of my energy on [...]
Good morning... I pre-programmed my past two posts before I went on our weekend Writers' Retreat at a friend's mountain home near Lake Rabun. As I crafted the words about trees on my street changing at different rates and the painful-looking experience of naked, barren limbs, I had no idea how real these words would become over the next [...]
Good morning... "When we sit in silence, it’s true, we may not be doing anything. But we are un-doing so much," says blogger Emily P. Freeman. Emily continues: "The soul is made to receive. In the presence of God, we experience a right full-ness. But like a bucket left out in the yard, it will hold anything that comes [...]
Good morning... As we learned about the chaos of transition in our class last week, the letting go of what was, the discomfort of living in uncertainty, and the waiting in trust for God to rebuild a new life around us, she suddenly said, "That reminds me of when I was a kid." She went on to explain, "My [...]
Good morning... Georgia O'Keefe once said astutely, "In a way, nobody sees a flower really, it is so small, we haven't time --- and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time." It takes time to see, to befriend, and to discern the voice of God. Scripture says it this way: “Let me set this before [...]
Good morning... Jesus says, "...The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life," says John 4:14b in the Message translation. My brain wonders, "What is an artesian spring?" Googling, I learn that "artesian" is the upward movement of water under hydrostatic pressure from beneath the earth's surface. Spring water under "artesian" pressure gushes [...]
