(written a couple days earlier than it’s due: that’s a victory!) On this Epiphany Sunday, it feels like everywhere I turn there are gifts, messages, wisdom-bearers. While driving to church this morning, I was again reminded of how much I love the trees in the wintertime. They are no longer clumps of trees or groups or [...]
Asking for what I want
Once I had an employer who told me that he always gave me what I asked for, because he had learned that I only asked for what I needed, and that granting my request would be good for the company, as well as good for me. I wish everyone felt that way, because I believe [...]
In Defense of Delight
Do you know of the poet Jack Gilbert, or his profoundly moving poem, A Brief for the Defense? I was reading this poem aloud to a friend tonight, and realized that I had to simply ditch the post I was intending to polish then publish, and instead, share this provokingly powerful poem with you, too. I will not attempt to tell you what he says in the poem, for I couldn’t possibly do it justice. Please use one of the links in this post to give yourself the gift. I will, however, tell you that this is how it starts: “Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.”
Letting Go ???
There is a contemplative practice called The Welcome Prayer. The more I practice it, the more I realize its wisdom and gift. It goes like this . . . “I let go of my need for security. I let go of my need for affection and approval. I let go of my need for power [...]
appropriate risks ?
I don’t know who wrote this short bit of wisdom, but it popped into my mind the first time Laura mentioned Risk-a-Day to me, so I searched until I found it. To laugh is to risk appearing a fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. [...]
As Is
Last night I had a gentle aha moment… usually they slam into me and I am juiced and invigorated by the energy of them, but this was different. It kind of slid in like mud under a closed door. I was feeling resistant to it and defeated by it – it felt like an impossibility [...]
Feel the feelings (yikes!)
“What type are you?” is a question I began studying when obtaining a Masters Degree in counseling. I was introduced, then, to typology–understanding what makes a person tick by digging down to understand gifts, talents, differing strengths. We’re each built and carved out–certainly!!–as luscious and special individuals. Yet there’s some great wisdom in learning more about patterns of [...]
Risking Growing Older (gulp)
Risking Growing Older …And the truth is for many, many, many folks, I’m not that old. You know, it’s funny: in the detective books I read (Baldacci, Palmer, de Mille) when there’s “an old sage, weathered detective” in the office they always say, `she is in her fifties…’ At 52 and now on the other [...]
Wisdom from Wayne: “100% Of The Shots You DON’T Take DON’T Go In.”
So many of the risks we take, we often don’t even think of as risks: driving, going down the stairs without holding onto the railing (w/two rambunctious dogs a foot), and even getting out of bed, as one of my Beautiful Blogging Babes pointed out earlier, can be a risk. But those don’t make for [...]
