Deeply listening to what is within and around us changes us. ~John Fox I’ve tried to write to the sound of music. It doesn’t work for me. I create better in silence. Although there really isn’t such a thing. It’s when I’m silent that I hear the sounds of silence. Silence makes you attentive to […]
Friday Fuel for the Weekend: Dare to Sabbath
Go nowhere to go somewhere. Do nothing to do something. Dump fuel to refuel. Stop to go. Pause to produce. The paradox of sabbath. And sabbath is what chapter 8 of God in the Yard is all about. Trusting in cycles of strength and weakness, rest and work, presence and absence (or presence and hiddenness.) […]
Friday Fuel for the Weekend: Presence
“Like Steven Chase says, “absence sharpens our seeking: it sets the tone and temper of our attentiveness.” God in the Yard (chapter 7) I have been absent from the yard. The holidays, my daughter’s surgery and hospitalization, and caring for my grandgirls during her recovery have messed with my schedule and self-time. Oh, I’ve made […]
The Intimacy of Prayer
She made me uncomfortable. She made me squirm. I didn’t want to think about it, much less write about it. I plugged my ears and sang, “Lalalalalala.” L.L. quotes Sister Wendy Beckett, nun and art critic, as saying when she speaks about Piero Della Francesca’s painting, The Baptism of Christ: “Jesus is totally folded in […]
First Snow
soft no flurry at the feeders no song in the air no footprints to follow just brushed wet kisses and manna whispers still Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7 (NIV) Adding my words to other poets at One Shot Wednesday. And […]
On Adopting a Droid
I am in a land of shiny things. AKA–the Verizon Store. Where inhabitants speak a strange language and rows upon rows of shiny alien mouths line up neatly on shelves. I’ve owned these before. Their little jaws have bitten me in the past. Snapped right on the web between my right thumb and forefinger and […]
I am
I am too big in my box to see I AM but when I am out of my box I am small so small and I see I AM everywhere I am. I write this in honor of L.L. Barkat who has inspired me to leave my “box” and yield myself to the vastness of […]
R.E.S.T.
Rest. It’s my mantra these days. I wish I had learned it better before now. When the kids were at home. When I was always trying to do, do, do and be, be, be. When I was trying to satisfy people and satisfy my own perfectionism. It’s why I’m so smitten with God in the […]
Weeping and Celebrating
We spend… too little time experiencing the griefs themselves. The result is that these griefs remain hidden and never open us to our joys. ~David Whyte as quoted in God in the Yard. Branches litter the yard from yesterday’s wind, and leaves block the garage door. A political sign lies in the side yard. The […]
Sensing God
I see God in golden spotlight of morning stage with pink and lavender curtains billowed. I hear God in feathered symphony and leafy whispers of Spirit breath within my ear. I smell God in golden crisp of autumn wrapped with subtle scent of smoke and damp. I feel God in warmth of sunshine on my […]
