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 [...]
Good morning... Last Wednesday, we ended our class for the young moms at Northside Church with a simple, low-key, makeshift party. Pretzels and pistachios. Carrots and spicy almond Bitchin' Sauce. Apple cider, seltzer waters and gooey homemade brownies. Easy, honest conversation rounded out our bonding semester, as we sat on the floor, picnic style, in the children's wing [...]
Good morning... Having journeyed together through Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor, we arrive at the final poem. Might all of our learning culminate here? My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going . . . and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. [...]
Good morning... "God Works While We Wait," says the ornament in a pristine box. But waiting feels like being stuck, and being stuck feels yuck. "If you get stuck, lower your standards," my mentor said nonchalantly. ***** If You Get Stuck by Sue Allen If you get stuck, lower your standards. Breathe deep, intentionally. Open space. Wait. Wait [...]
