fear
-
morewhen feeling nervous: what’s really behind the fears
On Thursday, September 30 th, 2010(because I’m traveling right now… and trying to remember just this…) Who said courage wears a red badge? It’s just khaki capris, a black tee, I pull out of the closet for a day dawning summer, me leaving the house for the heat, for appointment and errands. I have no red badge of courage, but I wear prayer, the murmur of the weak made strong in the breaking. ...
-
moretake the dare to fully live!
On Friday, September 03 rd, 2010The long winter I grew heavy with our first child, I wore heavier sweaters and I didn’t tell any of our friends until I was six and a half months swollen. We’d only been married eight. And six weeks later, I held our baby. Our friends thought it a remarkably short pregnancy. Sometimes we shroud who we are becoming, to keep all the tender, stretching places, safe. Sometimes ...
-
moreSurprised by Grace…
On Friday, April 30 th, 2010A flurry of wings, the pigeon beat the air desperate, and when The Farmer stretches out his arms, the trembling heart lands, a gift. Unexpected grace always settles in the palm of the heaven-turned hands. Kai says he can feel it, its pounding beat thrumming through his latched fingers, its feathered warmth stuttering…...
-
more
The Cure of Fear: The Practice of the Present
On Monday, April 19 th, 2010I count them on the way, these apple trees in spring, caught in a blizzard of snow blushing pink. I count the blossoming limbs, wood grain labouring the delivery of petals, and the roads that coaxed me nervous and tentative away on a Wednesday, they keep their promise and usher me home on a Saturday and I cut the engine in the dark and fall astonished in that back door. I am ...
-
moreWhy You do Not Leave Home
On Tuesday, March 09 th, 2010Her poem for me, the one she wrote for me who wrote of living anxious agoraphobia, her poem lines come again to me. When I stand in line at customs in Canada, turn and wave tear brave to my Mama still standing at security, smiling me off. And again, when in Dallas, when the flight up to Arkansas gets cancelled at ten o’clock at night after four hours of ...
-
moreweekends are for growth
On Saturday, January 30 th, 2010Wise words tucked in my inbox… I am so grateful for this community, the gift of friendship, the way we share with one another — my humble thanks. I never get over the wonder of you! ‘Fear is like pain. Pain is given as an indicator that something is going on. Pain says, “Hey, pay some attention here.” Step away from the flame. Get...
-
moreSing: Light in the Dark (#2)
On Friday, January 22 nd, 2010There were birds today. I hear them as I come in up the back step, the mail in hand. I stand and listen and I look for them in trees, in limbs, in light. Chickering and chattering, all invisible. I have missed them. I didn’t know I had missed them until I heard them. Silence is clever that way. Icicl...
-
moreWhen You Can’t Figure Out What the Answer Should Be
On Wednesday, December 30 th, 2009Snow falls outside the window, whispers. I lie on her bed, listening to white. In the grey, night changes into a sweater of day and branches of the bare lilac slips on lace. She cups into me. She’s listening too. Her and I, we often lie together in the early and plan. “Mama?” “Mmmmm…” I murmur into her nest of curls. “...
-
moreWhen You’re Just a Tad Overwhelmed ….
On Friday, November 20 th, 2009I‘m standing at the counter, day seeping in without knocking, jotting down a list of the day’s tasks, the work of a week, in my journal, and it’s just a tad overwhelming and I am trying to remember just to breathe… And then I am fifteen, that summer I grip the handlebars of a Honda Goldwing, weave around margarine tubs set up as pylons in the backyard. ...
-
moreNever Fear Shadows
On Thursday, October 29 th, 2009Never fear shadows. They simply mean there’s a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~Ruth E. Renkel The Lord is my light and my salvation— so why should I be afraid? ~Ps. 27:1 Related:Fear’s the First Step of FaithBe Not Afraid Photos: Hope-girl walks the lit leavesShare your thoughts?…Would you like Holy Experience delivered to yo...
-
moreDon’t Be Afraid
On Tuesday, October 06 th, 2009…a thoughtful reader sent this hauntingly beautiful poem of Jane Kenyon’s … “Let Evening Come” “Let the light of late afternoonshine through chinks in the barn, movingup the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafingas a woman takes up her needlesand her yarn. Let evening come…. ...
-
moreMultitudes on a Monday: All Gold
On Monday, July 13 th, 2009He’s always called it Sunday Sadness, that shadow that creeps up over me come mid-Sabbath, when I prematurely begin grieving the passing of Sunday, when there’s still hours of it left, when I begin fearing the looming week to come, when there’s still grace for it too. It comes of years of Monday morning school buses that took me away from home circles, years o...
