Listening
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moreWhen You’ve Been Waiting for an Answer …. and Life seems Silent
On Wednesday, August 22 nd, 2012When Malakai’s afraid, he chews on his bottom lip like his grandmother. And there’s no getting around it: He looks like a caged coon up there in the pew before the piano — biting at his lip, hands fidgeting. He’s eight. How can I really tell him — that catastrophizing is how we make our own soul-cages. That fear’s always the...
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more3 Things to Hold on to When Life Hurts {Cherry Blossoms in Rain}
On Wednesday, April 25 th, 2012S he learned it haltingly in early spring, when the rain fell. When the edge of Japan washed away. When the sky slid down all the window panes. And a Sunday in spring, when a tornado sky rips up the earth, leaving this fury of questions, she plays on, the same song. Now surer, steadier. I stand at the windowsill. It still rains. The tomatoes plants try to stan...
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moreweekends are for perfect days
On Saturday, November 26 th, 2011So when the Farmer kicked that ball on the side of a mountain in Ecuador and the children all laughed and ran him hard till the sweat ran gloriously down, when he turned to me and said it grinning: Perfect Day — it did start right then, a bit of rain, but it never stopped ringing over the mountains, ...
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moreSimply Stilled
On Thursday, June 23 rd, 2011Because the knowing Him on paper needs to lead to knowing Him in person. Because one is only onto superficiality. And the other alone onto salvation. :: :: He says, “Be still, and know that I am God…” ~ Psalm 46:10 :: :: :: ::
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moreHow Emptiness Can Sing
On Friday, April 08 th, 2011I come home with the stomach knotted and the hands clenched. Is anger but a tender wound bound so tight it howls all ugly? For days, after early hours of barn chores, then breakfast, we’ve packed the books into baskets, the kids into van. Drove from the farm to town, knocked on my mama’s back door and spilled all in. For days, I’ve been feeling the weariness, the tig...
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moreweekends are for moving in the right direction
On Saturday, August 14 th, 2010Wherever you are right in this moment, whatever you face straight on today, may your wanderings this weekend, true friend, glide quiet… take to wing …. climb ever higher …. into His waiting arms. May your inner compass, kind friends, keep you headed in His direction…. All’s grace, Photos: move...
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Soulcousitcs: How to Hear God in the Dark Spaces
On Wednesday, August 04 th, 2010She grabs my Mama’s guitar from the music room and she sits cross-legged and bare-footed on Mama’s back porch in the first light and she plucks songs from the strings and the air and her heart. Our small group sings. Channels Only, Blessed Master… The sun lays out in long, stretching rays through the maple tree in the soybean field off Mama’s back lawn. Annette strums...
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How to Hear From God
On Wednesday, July 28 th, 2010My mama said she heard voices. Had heard voices all the years since the dark and the unwanted shadows moving across the walls, across her and the innocence. Strange, me, her daughter, uttering prayers to hear and after her trying to shut out the voices all her running life. A friend sends me words, says she’s been sitting outside just listening to things… bees droni...
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when you’re looking for Surround Sound for the Soul
On Wednesday, July 21 st, 2010You get tired of all the noise. And the barrage of sound that wears you right down and who knew that the tumult of the daily grind can leave you tone deaf to God? And then come these moments. These fleeting islands of time. In the hush after the freshening early morning rain or late under the star blankets or in one wide open field of summer dozing. The stillness falls in surr...
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What You Really Need When Life is Loud
On Wednesday, March 10 th, 2010Our ears only open when our lips close quiet. I learn slow. I spend the weekend in silent retreat with a gracious community of women at a Benedictine Monastery. We are silent. From Thursday to Sunday, we endeavour not to talk. Our mouths only open to pray Scripture with the monks. We nod genially to each other when we meet on the walks through the woods, out in the vineyard, ...
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Three Ways to Hear God Today
On Wednesday, January 06 th, 2010It’s crazy, but I wait all day like Elijah on the mountain, wait for the loud and the blazing, the flash and fireball. The dog barks on the front porch. Shalom laughs at her daddy’s silly joke, rubs his nose with hers, repeats that same funny line in giggles all day. I lose a needed piece of mail, hunt for it like a hound. The house looks like it. Malakai comes in ...
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moreWeather Report: Listening
On Tuesday, October 27 th, 2009I sit on rim of the world, the edge of a cornfield, and only hear wind in corn. October rustles leaves of the dead still standing. Dead leaves, thousands, touch, bows across strings, make music like water running, water falling on stones, the rattling of the bones. Tassels, dried and brown, bow. Grey clouds track low, heading east. Leaves withered dry sing hymns of living wat...
