Sixty-four year old Diana Nyad completed a life long dream yesterday through perseverance. She swam all the way from Cuba to Florida, becoming the first person to do so without a shark cage. This was her fifth try to accomplish this feat in the treacherous waters of the Gulf. Now that is what I call never giving up. Perseverance! She first started this dream in 1978 and now 35 years later at the age of 64 she is trying again. I find this so encouraging. She keeps trying and adjusting her technique, learning from the past and trying again. Another trait of perseverance. Her words inspired me as she acknowledged to the CBS reporter that past attempts have brought physical pain and emotional heartache but also gave her clarity. You shoot for the stars and when you are up there in the heavens, playing around, trying to touch those stars, you get a lot of satisfaction and do tap your potential."   No matter your age, you still can stretch yourself … [Read more...]

Release, Renew, Refresh Jen Ferguson organizes a great community of Christian sisters called Soli Deo Gloria and Jen feeds us spiritually with thought provoking ideas and questions. Check out her blog, Finding Heaven here. The group's mission is "to encourage one another with words of affirmation and the love of Jesus. We seek to let each other in our lives, being real and vulnerable, so that we may be uplifted, refined, and grown in the body of Christ. As we receive, so we give, creating bonds of friendship and sisterhood." Her latest question got me a-thinkin'. What about the summer brought about a release of things ready to be let go, or a vacation that evoked a sense of renewal, or how do you long to be refreshed as the summer winds down and fall begins? Release - I am letting go of the busyness of a crazy summer schedule. We have been blessed to have many opportunities to travel since April and to host family here. Wonderful times but to be honest, I am … [Read more...]

Amazing God!  Amazing Earth!  Amazing! Take a minute to look at this photo. See that tiny dot? That is us. Earth. That's home seen from far away. Isn't this photo astonishing? NASA released this photo on July 19. The wide-angle camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured Saturn's rings and our planet Earth and its moon in the same frame. Earth, which is 898 million miles away in this image, appears as a blue dot at center right; the moon can be seen as a fainter protrusion off its right side. Like this photo, our lives often appear like a speck in the middle of nowhere. We wonder if any one cares or speculate if we matter. We feel alone in a dark night. My first thought when I saw this fascinating photo was that how God sees us. He sits in remote heaven listening to harp music and giving orders to angels. Then I realized God does not view us from a distance. He is here on earth. In our hearts. Walking with our spirit. Communing with us. Desiring to be with us. To … [Read more...]

AND this is the time of year the annual Perseid Meteor shower streaks across the nighttime sky. I am like a kid at Christmas time, giddy with anticipation.     I am a constellation geek. On these nights I quietly get up in the middle of night and slowly make my way out to our backyard deck to watch God's magical performance as he bounces delightful sprigs of light between the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt. Just love it! Saturday night   I ventured outside twice. I delighted in the array of zooming lights whizzing above me. No wait, they aren't meteors; I was watching fireflies. How foolish I felt. Oh well, I will wait a little longer. Then a little more time went by. YAWN. When I finally gave up the number of meteors I observed? Zero. Zilch. Nada I was bummed! Sunday night I peeked out several times late in the evening. Too much light yet for a good view so decided another middle of the night trip would be necessary to get my annual fix of shooting stars. Yep, my internal … [Read more...]

  Holy Transparency! I noticed the moth clinging to the screen as I cleaned the kitchen. He stayed for quite awhile, in stillness, silent like he has something to tell me. The poor thing, I thought. Holes scattered throughout his wings like a shotgun had pelleted his only means of moving. I felt sad for this little creature, stuck in one place, his wings full of gaps. I cleaned. I watched. I listened. Then I looked closer. My first impression of what I was seeing was all-wrong. His wings were not holey at all. The parts I thought were broken were transparent allowing the light to shine through. Lord, help me be transparent so you shine through. Holy Transparency! Being transparent isn't easy. I want to keep up appearances you know. After all I have worked a lifetime perfecting my mask of  "everything is all right" and "I have my act all together." Will people really like me if I step out of the way? I know my ego won't go away without a struggle. … [Read more...]

    What is spiritual scaffolding? Three workers were cutting stone.  When asked what they were doing, the first answered, “I am cutting stone.” The second said, “I am making a wall.” The third replied, “I am building a cathedral.” I was reminded of this great story about vision while in New York City a few weeks ago. We visited many of the tourists' sites including the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral. As we turned the corner to see its tall spires reach up to heaven, we were surprised to see the outside of the church surrounded by scaffolding. A major renovation was taken place. We quietly entered its large sanctuary to discover the interior walls encased in more scaffolding. The banner proclaimed, "Restore St. Patrick's. Be a cathedral builder." I sat quietly on one of the pews, starring at the only visible sign of construction: the steel scaffolding engulfing the church's interior. From a brochure, I learned the work was not cosmetic, but a … [Read more...]

I have been enjoying a DVD series from Richard Rohr titled "Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate." The recording took place at a conference and is material that I listen to a small portion, then need to pause, ponder and pray. The following is an example of this in-depth and inspirational wisdom: "If you keep listening to the love, if you keep receiving the love, trusting the love - even with all your limitations, with all your unworthiness, with all your limited intellect or whatever you feel holds you back - you start to experience within yourself a sense of possibility.   Whatever life is inviting you into, you have this sense that is still okay and even better, that you can do it.   As Mother Teresa loved to say, “The only real success is faithfulness.” To be faithful to this inner love is in itself the greatest success. It is of itself the major possibility. No outer successes are henceforth necessary to be … [Read more...]

  "Life is there.Stop! Don't step on that soil. It's full of life." We saw this sign continuous while exploring Arches National Park in southern Utah few weeks ago. I peered at that dry tanned dirt and thought nothing is living there. Its stark bareness appeared lifeless and unproductive. How tempting it was to cut across the path over that ground. After all I couldn't really see any evidence of life. The photo above is a shot of what the ranger told us is a mature biological soil crust. Its surface may look just like dry dirt, but it contains lots of living organisms that are vital to the desert ecosystem. In many desert climates, this type of crust makes up 70 percent of the ground cover and is vital for reducing erosion, increasing water retention and increasing soil fertility. The main living creature there is called the cyanobacteria, one of the oldest known life forms. Other characters residing there are lichens, mosses, microfungi and green algae. Most of the … [Read more...]