January 2015
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Romans 15:13 (The Message) - picture from Ravenna Park
Mounds of cheer and a happy new year…
We must learn to celebrate. I say learn to
celebrate because celebration is not just a spontaneous event. We have to
discover what celebration is. Our world doesn’t know much abut celebration. We
know quite a bit about parties, where we are artificially stimulated with
alcohol to have fun. We know what movies and distractions are. But do we know
what celebration is? Do we know how to celebrate our togetherness, our being
one body? Do we really know how to use all that is human and divine to
celebrate together?
–Jean Vanier
God of this new year, we
are walking into mystery. We face the future, not knowing what the days
and months will bring to us or how we will respond. Be love in us as we
journey. Deepen our faith to see all of life through your eyes. Fill us with
hope and an abiding trust that you swell in us amidst all our joys and
sorrows. Thank you for the gift of being able to rise each day
with the assurance of your walking through the day with us.
God of this new year, we praise you. Amen.
(adapted from "A New Year's Blessing," by Joyce Rupp, May I
Have This Dance?)
running errands (literally) with their mama
fun and games
Trust Fall at our small group...
“The incredible gift of the
ordinary! Glory comes streaming from the table of daily life.”
- Macrina Wiederkehr
Be Still in Haste
How quietly I
begin again
from this moment
looking at the
clock, I start over
so much time has
passed, and is equaled
by whatever
split-second is
present
from this
moment this moment
is the first
-Wendell Berry (Poetry Magazine, September 1962)
Patient Trust
Above all, trust in the slow work
of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without
delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of
being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of
all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and
that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you;
your
ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue
haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that
is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of
you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new
spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of
believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling
yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
after a year of trying and lots of hand-holding, I finally got it! :)
When I picked up unicycling a year ago, one friend told me it was crazy. He said it was going to take way too much time. But I loved the fact that our kids had learned to ride from their fabulous PE teacher, and I wanted to be able to do it with them. And on top of that, the kids are not yet embarrassed by me (and I know those days might be numbered) so I figured why not pick up something as zany and whimsical as learning to ride a unicycle?! At least if all else fails, we could all join the circus! Over the last year, I've had lots of folks so kind to hold my hand and "take me for a walk" as I was learning. I am thankful for this picture of community in my life and of the role others have played in supporting me in the journey (even around something as silly as them helping me ride on one wheel...)
This video below is a tribute to the folks who have held my hand over this last year:
I love that Jean Vanier quote! So powerful. And I'm always inspired by YOU!
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