Listening and Waiting

This has been an oddly off-kilter sort of day.

The kind of day where things poke at the edges of your conciousness but never quite become clear.

The kind of day where your body aches, and you're just not sure why.

Where things seen and things heard just don't seem to fit together.

Where I wake from dreams, and move, unsettled, into the day.

Where I listen and wait and pray.

For myself.

And for those I love.

Looking Back and Being Encouraged

I was re-reading some older blog posts, and this one caught my attention today. I remember so clearly the struggle it describes, and, in some ways, needed the encouragement from that particular passage of scripture that was so encouraging three years ago again today.

More on Choosing Life from Henri

More great thoughts arrived by email the last several days from the Henri Nouwen society...

Speaking Words of Love

Often we remain silent when we need to speak. Without words, it is hard to love well. When we say to our parents, children, lovers, or friends: "I love you very much" or "I care for you" or "I think of you often" or "You are my greatest gift," we choose to give life.

It is not always easy to express our love directly in words. But whenever we do, we discover we have offered a blessing that will be long remembered. When a son can say to his father, "Dad, I love you," and when a mother can say to her daughter, "Child, I love you," a whole new blessed place can be opened up, a space where it is good to dwell. Indeed, words have the power to create life.

Blessing One Another

To bless means to say good things. We have to bless one another constantly. Parents need to bless their children, children their parents, husbands their wives, wives their husbands, friends their friends. In our society, so full of curses, we must fill each place we enter with our blessings. We forget so quickly that we are God's beloved children and allow the many curses of our world to darken our hearts. Therefore we have to be reminded of our belovedness and remind others of theirs. Whether the blessing is given in words or with gestures, in a solemn or an informal way, our lives need to be blessed lives.

Choosing the Blessings

It is an ongoing temptation to think of ourselves as living under a curse. The loss of a friend, an illness, an accident, a natural disaster, a war, or any failure can make us quickly think that we are no good and are being punished. This temptation to think of our lives as full of curses is even greater when all the media present us day after day with stories about human misery.

Jesus came to bless us, not to curse us. But we must choose to receive that blessing and hand it on to others. Blessings and curses are always placed in front of us. We are free to choose. God says, Choose the blessings!

Yesterday

This is yesterday... in images...

At Lake Louise

Because I loved this quote.

Wet Feet... a memory and a ritual of sorts

Minnewanka. Raining.

Smile List - September 7 Edition

Here is the list of things making me smile today. The things I love, and am thankful for.

• hot pink crocs that were a Christmas gift from my brothers a few years back, and that I pulled out of my closet this morning to use as convenient shoes to keep by our back door for tramping to and from the back yard and garbage bins in the alley.
• cozy Winnie the Pooh slipper socks
• the smell of banana bread baking in my kitchen
• a morning of enjoying the house to myself while my roommates are at church and running errands
• an unexpected phone call from a friend who was part of a really hard conversation a week ago, wanting to know how I was doing, how my heart was, and "was I choosing life?"
• a long list of things that I've accomplished around our house this morning, including, baking, washing dishes, sweeping and mopping the kitchen, sweeping the living room and my bedroom, canceling my cable service in favor of better service from a new company, and taking the garbage out. I never want to start cleaning, but always draw great satisfaction from doing it once I get started.
• the Mamma Mia movie soundtrack (an itunes purchase this morning) playing LOUDLY in my house while I baked and cleaned.
• singing along, and maybe even dancing (shock! horror!) a little to the aforementioned soundtrack, particularly "Mamma Mia" and "Dancing Queen" while cleaning and baking.
  
• 2 dozen red roses, still hanging in there, in my bedroom
• house plants
• that the cable installation from the new company didn't take as long this morning as they warned me it might, thus effectively giving me a morning alone at home
  
• a ring I bought in Lake Louise yesterday
• a medal with Clare of Assisi around my neck on a pretty white gold chain
  
• plans to spend the afternoon doing some more stuff that needs to be accomplished around my house, reading scripture, maybe taking a bath, and probably taking a nap.
• bottled water
• an emerald in my nose ring today