Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘Life’

Mar 26

Mini-Easter

“You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.”-Ephesians 4:4-6

This year, Kate Bowler offered another free Lenten reflection guide that aligned with the release of her new book, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days.

Each day a new reflection to consider, focus and ponder. Sundays are “Mini-Easters” where “we take a break from any sad, heavy feelings for a respite to do something that makes you feel buoyed by gladness.” So here goes…

Today is my great nephew’s Elijah’s baptism.
A celebration and welcoming.
An invitation to all to be baptized again.
Dipped in the waters.
Renewed and made new daily.
This is his day and ours by witnessing and accepting the invitation to a peace that passes understanding, a joy everlasting and hope that ties it all together.
So Happy Mini-Easter and Happy Baptism to Elijah and to all who are called to be instruments of peace.
Easter two weeks away.
14 days left of our 40 day journey.
Keep going.
Birth, life, resurrection.
Baptism again.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Amen.
— St. Francis of Assisi

Mar 16

1 Comment

Tender Steel

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”― G.K. Chesterton

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” – Henri Nouwen

This past week, I’ve been running on sheer adrenaline. Last night, I felt the weight of the week fully and was both exhausted and so grateful. Gratitude and grief co-exist. We don’t get one or the other. There’s a menu of emotions we carry and walk with everyday in this life. There is not one simple answer or right way to do life other than to walk it out and do the very best you can with what you have in the moment.

A few reflections on the past few days of Mom’s wake and funeral.

We are loved, so was/is Mom.
Family and friends, old and new, came to witness and walk Mom home with us.
I will miss Mom and am grateful for the long life she shared with all of us.
She loved every single one of us. No one more but certainly all differently. She loved with specificity, not a broad brush. Never saying a bad word about anyone. We are all different and we have different relationships with each other. That’s good. It’s not a contest. It’s just love. Mom did that without measure or counting.
Let stuff go, quickly, don’t let it get a foothold.
Forgive and forget, learn the lesson, forget the experience.
Go to funerals and wakes.
Be present to witness, hold, laugh, cry.
Each one of us can be ministers to souls by simply showing up.
No words necessary, simple presence.
A long embrace.
Thank you deeply to all who did that for us this week.
Be optimistic, hopeful and light.
Love without condition or counting.
Anything less is not love.

A few things I wanted to say about Mom but didn’t when rushed and flustered by a different format than I expected at the wake:

Mom grew up on the east side of St. Paul with her brothers Don and Stan, mom Laura and Dad Jim. My Mom was 10 years old when her Mom died. She carried that cross every single day of her life. Through the years, Mom spoke often of going to Aunt Helen’s farm on Sundays. I imagine the first time that Aunt Helen told her to pick a chicken, Mom probably thought she was befriending an animal. Little did she know that “Henry” would soon be chicken and dumplings after Aunt Helen, who weighed 80 pounds wet, took an ax and outran the chicken. One night, her Aunt Rose heard a noise in the chicken coop. Rose picked up a rifle and headed into the dark to check it out.

Strong tough farm women. Raising Mom because her Mom was gone way too early. Tender steel. Mom carried those characteristics forward along with Aunt Helen’s Chicken and Dumplings recipe minus the chicken chase and ax, taking the shortcut picking up the chicken at Country Club or Red Owl.

So many times at funerals, we say, “I didn’t know that about (insert dead person).” So the final reflection that I will carry forward as I/we carry on without Mom at the table – listen, learn, get to know the people around you. Don’t assume the worst or judge. Love well and reach out. We are on this journey together. You never know what someone else is going through and the way you can find out is to ask, listen with your heart and merely love. Mom did that so very well. I will try my best to do that to carry her forward into my days ahead. Tender steel indeed.

Mar 11

2 Comments

Love to Complete Your Life

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”― Washington Irving

“This is my wish for you: Comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth, Love to complete your life.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Mom joined Dad in heaven this week.
We walk her home for ourselves next week.
86 years old.
Tough and soft, tender steel.
From farm roots.
East side of Saint Paul, those who lived there know what that means.
Neighbors, friends, loyalty, family, community, laughter, hard work, hard play.
Love completed her life and remains for us to complete our own journey.
Grief and gratitude.
Joy and laughter.
Memories across a lifetime, not just a snapshot in time.
A good story.
May each of us complete our own story with comfort, smiles, rainbows, laughter, sunsets, hugs, beauty, friendships, faith, confidence, courage, patience and overflowing love. And the gift of God’s peace that passes all understanding.

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.”― Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times

May 21

Put On Love

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” – Colossians 3:12-17

This is the scripture that I read at my niece’s wedding last night.
Put on love.
It’s a choice that we make daily.
We choose to put it on or to pass it by for our ego, our smallness, for being “right.”
On beautiful celebrations it shows up tangible in embraces, ceremony, ritual, dancing, toasts, reflection, laughter.
More vividly and sweeter in gathering again for the first time in 2 ½ years.

We are all connected.
Called to love.
To love those closest to us and also those we disagree with, those who vote differently, those who are irritating, those who offend us.
That’s when love is most real and revealing.
To make the decision to clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, forgiveness all bound up by love.
May gratitude, peace and love be staples you partake in daily.
Put on love.

