Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. (1 Peter 4:9 ESV) My dad’s told the story a quadrillion times. How I overheard him say he’d like fish and fried potatoes for breakfast. So one morning I rose early (Dad says I was probably only 10 years old), grabbed my fishing pole and a can of […]
Still Saturday: Time
“I speak it to God: I don’t really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breathe deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or […]
Dreaming With Darwish: Forms of the Dream
“Tell me how you lived your dream in some place, and I’ll tell you who you are.” ~Mahmoud Darwish It started as just a 30-day dream dare with Mahmoud Darwish. It’s been 60 days, and I’m not done with him yet. This poetry dare arrived in two parts: first, read a poem a day […]
There Is No Hurry
There is No Hurry I pour tomatoes and chop sweet onion, snip parsley frills and crush some basil, dash salt, sprinkle sugar. Stir. I race against the clock. Hurry. A tasty sauce takes time to simmer, but hungry stomachs will arrive at six. I rattle glasses, bang the stainless, wash and wipe. Outside a silver needle […]
Still Saturday: Wilderness ( And Giveaway)
I didn’t dare tell anyone I had grown soft for Nebraska. But on the inside, I found myself marveling at the astounding vastness of the cornflower blue skies that unfurled each morning right over my head. I was captivated by the way the sunlight skipped around on actual amber waves of grain. […]
A Random Act of Poetry for #raopoetryday
Four years ago, a still unknown someone gifted me a writer’s retreat at Laity Lodge in the Texas Hill Country. I got the call while sitting outside at a nursing home with my mom who had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor following a fall. The only workshop still open was a poetry […]
Still Saturday: Surrender
The power of the Holy Spirit is life; it is like breath in our lungs. It is the Spirit of God, not just hovering over the waters and the deep, but now, at our behest and invitation, infused into our very being and dwelling within us. We cannot see him, but if we’re paying […]
Still Saturday: Mute
Mute Must we use words For everything? Can there not be A silent, flaming Leap of heart Toward Thee? ~Elizabeth B. Rooney as found in At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time, compiled by Sarah Arthur In the stillness, Sandy Welcome to the Still Saturday Community where we […]
When I Was No Writer And My Words Were Poo
“I like good strong words that mean something.” ~Jo March (Little Women) I chinned the rusty barrel near the hem of our woods. The carbon petals curled and separated. The ashes fluttered high and melted into the atmosphere. Cremation complete. The weekly newspaper over in the next county had rejected my fiction story—the […]
Still Saturday: Clear Out and Cultivate
“If we are going to live appropriately in the creation we must keep the Sabbath. We must stop running around long enough to see what he has done and is doing. We must shut up long enough to hear what he has said and is saying. All our ancestors agree that without silence and […]