Mama Mondays

I wrote the following reflection on Friday after my spiritual direction meeting. Kelli (my spiritual director whom I've been meeting with since the spring) asked me to imagine the Trinity in the room with me here in my office. It was a really sweet time marking this place as one where God meets me in my work and prayer and play.  Father, Son, and Spirit, help me imagine you in the room here with me.    Let me settle in. Give me the grace to breathe in the breath that you have given me for this moment. Let me tiptoe in this space as I know might sneak up on the holy here in my midst. Let me peek over your shoulder to see what you are up to. Let me notice you, God, here and now.   Show up in the objects and spaces here. Be tea. Be books. Be emails. Be photos. Hem me in, behind and before you and help me remember you at all times. Let me sit on your lap in the largeness of your love. Let me experience the Spirit blowing through this house sweeping away all the...

God’s Song of Delight Here is my sermon script from today! (I'm sending it now as it's already Monday in Iceland!)  As we start this morning I’m going to give you an assignment. Ask yourself,  Really- I want you to pause and think for a moment about this question: “What’s the most important thing you know? This question, “What’s the most important thing you know?” is a question that has been carefully burned into the hearts and minds of neighbors of the Hestad family in the UDistrict. My sweet friend and neighbor Jaime Hestad has asked this question over and over of her kids and of all the neighborhood kids who come to their house: “What’s the most important thing you know?” to which they will reply with the answer that the Hestads have consistently modeled to them: “that we are loved.” Amidst all the richness and chaos of life, they’ve worked to give this foundation to their family and neighbors. And this is the very question that I was asking myself when I was p...

  A blessing for if you happen  to be having an ordinary day  by Kate Bowler Lord, here I am.  How strange it is, that some days feel like hurricanes and others like glassy seas and others like nothing much at all. Today is a cosmic shrug.  My day planner says, rather conveniently,  that I will not need you,  cry for you, reach for you.  Ordinarily, I might not think of you at all.  Except, if you don’t mind,  let me notice you.  Show up in the small necessities and everyday graces.   God, be bread. Be water. Be laundry. Be the coffee cup in my hands and the reason to calm down in traffic. Be the gentler tone in my insistence today that people pick up after themselves for once.  Be the reason I feel loved when I catch my own reflection or feel my own self-loathing  fluttering in my stomach.  Calm my mind, lift my spirit, make this dumb, ordinary day my prayer of thanks.  “Earth is so thick with divine possib...

Oh God,  thank you,  thank you,  thank you,  thank you,  thank you for protecting  dear Taylor... 💙

Because the wifi has been spotty, this is coming not on Monday, but on Thursday! This is one of my favorite songs we have been singing this week, and I wanted to share it with you.  Nothing can trouble.  Nothing can frighten,  Those who seek God shall never go wanting.  God alone fills us.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgtNVMsLU0E&ab_channel=NotreDameNewmanCentre I think this song was inspired from Teresa of Avila's prayer that was found in her Bible when she died.  I like to think of it as a journal entry, a personal note-to-self that helped her keep going.   sending you much love from Taize!!