Whenever I’m at my lowest, my most frustrated; when I feel close to defeat or despair, God gives me a gift. I’ve come to count on it. This particular day was no different. Losing the struggle to bring some clarification in my mind and my words to the theme of an article entitled “Embracing our [...]
This morning, during Lectio Divina, I find myself in a wrestling match. The verses are from Genesis—the story of Jacob wrestling with an angel on the fork of the Jabbok as he prepares to return to his homeland—to the brother he had cheated out of their father’s blessing many years before. To give you the [...]
After Wally leaves for work, I bring my Bible, journal, and tea into the garden. A light mist hovers over the fields across the road, and I am surprised to see tender green shoots of corn forming rows where yesterday there was nothing but dirt. All around me, Dame’s Rocket thrusts purple and white spires [...]
I’m sitting on the porch of a cabin in Roan Mountain, Tennessee. A gentle spring rain soaks the garden, and a small waterfall caused by a plugged-up gutter falls in front of my Adirondack chair. My porch-side perch overlooks a roaring, rock-filled creek. Across the creek a hill ascends at a nearly vertical pitch, rhododendron [...]
A deep stillness descended over the woods as I walked, its peacefulness gradually permeating my spirit. My black lab, Poco, ran on ahead, nose to the ground, snuffling in the unexpected February snow. A loud crackling and crashing in the underbrush to the right of the path broke the silence. I stopped. Leashing the dog, [...]
“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’-ni?” That is, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46) Barbara Brown Taylor writes of Jesus’ last words: “It sounds for [...]
I just started re-reading Parker J. Palmer’s classic, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life. By page 5, I remembered why I loved this book so much the first time, and why I was led to pick it up again. He writes: “On July 4, 1999, a twenty minute maelstrom of hurricane-force winds [...]
Quiet time in the kitchen garden, sitting under the hackberry tree. It’s a crisp, cool, September morning, and I’m bundled up in an afghan, warding off the chill. I woke up earlier than usual this morning, worries and anxieties taking flight even before I opened my eyes. Not a good way to start a Monday [...]
“Compassion has a price. It does not come without a cost, the least of which is the pain that pierces our own hearts as we accompany one who is suffering.” Joyce Rupp, The Cup of Our Lives: A Guide for Spiritual Growth. Saturday morning. Dappled sunshine, clouds scudding across the sky at a good clip, [...]
Whenever I’m at my lowest, my most frustrated; when I feel close to defeat or despair, God gives me a gift. I’ve come to count on it. This particular day was no different. Losing the struggle to bring some clarification in my mind and my words to the theme of an article I was working [...]