Dec 1
“Beauty is a fragile gift.” – Ovid
“The journey itself is my home.”― Matsuo Basho
Beginnings and endings
Firsts and lasts
Starts and finishes
Before and After
Thresholds to cross
Roads to travel
The in betweens, the middle
In all of it, may you find meaning on your journey
Seeking and finding beauty, joy, light amidst the middles and transitions
Awake to transformation unfolding.
“Come dress yourself in love, let the journey begin.” – Francesca da Rimini
“Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.”― Haruki Marukami
“What might we learn if we listen, if we wade in—unafraid, untethered, and uninhibited—ready to become the ones we were created to become.”― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God
Pushed
Pulled
Stretched
Reshaped
Flipped upside down
Shaken
Stirred
Resistance, friction, flow
Different yet familiar
Connected, present, complete
Untether, malleable, made new
The journey is one of becoming
Transitions, thresholds, transformation
“If you’re willing to pay attention to and dialogue with what’s happening inside of you, you’ll find that your body already knows the answers about how to live a full, present, connected, and healthy life.”― Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living
“Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.” – Bishop Reginald Heber
“Never yet was a springtime, when the buds forgot to bloom.” – Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
Snow still on the ground.
More to come.
Temperatures on a rollercoaster.
45 and sunny.
10 with windchill.
The seasonal dance as we move closer to Spring, but not quite there.
Birds begin to sing and awaken.
Light lingers longer.
Ice to water back to ice.
Brown grass peeks out of patches where melt has occurred.
Close but not next.
The prelude to the beginning of spring.
Anticipation, preparation and waiting.
Desert time.
The eve of Lent, 40 days.
A container, a well, a room, a place, a space.
Reckoning. Resolve. Reflection. Inflection.
The journey to spring, to resurrection begins with ashes.
Where we come from and where we return.
The in between is the gift we get and give.
Travel well, in companionship, never alone.
The middle ground, the path, the journey to spring is here.
Patiently, take the full trip, into depth, quiet and beauty.
Bloom ahead.
“Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.” – St. Francis de Sales
“Every natural object is a conductor of divinity and only by coming into contact with them… may we be filled with the Holy Ghost.” – John Muir
“Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.” – Alice Walker
Sacred surrounds us.
Holy invites and enfolds.
Church isn’t a building.
Church is all around each day.
It’s the sky on fire with pink and orange at days end.
It’s a walk into the woods.
It’s people reaching out, connecting, caring.
In listening.
In laughter.
In gathering.
In solitude.
In tears.
In service.
In generosity.
In frustration.
In patience.
In celebration.
In music, art, poetry.
Hallowed ground.
In awe, praise and wonder of ordinary days.
Church in session.
The Author and Creator abound.
Amen.
“For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.” – William Blake
Dec 21
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
“The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns. Faith also means reaching deeply within, for the sense one was born with, the sense, for example, to go for a walk.”― Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year as the journey begins to spring through the woods, valleys and mountains of winter. An inflection point, a turning, a beginning and ending residing together. Light always returns.
Here’s to beginnings, endings, more beginnings, more endings and the caulk and cracks of ordinary simple beautiful days that hold them all together. There’s meaning in all of it. Trust it when it doesn’t make sense allowing hope to be the thread that allows us grace to not understand and to continue on with joy as a backdrop and faith as a verb. Read your life so you can keep writing your life anew weaving the sentences, paragraphs and acts together. Finding the themes, the patterns, the connections, the dead branches that need to be pruned for new growth to unfold.
Flow in and with the rhythm of seasons with the unfolding, unmaking, unwinding that prepares for the renewal, repurposing and making new. Unfolding, unfurling, flowing.
“Those who flow as life flows know they need no other force.” Lao Tzu
“He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter.” – John Burroughs
“The beauty of any first time is that it leads to a thousand others…”― Pico Iyer
Our first snow.
Brightens the ground.
Reflecting and refracting light.
A blanket tucking in the earth for winter dormancy.
Preparing the seeds for spring breaking, bud and bloom.
Seasons remind us that all lasts lead to new firsts.
