Today I am thankful for:

dusk. my favorite time of day.

Sunday afternoon pot roast shared with special friends.

The promise of something new.

Freshly washed clothes, with the scent of cleanliness clinging to it.

the smell of freshly baked bread.

Bread Baking

As I begin writing, the bread is kneaded and rising under the warmpth its dishcloth quilt. It has been pushed down and pressed together, now just waiting for the yeast to allow the oatmeal dough to rise.


I was reading Henri Nouwen's book With Burning Hearts, a meditation on the eucharistic life. He writes of when Jesus walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus and then broke bread with them. Another reminder, that whispers to me of the presence of Christ in the ordinary, the sacredness of homes and familes. As I stirred, measure, and kneaded the dough that will become the bread we use to fill our stomachs, I pondered the words of Nouwen that I had read only minutes before.

"What we desire is not simply to give food, but to give ourselves"

As my hands pushed the dough down again, I wondered who would take this loaf and break it. Whose stomachs would the bread fill? Would we be in conversation while the bread was eaten? The words of Nouwen spoke into my life, they gave words to my desire to open this home and share this food with whomever passes by. It allowed the simple bread, the process of creating the bread, all to become a tangible way of seeing God's sacred work in the ordinary.

All of which speak to the very essence of the longing within my heart. The longing to know the heart of God, not just know it in terms of knowledge but in ways of letting it permeate all of who I am. It is opening my eyes to the work of Emmanuel, God with us. Even in the most ordinary parts of life.

It is the story of God who wants to come close to us, so close that we can see him with our own eyes, hear him with our own ears, touch him with our hands; so close that there is nothing between us and him, nothing that separates, nothing that divides, nothing that creates distance. Jesus is God for us, God with us, God within us.

Quotes from With Burning Hearts by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Thoughts

I have not been blogging nearly as much as I have wanted to. It seems that life has gone from being simple without many demands into a fuller swing demanding schedule. I enjoy almost all that is happening in life right now, it is asking more of me but I am enjoying giving what I can.

picture is from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Office_and_Stationer_g145-Folders_p3984.html

When approached by the idea of the process of grief being slow and tedious, I shyed away. I didn't want to have to even think about having to let go of something I had hoped I let go. The process of saying goodbye is much longer and more complicated then I could have ever imagined. But I am learning, slowly, very slowly.

She lifted her eyes from the steps that her feet were taking. Her eyes moved from watching the wildflowers blow in the wind to the beautiful big sky above her. It was vast, stretching farther then she could imagine. When her eyes had lifted to something so large and imense, she realized that she had been focused on something small and intricte. The wildflowers were part of her path no doubt, they were beautiful and noticing them was important. But sometimes, you have to lift your eyes up to see the larger picture. Details are important, holy pieces of ordinary life, but taking a moment to see in front of you, to grasp the enormity of all our stories is just as important.

picture from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Flowers_g74-Bed_Of_Daisies_p3857.html

Saying goodbye is a small part of my story. A tiny piece in the chasm of a much larger story. I want to notice the holy detail, to grasp the beauty and pain in what is befalling my footsteps. But I also want to remember the enormity of the story. Pain, goodbyes, and grief; they are only paragraphs in the story.

Spiritual Food

"My food" said Jesus, "is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work." John 4:34.

His words whispered to my heart. It was as if they jumped from the words on the page in this beloved gospel of John, into the depths of my heart. The words were lodged within me for awhile as I pondered them, asking questions of what Jesus was really speaking to and for what reason.

Food is something that we need on a daily basis. It is the staple for our energy, wellness, and wholeness - it shows our humanity. When Jesus spoke these words into motion he had just had an encounter with a broken woman by the well. He had spoken to her of the living water found within himself and ministered to her bleeding heart. After this, his disciples had come back to their teacher after an excursion to find some food. They returned with the food, expecting their master to be hungry but instead he would use this moment as a teaching moment, a time to step into their lives and help them grasp the enormity of the gospel.

It was as if he was speaking to my heart instead of to his disciples so many years ago. Just as he was showing them where they should be finding their daily staple, their way of wholeness, and energy to go about life in abundance, he too was speaking into my life. Reminding me of my need to be lodged within the will, heart, and words of Christ.

This was the message of the food, my humanity, and my need for a Savior.

Gifts of the Present

"Joy and laughter are gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about. It always strikes me that rich people have much money, while the poor people have much time. And when there is much time life can be celebrated... Money and success are not the problem; the problem is the absence of free, open time when God can be encountered in the present and life can be lifted up in its simple beauty and goodness." Henri Nouwen

Nouwen continues to be one of the most profound Spiritual authors in my opinion. I have been reading his books for the last four years, off and on, whenever I can get my hands on one of his books. I picked up four of his books at a used book sale the other week and have enjoyed reading them. This quote is taken from the book Here and Now.

In time it is as if God keeps prodding me with this aspect of time and simplicity. Showing me how important it is to have rhythm and rhyme to my life. I've learned that the most important things are not about jobs and money, but about relationship and growth in them. I admire my sister as she makes sacrifices right now in her life to make sure that her time is spent as a full time Momma. I see the difficulty of the transition for her family but I know that it is truly a gift from God that they can pursue her being a full time Momma.

I am enjoying these months of spring and summer without school. I'm excited for the upcoming fall, grateful for a graduate assistant ship and the freedom that brings into my life. God does provide, I'm learning to trust that and rest assured in his faithfulness.

The lessons of life, they never stop happening.

gratitude

I am thankful today for:

time with my sister
sunshine and thunderstorms
newly born neices
library books that are new and inviting
early mornings spent with Him and a cup of coffee

Book Review

I picked up Thomas Moore's book Soul Care when we were in Wellsboro for our honeymoon. It was in a used book store, I had heard good things about it before, so I decided to give it a go.

Moore was a Catholic Monk for twelve years and is an astute scholar. He hold three different degrees in theology, music, and pyschology. This book is his thoughts on how one can take care of their soul, how important it is to take care of your soul, and the lack of soul tending that is in society today.

I found this book intriguing. It dealt with some of the issues that I have been faced with in my own life and the desire that I have for beauty and simplicity. Moore writes on the importance of taking care of your soul through and sacredness. He writes of spirituality, how religion is sometimes not enough for the depth of the soul. There is a lot of retelling of mythical tales throughout, the stories of the greek gods. He interweaves the symbolism of these tales and what they tell us about living throughout the book.

The last three chapters of the book were by far my favorite and in my opinion the basis of the book. Within these chapters he writes of rythm, ritual, and connecting your head to your heart. There is a lot of writing about the sacredness in the ordinary and how we can experience that in everyday life. Moore says that "culturally we have a plastic espohagus, suited perhaps to fast food and fast living, but not conducive to the soul, which thrives only when life is taken in in a long slow process of digestion and absorption" (206). In this quote, Moore hits on the radical pace of American life, how fast we go without time for reflection and rest.

I think that Moore spends to much time in teaching how to understand dreams and the images that we see in our sleep. Although I do agree that our dreams do speak into our lives, I could have had a lot less of this within the book. His writing is at times weighty and hard to read through but all in all this was a good book. I would recomend this book if you were looking for ways to slow down, searching for your identity, or simply wanting to cultivate ordinary sacredness in life.

I shall end this with a quote that Moore has on how we can care for the soul through sacredness. He says that "To live with a high degree of artfulness means to attend to the small things that keep the soul engaged in whatever we are doing, and it is the very heart of soul-making" (285).