… watching for the brushstrokes of God
“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?
Watching the destructive forces of one storm after another leaving devastation in their wake makes me wonder what we in our rushing leave behind. Is life-giving unfolding and emerging found in slowing? Birth, rebuilding, growing all take time.
What in your life needs slowing?
Why is being in nature so refreshing? I wonder if it has to do with the integrity or authenticity of nature where a rock is a rock, a tree is a tree and a chicken is a chicken in the midst of a world of artificial flavors, fake news, and pretend masks that vie for the spectacular or relevant or powerful.
How does nature restore your soul?
To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as if nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with one another, we relate as free persons, and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcomes of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for unlimited possibility. ~ James Carse
How do you live into possibility?
“One could not begin the cultivation of the prayer life at a more practical point than deliberately to seek each day, and several times a day, a lull in the rhythm of daily doing, a period where nothing happens that demands active participation.” This lull of being rather than doing is a holy pause. “ ~ Howard Thurman
How do you breathe in between?
A change of pace, a new experience or foreign culture reorients us and can help refocus when we have been caught up in our own little world.
What interrupts or disrupts your life enough that the weight of the world is lifted off your shoulders and God meets you in new or unexpected ways?
With the Eyes of the Heart 