Good morning... After our soulful walk this week, my friend sent me two thought-provoking images. The first speaks to a common fear. Ending a year. Ending a life phase. Ending the "normal" we've come to know and to love. We often struggle with endings, don't we? The second image she shared [...]
Good morning... On our walk we did several essential things. We exercised in the fresh air. We walked our dogs around the horse farm. We caught up on the details of our challenging family dynamics. We reminded each other that Christmas will be here one short week from Monday. Coming home filled with feelings, I promptly "pigged out" [...]
Good morning... She read the poem aloud. Slowly. Quietly. Prayerfully. Twice, she read the poem aloud, wondering what we noticed. In this quiet moment, might we also do the same? Read slowly, quietly, prayerfully. What inklings do you notice? ****** In Search of Our Kneeling Places by Ann Weemes In each heart lies a Bethlehem, an inn where [...]
Good morning... After the quirky video in yesterday's post, she wrote, "It's true that I miss God in the room all the time!" Her statement morphed into my prayer, "God, please help me not to miss You in the room today." With my eyes keenly focused on noticing, I saw God walking right through the middle of everything. [...]
Good morning... Okay, friends. So we are about one third of the way through December. Amazing how time flies. As I look back over the past ten calendar days, this is what I see. One impromptu lunch. Two holiday performances. Three happy hour gatherings. Four special worship services. Five Christmas parties. Six celebratory dinners. Tonight is the Secret [...]
Good morning... On Wednesday night in the Northside Church sanctuary, Ron Greer shared wisdom with us from his new book The Quiet House: Reflections on the Loss of a Spouse. He said, "This book is like a parable, a story with a lesson. Parable also means 'placing beside,' a story we place beside the story of our lives. [...]
Good morning... "We heal what we feel," said Ron Greer, author of The Quiet House. I felt a lot when my dad said last night, "Today, I got a tree at Loews." Together, we reminisced about our annual trek around a tree farm as a family, cutting down our favorite Christmas bush (it was always wider than it [...]
Good morning... Yesterday was a very long day. 7:00 am: I spoke by phone with my mom, my dad, and my sister in the hospital waiting room. As mom was wheeled back for her five to six hour surgery, "We love you," filled her ears, her mind, and her heart. 12:15 pm, my dad's first text came: "She went [...]
Good morning... The wordless prayer card above sits beside me in the living room as I write. The man depicted looks so much like my dad reading the paper at the kitchen table in their sunny Ohio villa. "Good Life," the main heading in the newspaper, is something my parents have enjoyed for 85 and 86 years. The [...]
Good morning... Today's block on my calendar whispers, "Last Quarter," with a tiny sketch of a moon similar to the image above. Left half dark. Right half light. Now, to the light of a lamp in the dark hours of this night, I am drawn back to two quotes we read aloud yesterday during our final Monday class [...]
