“Even beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally; the very sea pauses at ebb and flood; earth keeps the Sabbath of the wintry months; and man, even when exalted to God’s ambassador, must rest or faint, must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vogor or grow prematurely […]
Still Saturday: Catching Quiet
It is a hard art to learn, catching quiet by palms raised cupped in air shifting location here and there like trying to guess the pattern of falling leaves, and hoping to feel the soft descent of moments when silence slips between sounds. ~Enuma Okoro from “Passing Ordinary Time” as found in At the Still […]
Still Saturday: Taking Time
“We simply haven’t taken time. We’ve not been still long enough, often enough, to know ourselves, our friends, our family. Our God. Indeed, the worst hallucination busyness conjures is the conviction that I am God. All depends on me. How will the right things happen at the right time if I’m not pushing and pulling and […]
Still Saturday: For When We Can’t Afford to Stop (Day 27)
“I’d venture that most of your precious memories occurred in spontaneous moments when you were paying attention to the present. We’re created for more than work. Our value is so much more than what we do. “In short, we’re designed to require rest and to crave beauty. Even our Creator rested and observed a […]
Still Saturday: Just Enough Time (Day 20)
“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 […]
Still Saturday: Being is Not Wasting (Day 13)
“Perhaps one of the saddest things we can do is waste time, as Shakespeare knew when he had Richard the Second cry out, ‘I have wasted time, and now doth time waste me.’ “But being time is never wasted time. When we are being, not only are we collaborating with chronological time, but we are […]
Still Saturday: Last Days of Fragrance (Day 4)
“Clarence died full of years and short of breath . . . In all the time Clarence attended the church where I pastor, he never did a thing other than show up . . . But the roots ran deep, and the branches stretched sturdy and long, and oh, the fruit. That man was clasped […]
Still Saturday: Go Sit
I’m hanging over the edge of the Frio River in Texas this weekend. I scheduled this post before I left, but it didn’t “take.” My apologies. Sending love and praying you have a most beautiful, grace-soaked weekend. Go, sit upon the lofty hill, And turn your eyes around, Where waving woods and waters wild […]
Still Saturday: Life Itself is Grace
Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness, touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is […]
Still Saturday: Solitude of Heart
When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs. ~Henri Nouwen in Reaching Out: The Three Movements of […]
