September Twenty Fifteen

Fall is here with the start of school (finally!),  the leaves changing color and the crisp autumn air.  

back to school neighborhood traditions 

This describes us well on camping adventures (from our last hurrah before school started):  

 "…. we’re the best version of our family there—relaxed and connected and without agenda or schedule." ― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

“....believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without ever realizing it........

 

".....I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become......

"....The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting.

The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it......

"....I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep ability to see what has been there all along, we will find worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets and intimations of love and friendship and marriage and parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know where to look.

".....Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. The scene unfolding right outside your window is worth more than the most beautiful painting, and the crackers and peanut butter that you’re having for lunch on the coffee table are as profound, in their own way, as the Last Supper. This is it. This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. But pull off the mask and you will find your life, waiting to be made, chosen, woven, crafted.

".....Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy and power and detail and dimension, better than the best movie you have ever seen. You and your family and your friends and your house and your dinner table and your garage have all the makings of a life of epic proportions, a story for the ages. Because they all are. Every life is.

You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural. 

You are more than dust and bones.

You are spirit and power and image of God.

And you have been given Today.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

"Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways.  We were made to represent the love of God in each other’s lives so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of god’s love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can’t always see from where we are......

"….Maybe some of what we are doing here is representing the goodness and love of God in tangible ways. You’re showing that love to the people in your life and then sometimes they’re showing it to you, and when your friend isn’t going to make it to the edge of the pool, you jump in with your clothes on and swim next to her.” 

― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life