Circular, cyclical, evolving.
We have been in a very long season of lasts.
Lingering in suspension.
We will have many firsts again.
Transformation, growth, fruition.
Lean into this season of quiet repose and reflection.
Listen with intent and attention.
What is there to learn, to unlearn, to forget?
Inquire, be curious, willing to accept answers other than your own.
Richness and complexity.
Connections and pattern.
Clarity in the quiet, in the questioning and in the answers sure to come.
Firsts. Lasts. And everything in between.
“Die to everything of yesterday so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.” – John Ortberg
“What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space.” – Erwin Schrodinger
Edges.
Shapes.
Unfolding.
Change.
Cusp.
Observe.
Enter.
Seasons.
Nature.
A map.
A guide.
A bridge.
Destination – transformation.
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.” – E.B. White
“Great thoughts come from the heart.” – Luc de Clapiers
Take a break from swirling thoughts and think with your heart today.
Filter through empathy, connection and acceptance.
Lay down the chains of opinion and assumption long enough to allow fresh thoughts in.
Build, expand and grow.
Be receptive, moved, transformed.
See what is right in front of you only visible through the heart.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.” – William James
“Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest? But I tell you look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.” – John 4:35
Each season creates a harvest. Sowing, tending and reaping daily we savor the harvest in gratitude, awareness and awe in beauty abound, in seemingly simple things.
New flowers are blooming daily, filling the air with fragrance as summer takes the driver’s seat. Pull over and spend some time in the spring harvest to awaken your senses. Deeply rooted gratitude is the secret to sustaining the winds.
Do not miss the scenery on the road to what’s next, to what’s easy, to someday. William James said, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” The art of brilliance is seeing the beauty and bounty in each day, in the moment, free from circumstances and expectations.
Never surrender joy in difficult times. Guard it, embrace it, release it. Joy multiplies. The fields are ripe for harvesting today. Life is in the details woven through each day.
“Time itself comes in drops.” William James
“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” – William Penn
“Hidden life under the sea, under the ground, under the skin. The buried marrow in my bones and the secret stories in my heart. What are we supposed to see and hear, show and tell? Are things hidden for our own good, or is the human journey about going into the shadows and searching for the deeper truths about ourselves and each other, about life itself?”— Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser
We want to get to the Third Day and bypass one and two, to our Easters, victory, light, spring, joy, peace, butterflies. The only way to the Third Day begins with Day One – our Good Fridays, the crosses we bear, the struggles, the angst and pain. But darkness is not the end of the story. We must push through the middle to get to the other side. Hope is both the flashlight and lighthouse for our journey.
“NO DANCES There are no dances for dark days. There is no music to bellow the pain. The best we can do is to remain still and silent and try to remember the face of God… and how to kneel and how to pray.”— Kneeling in Jerusalem by Ann Weems
In our Good Fridays, we are not alone because of the Cross that Jesus bore for us all, not only Christians, for all humanity, every person. Lay down the labels, divisions, constraints of religion and rules that humans create to consider the immensity of the Cross in a new light for your own life. Open to what this day does and can mean to how you live daily. Read the story, allow it into the realm of possibility.
“LOST AND FOUND As we approached Jerusalem the crowd stood at the gate and cried in tear-choked voice: “We are lost in his death.” Upon the hill the angels sang: “We are found in his rising.”— Kneeling in Jerusalem by Ann Weems
In the process of transforming from caterpillar to butterfly, the chrysalis turns to liquid before it is rebuilt and transformed into a butterfly. The same matter in a new form is recreated and made new. Today, choose to die to old thinking and ways, melt and release the struggle, the burdens. Invite God into your heart to do His butterfly work in you. Moving from the cocoon and the tomb to the redemption and resurrection of the Third Day.
“ROOM IN THE HEART Death abides not on a hill called Golgotha, but in every heart that makes room. Life abides not outside a garden tomb in Jerusalem, but in every heart that makes room.”— Kneeling in Jerusalem by Ann Weems
Make room. Start with Day One but do not stop and linger there because it is not the ending but the beginning that gives meaning to the suffering. Day Three ahead.
