So many books, so little time. I know I’m not the only one. Stacks on my bedside table, a few […]
Minute of Grace
Welcome to today and a minute of Grace! We walk through life sometimes together, sometimes alone, and always in the presence of the Holy, the one I call God. Check back every Wednesday evening for your next Minute of Grace.
Minute of Grace, catch-up edition
There will be a new blog post for Minute of Grace next week.
Feel free to catch up with recent posts you may have missed, and enjoy the start to your August!
Reacting vs. responding to what comes next
Are we ever ready for what comes next? The next job, the next adventure, the next diagnosis, the next political controversy, dare I say it educators? The next school year? Maybe it matters how the next thing happens. If it comes as expected – the date and time given well enough ahead that getting used to it is a process. If it comes unexpectedly with no time to process or prepare, then we’re left to make our way as best we can. Sometimes it brings a response, most often before the response comes a knee-jerk reaction that is sometimes less a reasoned decision and more fight or flight, all based in acute fear. For some things that’s simply the way it has to be because we’re humans and that’s how we’re built. I’m not certain if age, or wisdom, or life experience makes all the difference, some difference, or no difference whatsoever.
From a centered place
How about for us? Those of us who look on dramatic and traumatic events from afar? Who hear the voices, the anger, the pain and wonder what it is we have to offer? Believe it or not in these moments I’m not focused on the commonsense actions I will always believe we can and I pray one day will take that data shows can lessen the likelihood of such death-dealing events. I’ll come back to that another day. Today I want to consider what it is faithful human beings can do to ensure the actions we take are from a place of our own deep peace and even selflessness.
The larger picture
I have difficulty not seeing life from a big picture point of view. While it’s true I can sometimes obsess […]
A picture that yet unites us?
Have you made plans for which fireworks display you plan to see this year? As I remember growing up, we’d […]
‘Member Jesus?
I wonder sometimes if we are more interested in the definition of the rules we make to live within the bounds of a religious system than we are passionate about living like Jesus. ‘Member him???
Receiving help
It’s our “go-to” as Midwesterners, when we want to start a conversation standing in line, or at a gathering where […]
Choices for strength and healing
Have you started packing yet? For some Memorial Day weekend is the start of summer. For clergy types, it’s often […]
10,000 times 10,000 dreams
There are a lot of things I’ve never done in my life. Some call it a bucket list. Do you […]
For those who know nothing but trust
Those two boys had nothing but trust in our Sunday morning sacred gathering. No fear, no awareness of how to get under chairs or lock the doors and turn off the lights, no awareness that the moms and dads, teachers and preachers, ushers and other adults will throw ourselves over and in front of them if it’s ever necessary. They only know that they traveled down a long aisle with a strange and rather loud woman in an odd black dress and a whole mess of oddly different people welcomed and clapped for them without them doing anything but being.
When will they say we gave up?
When will they say we gave up? Confronting and trying to seriously solve gun violence in the United States? Will they say when people like me who still understand responsible gun ownership but are very clear the need for automatic and assault weapons used for nothing but killing people should be regulated more strongly than receiving a driver’s license or deciding for women what to do with their bodies? Will they say it was when people like me gave up thinking reasonable and logical regulation of firearms is a fantasy?