… watching for the brushstrokes of God
I have been thinking about the word “impact”. Heroes make an impact, so does a disaster. Meteors leave a crater upon impact due to speed and height and weight. A featherlight bird, almost invisible unless we pay attention, lifts our soul …a different kind of impact.
How do we see our impact?
“If we see the soul’s journey as cyclical, like the seasons … then we can accept the reality that periods of despair or fallowness are like winter – a resting time that offers us a period of creative hibernation, purification, and regeneration that prepare us for the births of spring.” ~ Linda Leonard, Call to Create
How do you pay attention to areas of winter?
I have been thinking about posture. Maybe because I entered the new year sick while on vacation and didn’t feel like tackling anything. We often start with tackling resolutely whatever needs improving. Yet, in the beginning, God’s Spirit hovered…
With what posture do you enter a new year?
There is a simple line in the birth story of John the Baptist that jumped out at me this year. “No, his name is John.” Simple, not Zechariah but John – not unusual in our days – in those days it stirred up the whole hill country.
What simple little shifts change your world?
I was reflecting on how people during the story of Jesus’ birth made room for God to enter into their lives in unexpected ways. Whether Zechariah or Elizabeth, Mary or Joseph, all had to make space and adjust to God disrupting their lives in ways that were utterly beyond them.
How do you make room for God who comes in unexpected ways?
I love the parallel of winter and advent in my region. Short days and long nights and barren trees do not indicate the restoration going on underground. The small first stirrings of God’s coming during the Advent season are usually invisible to our senses. It takes awhile to slow down enough to make room for noticing the first signs unfolding.
How do you begin to make room for noticing God?
With the Eyes of the Heart 