"What are the major turning points of your life?" A friend asked me this question about a month or so ago. I knew without hesitation that leaving church and leaving my career in short succession was a major turning point in my life. Everything changed after that. Everything. I know that I've told pieces of … Continue reading When Leaving is Just the Beginning
"May you be blessed with good friends, And learn to be a good friend to yourself..." John O'Donohue Today is my birthday! This year it feels especially significant because I get to celebrate being 40. And I feel like celebrating. Not with a big party. That's not my style. But by being with people I love; … Continue reading On Celebrating 40
There is a song in my heart. One I am meant to play. But it comes out all wrong when I sit down in front of those black and white keys. My left hand is weak and rusty from nearly 20 years of practicing every once in a very great while. The song should … Continue reading The Song Needs Each One of Us (A Piano Parable)
"Be where your feet are." A few years ago, a yoga instructor suggested using this phrase as an intention for our practice that evening. "Be where your feet are" shot straight to my heart and hasn't left --the thought, not, unfortunately, the practice of that thought. Maybe the instructor was talking about being present, paying attention … Continue reading Belonging in my Feet
"Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks. . ." --Frederick Buechner Sometimes a story catches your heart with its truth--a truth that is piercing and happening even thousands of years after the story was first told. Like the story of that earnest young man (the Bible … Continue reading Asking “What do You Belong to?” and Other Life-or-Death Questions
I wonder if the power of the Scripture's stories is not that they happened once upon a time, but that they happen. They have happened; they are happening; and they will happen. Like the story about Jesus taking the hand of the dead/sleeping girl and saying: "My child, get up!" Wake up. Wake up. Live … Continue reading On Waking
