With full awareness of all that is ugly in the world, I am obsessing about beauty. I don’t believe these thoughts represent escapism so much as astonishment. A lesson that has unfolded for me over the past year is that nothing in this world is to be taken for granted. And so I’m trying to keep my eyes and my heart open and when I do this the beauty of life nearly overwhelms me, as does the impulse to experience, create, and extend this beauty, which represents Love. Continue reading
spirituality
Tending the urban forest
When we moved to town I thought I was giving up my special relationship with trees. Living in the woods, trees were my cathedral, my companions, my inspiration. I learned things about trees that I might not have if they hadn’t dominated my environment. Continue reading
Heart vision in Congo
When I go to church in Congo, as I did yesterday, it’s usually all about the music. Enough glorious, full-volume, tam-tam–beat harmony can get me through 2-3-hour services without totally wilting in the heat. And now, after many visits over the past five years to the same little congregation in the heart of a cramped Kinshasa neighborhood only partly accessible by vehicle, it’s about the people, too. This is my community, my home church in Congo.
I have trouble concentrating on the sermons, though. Continue reading
Being and Moving
It is March 13 and a fresh snow slows time as if to say, Let’s have some more winter before spring bursts upon us.
I could use a real time stop, to let me catch up with myself. Maybe that’s why time has been playing tricks on me. Like I was sure today is my grandson’s second birthday when it was actually yesterday. Continue reading
Going deep
So. Our bid was accepted on the house we are calling the Pink Lady. This was a very fast real estate rollercoaster. Ten days after putting our country home on the market, and not knowing exactly what we were looking for in the city, though we had some stringent requirements, we have sold our house and bought another one. Continue reading
Donald Trump, kickstarter
We are selling our beautiful house in the Michigan woods and plotting a move to the nearby city of South Bend, Indiana. We have many reasons for doing this and we have been thinking about it for some time but what prompted us to take action, to actually put our beloved home on the market and begin the rollercoaster of real estate searches, showings, and offers, has a lot to do with the election of Donald Trump and the stunning, fast-moving stream of events since then. Continue reading
Lazy or minimalist?
Epiphany. Will I do Jan Richardson’s one-day Women’s Christmas retreat today? Probably not. It’s already past 11. Will I write? Probably not because I really know nothing and it’s already past 11. Will this be another minimalist day? Probably.
I am so inclined to minimalism and the temperature is in the single digits and it is snowing. Continue reading
A statement of faith
Why am I skeptical of all petitions and schemes to wrest the presidency away from Donald Trump? Because I believe that at best they would only delay the inevitable, since nearly half the country voted for him. What we would get in a Clinton presidency would only feed the anger and dismay of this half of the country. What we would get in a Pence presidency would do exactly what a Trump presidency will do but in a calmer fashion. Continue reading
Advent 2016
This feels like the “after all is said and done” day at the end of a month that … I don’t even know what to say about it. You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing. There are so many words out there already. I feel like everything that could be said has been said. Continue reading
Divine baby love
Ooof. There is such a thing as emotional multitasking when your attention is pulled in wildly different, significant directions. Not a rollercoaster, with highs and lows, but rapid shifts between different realities.
I realized this when I sat this morning for a full hour and a half, alone in a quiet house, with my brand-new grandson, and was flooded with such huge hit of love that it shook tears from my eyes. Continue reading
the practical mystic 