How did you wake up this morning?
Outside my bedroom window, a group of large crows regularly gets together for coffee at 5 am. I think they’re all retired because they like to tell the same old jokes that peck away at my eardrums.
Perfection Isn't a Requirement
Relax, Breath...
Awestruck
During my early morning quiet time, I read “Show me a sign of your favor….” (Psalm 86:17a). Then it struck me, like a loud shout of ‘Alleluia” from a congregational member while a preacher is giving his/her sermon to a stoic, mainline church. Without asking, God showed me his favor the previous night. Let me explain.
A Winter of Being Fallow
Recently, a friend said to me as she entered what would be the last day of her husband’s life, “I don’t know any more how to pray.” The heartache expressed in that question – do I pray for him to live? Or do I pray for him to die? – resonated with me through all those times I haven’t been sure how to pray. My response to her, “with groanings too deep for words,” comes straight from Romans 8:26, and reminds us that our prayers need not have words attached.
The Value of an Apron
Over the holidays, I found myself in the kitchen more than usual. I enjoy whipping up a batch of cookies or measuring ingredients for a pie (especially if one of my grandchildren is with me). I enjoy the rich aroma of soup bubbling away on the stove or the smell of freshly baked bread. However, I tend to be an untidy cook. When I plan to get down to cooking seriously, I put on my apron. My apron signals to myself, and those around me, that I mean business. This signal says, “things are going to get messy.” “Take notice - this recipe will take more time and effort than you might expect.” But hopefully, my apron also signals that something wonderful is out there in the future, and the end product will be worth the effort and wait.
God Helps a Forced Schedule Become an Unforced Rhythm of Grace
Tree Losing Leaves
All of us are busy. We are productive, responsible, connected people, making good things happen in our families and the world. Unfortunately it is not unusual for our busyness to interfere with our life with God, squeezing out soul care. In response, voices within our Christian community call us to slow down and live with more margin.
Sometimes the invitation to slow down is the convicting voice of the Spirit helping us to see that we are slaves to our “programs for happiness” as Thomas Keating would say. In this case, change is in order. But sometimes we just feel guilty because there is nothing we can actually cut out to make our life less busy. We can’t give away a child, quit a job, stop caring for aging parents, or leave other commitments in order to lead a less busy life. Rather than feeling guilty and longing for the day when things “settle down a bit,” perhaps there are seasons of life when the invitation is to connect with God in the midst of a full life.
I’ve been living with the word “midst.” God with me and me with God in the midst of life in all its busyness: God with me in the midst of one-thing-after-another days, unexpected twists, and too-short nights. God delighting in the pulse and pace of my life, not wanting me to be looking for a way out, but to learn how to connect with him in the midst of it all.
Soul Care in the Midst
All of us are busy. We are productive, responsible, connected people, making good things happen in our families and the world. Unfortunately it is not unusual for our busyness to interfere with our life with God, squeezing out soul care. In response, voices within our Christian community call us to slow down and live with more margin.
Sometimes the invitation to slow down is the convicting voice of the Spirit helping us to see that we are slaves to our “programs for happiness” as Thomas Keating would say. In this case, change is iin order. But sometimes we just feel guilty because there is nothing we can actually cut out to make our life less busy. We can’t give away a child, quit a job, stop caring for aging parents, or leave other commitments in order to lead a less busy life. Rather than feeling guilty and longing for the day when things “settle down a bit,” perhaps there are seasons of life when the invitation is to connect with God in the midst of a full life.
I’ve been living with the word “midst.” God with me and me with God in the midst of life in all its busyness: God with me in the midst of one-thing-after-another days, unexpected twists, and too-short nights. God delighting in the pulse and pace of my life, not wanting me to be looking for a way out, but to learn how to connect with him in the midst of it all.
Eyeing The Feeling Wheel
Sometime ago I was struggling to wrap my brain around an emotion I couldn’t quite name to my spiritual direction supervisor. As I hummed and hawed, she wondered if I might check out The Feeling Wheel. I told her I had suggested this resource to a few directees. Actually, I had been on a roll with The Feeling Wheel doing my own work. Recently, this tool has helped me see my feelings of apathy and indifference stem from boredom and the primary emotion of sadness.
The Feeling Wheel helps me identify and name my own individual feelings during spiritual direction sessions. It’s like an interior compass designed to help me locate how I’m feeling, pausing, shifting and perhaps already traveling with a directee, and with God.
The Feeling Wheel has helped me admit to, and accept, my changing emotions in a direction session I see as an evolving thread. The directee starts out with the when, where, and how of what they’ve been doing. This “thread of reporting” becomes a “thread of self-awareness” where one’s story is told through unedited questions, desires, a burst of joy, a thought that tails off into doubt.