A Book is Just A Beginning
I feel so strongly that life with the Divine is about starting something…the Divine is beginning something today in each of us. There are, of course, our “works in progress” – our life story as it is up to this point – and yet within each large overarching story there are little beginnings as well.
The Cross, A Space
Holy week is about a great many things, but most importantly it is about the hope within a hospitality of suffering. It is the place where we bring the ache of flesh and share that experience with a crucified Christ.
Regardless of whether we caused the suffering or it was inflicted on us, there is a table set for us to share these death rattles with One who is “well acquainted with grief.”
The Only Way Through is Through
What the wisdom of ancient Scriptures, later sages and saints, as well as present day storytelling remind us is that great suffering is often the midwife of great goodness. A keyhole in our life that only a rough-edged key can fit.
Photo by Victoria Strukovskaya on Unsplash
The Way Has Been Made
If you are looking for a way into life today, a way to work with grace and love others with courage and perseverance, the lever that you’re looking for is this simple phrase: the way has already been made.
The Space Between
What is clear to me is that avoiding the present is to give up on the energy that transforms us.
What is also clear is that God’s favorite meeting place for the human adventure is right here, right now.
(Photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash)
Why We Will Fail in 2021 (And Why That's Hopeful)
As I stand in the kitchen and look at the 2021 jar, I realize that by the end of this year it will be filled with the things that we call “good” or “joyful.” Rightly so. These moments always bring a laugh or smile when we read through them. They make us. They form us.
But so do the failures.
Advent 4 // A Christmas of Love, Hate, and We
The final week of Advent is about the arrival of that which cannot be measured in our own advancement. Though we will move and be moved, we will find our being in such a love (Acts 17), ultimately there is a single horizon in Jesus’ newly opened eyes.
To take the “us versus them” down to the bare bones. To the studs. To the foundation.
To shred the selfish ends of what we sometimes call love when we haven’t been given a proper peek at the alternative.
Advent 3 // On Our Neighbor and Choosing Joy
This year we lit our Advent candles, we read about “good news of great joy,” in the midst of record numbers of pandemic-related deaths. With hospitals filled to bursting and with the circle of “cases” growing closer and closer to us, we read about the choice to be okay even when things weren’t okay.
Advent 2 // Faith Is Nothing And All
Faith in this season of Advent is about sitting ready for the possibility of the Divine around every corner, every day.
And when the sun rises and sets without a hint of something “beyond,” we rest our heads knowing that the Divine has space enough in the next day to arrive & surprise us. That is faith.
Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash
Good Cancer and Where Growth Really Happens
I am frail. There are cancers that aren’t the good kind in this walking world; a world that is both temporary and miraculous.
And that is the journey - that’s where growth really happens. Knowing these things and their little deaths is what makes us more a contemporary than simply dust.
There is where we grow. That is how we heal.
A Cloud, A Fire, and A Reason to Clean Out Your Basement
It is strange what happens when we are given a chance to simply notice things. The slowdown in schedule and occupation of time gives us a chance to see unseen things. Unnoticed things.
The still small voice now grows louder and louder. Pay attention. Now I have your attention.
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash
Some Words In The Silence
When it comes to COVID-19 we want words that tell us that everything will be normal again. Our deep desire is to wake up to hear words – miracle words – that the “curve” now looks more like Kansas than Appalachia.
In the silence, we surrender the words because we are there to surrender the outcomes.
Photo by davide ragusa on Unsplash
What It Means to Be Still
The lesson for this quarantine season feels very clear: The only way through is to go in - deeper and deeper, whatever may come. God is with us - never leaves us or forsakes us. I believe that. And I am also unsteady from time to time.
For me, it isn’t either “faith or fear.” It is that God longs for us so much that to live with God is to live with faith AND fear in a delicate dance. It is believing while we’re scared, anxious, and unsettled.
But how?
It's Okay to Need
Admitting that we need things humbles us because it shows that we aren’t all powerful. Knowing what we need also puts us in the place of examining the why of our need and the feasibility of that need being met at all.
Subscribe today and get next week’s post in your inbox!
Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash
a promise before departing
This week, I head off the grid for a bit. So, today's note reflects that reality. It is brief, but hopefully helpful for you today.
Photo by Jakub Sejkora on Unsplash
it can always rain harder
The goal of formation is to be ready for the rain. It is to steady ourselves spiritually for the days when absurdity is all we can see. Formation through the Scriptures of lament, complaint, and whatever-in-the-world-Ecclesiastes-is give us language for the rain.
Photo by Antony Xia on Unsplash
the wisdom of being sick
Sickness is the most human thing that we can ever experience. It is the reminder that tiny, microscopic organisms can wage war and actually take territory in our bodies. Then again, our bodies actually fight back and heal themselves, carrying out a deep divinity wired into them that says "Battle. Survive. Do not surrender."
There is an innate wisdom to sickness, and sadly I have a front row seat to three pearls of "sick wisdom" that I'd love to share with you. (Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash)
Of Cardboard and Ashes
A bit about Lent, moving, formation, and what happens in the "time in between."
choosing "sides" - thoughts on Advent, part 2
The baby in the manger isn't on your "side."
know your lingo.
Does our lingo connect and resonate with real life?