Reflections on the Journey
What Does God Say About Our Desires?
This is the time of year when I’m neck-deep in desire. The four weeks of Advent offer us an extended invitation to prepare for the coming King by noticing the stirrings of our hearts. The quieter we allow ourselves to become, the deeper the vein of desire we mine. Flipping the desire coin over, we find expectation embossed on the other side. The truer our desire, the greater our expectation...
Embracing Desire—The Surprising Gift of Advent
As soon as the Thanksgiving festivities draw to a close and the house empties out again, I begin preparing my heart and home for the next celebration. Carefully I remove the fall decorations and some of the décor that marks “ordinary time” to make room for the myriad decorations I put up each year for Christmas. The rhythm of my efforts at decking the halls keeps time with the Christmas music...
Finding Courage in a Posture of Rest
The noise of an overflowing to-do list jarred me awake. I was shouldering the weight of too much to do, no clear roadmap for how to proceed, and a fear of not having enough time to do it all. The more aware I became of my burden, the more deeply I felt the potential for failure. It’s no surprise that courage falters as the potential for failure increases. With a mind churning to...
Finding Rest in a Busy Life: Is It Possible?
Finding rest in a busy life seems a contradiction of terms. Rest evokes images of stillness, while a busy life requires endless to-do lists to keep oneself organized. List-making anchors me but can also imprison me.
Suite d’espoir, Spring
I’m learning to taste hunger. I’ve always taken food for granted. Not the taste—I’m a certifiable foodie. Just the question of whether I had access to food or not. Living in a land of plenty, I’ve never known true hunger. Oh, I may grumble from time to time, proclaiming, “I’m starving!” but I’ve always had plenty of options to satisfy any rogue hunger pang. Last year I decided to fast one...
Shadow and Light
When I was a child, it seemed sun-drenched, joy-filled days often stretched out before me like an opera-length strand of exquisite pearls. My family encountered problems and worries like any other family, but my parents were careful to shield my sisters and me from many of the particular details of their adult concerns. In keeping with the simplistic, ego-centric organization so typical of a...