May 19

Stay Gentle

“You will see the blue sky spreading endlessly above you and smiling down.”– Aya Kitô

Open windows driving on a Sunday to nowhere in particular.
A simple act of exploration.
Wind flowing through, hair in the air.
Listening to music.
Really listening as summer is in prelude, ready to burst.
Expanding my playlist to keep discovering new music to feed the soul.
Poetry in motion, senses tuned.
I land on a song from Brandi Carlile, freshly downloaded, new to me.

Stay gentle.
Words that permeate, demand, stick, challenge.
It’s been a rough 2 ½ years of pandemic living.
You can see the weariness on faces of others and when you look in the mirror.
Now people are saying it’s going to be our “new normal,” just the way it is.
I don’t buy it.
Nothing stays forever.
Some things do change us forever.
Growth, acceptance, expansion if we allow, fostered with time.

And still.
And yet.
And for certain.
We get to choose our response.

We can’t let these things or others harden us, narrow our view, insulate us from healing beauty.
We must say, shout, sing a resounding YES! to life, all of it.
No leads nowhere.

Eyes of a child, soft heart, laughter, light, joy, amazed, wild, cracked, imperfect.
Be naïve, love with abandon, stay gentle.
Turn up the music.
A resounding YES!

“Stay gentle, keep the eyes of a child
Don’t harden your heart or your hands
Know to find joy in the darkness is wise
Although they will think you don’t understand

Don’t let the world make you callous
Be ready to laugh
No one’s forgotten about us
There is light on your path

Stay gentle, keep the eyes of a child
And wear your heart on your sleeve
Know to find joy in the darkness is wise
Although they will think you are naive

Don’t let ’em lower your shoulders
Love ’em more while they try
Grow younger while you’re growin’ older
Be amazed by the sky

Darling, stay wild if you can (if you can)
The girl with the world in her hands (in her hands)
The kingdom of Heaven belongs to a boy
While his worry belongs to a man

Stay gentle, stay gentle
The most powerful thing you can do
Oh, gentle, unbreakable you” – song by Brandi Carlile

Jan 25

Be!

“Listen to life, and you will hear the voice of life crying, Be!.” – James Dillet Freeman

“Listen to life, and you will hear the voice of life crying, Be!.” – James Dillet Freeman

“Sometimes the answer to prayer is not that it changes life, but that it changes you.” – James Dillet Freeman

In cycles, circles and seasons, there is unfolding and becoming.
Never done yet evolving and expanding, contracting and transforming.
Seek first to be changed, moved, renewed, again and again.
Circumstances, other people, the past, the future are woven throughout our life.
And yet, each of us decides how we will engage, to what we will give power to.
We choose what we do with it or not do with it.
What we pick up and what we lay down.
The capacity to change self rather than everything else outside of our direct control is our superpower.
Shifting from fixing and perfection to love and authenticity.
Imperfectly beautiful, a peace that passes understanding.
Cast and catch joy, light and love today.
Be! – Kind, Well, Compassionate, Grateful, Enthusiastic, Forgiving, Generous, Awake, Aware, Love

“For above all, love is a sharing. Love is a power. Love is a change that takes place in our own heart. Sometimes it may change others, but always it changes us.” – James Dillet Freeman

Jan 19

Eyes on the Road

“Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

“Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Glance only but for a moment in the rearview mirror;
Keep your eyes on the road ahead;
Holding the wheel;
Taking in the scenery;
Open to possibility, the promise of things that have never been.
New trails, some detours, some culdesacs.
Mountains, valleys, curves and flat.
Make your way out, around, through.
Eyes on the road.
Keep going, present in the journey, in this day.

“Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Sep 9

Bridges

“Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.” – Stephen Levine

“He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.” – Horace

May you choose bridges over walls;
Crossing over to new lands;
The river runs through to the ocean;
Poetry in motion;
Connections and patterns abound;
Cross over, again and again;
Joy and beauty all around;
Enjoy the view;
Postpone no more the hour of living.

“Praise the bridge that carried you over.” – George Colman

Oct 9

13 Comments

In Our Depths

“The True Self is not our creation, but God’s. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.” – Sue Monk Kidd

Gratitude and grace remind of the gifts that are present and remain ever present especially in difficult times.

It’s a heavy season right now. Serious cancer diagnoses for friends, beautiful courageous young women. No words can adequately express the deep concern and care of many who just want to do something, anything to make it better.

We so often don’t have answers to what life deals us. It requires us to let go of our plans, to trust in the darkness, to exist in the unknowing. It’s not easy. But while we are here in this place, breathing, we must continue to get up and come out swinging. Hope and trust in the waiting.

And a simple reminder to all. We never fully know what someone is going through, so always error on the side of kindness, compassion, empathy and love, without condition. Be present and fully aware so you can be a gift that someone may desperately need. Go deeper, stay longer and never give up.

Dec 19

2 Comments

Chisel

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” – Michelangelo

Daily life is often unclear, messy and loud. With an abundance of options and directions, we bury ourselves in the mundane pursuit of tasks and find ourselves in a hole of scarcity. We don’t see the exact path, so we don’t take the first step.

But just one step beyond the noise, grey and cloudiness, we are called to carve out our lives with what we are given in this very moment. Each step prior has prepared us for steps unseen. Discovery and delight  are found in daily pursuit of joy, unfolding the statue inside.

So instead of over-analyzing and over complicating, simply start chipping away each day to carve out the life you are meant to create. Take the chisel back from others and hold it in your hand firmly. Set the angel free.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo

« Older Entries
%d bloggers like this: