Loving Advent
Christmas is coming
but Advent is here.
A time of waiting -
Not for gifts to open
but for our very selves.
Our hearts open slowly.
We must wait and wonder.
Something new will come
out of the darkness.
Let yourself sink
into the unknowing.
Bring a pillow, get comfortable.
Waiting in Advent
is like planting
bulbs for the spring.

-Pamela McCauley
Pam was one of the participants at our […]

Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany, Art and Spirituality | 9 Comments »

“This season beckons me to ask, what am I preparing for? What is the way that is being prepared within the wilderness of my life? What does it mean for my own life to become a path, a way of welcome for the Holy One? How do I give myself time to notice the ways […]

Posted in Fun, Advent Christmas Epiphany | 11 Comments »

Friday and Saturday is our next Awakening the Creative Spirit session and so I will be very busy the next couple of days and then recovering!  We are exploring visual art this time and I am the lead teacher (Betsey and I switch back and forth depending on the art form we are exploring).  I […]

Posted in Photos, Advent Christmas Epiphany | 8 Comments »

It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ.  Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late.  Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts. But now it is with the voice of our contemporaries […]

Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | 10 Comments »

I discovered this wonderful reflection by Ron Rolheiser at Antony’s blog: Coming to the Quiet.
During my last years of seminary training, I attended a series of lectures given by a prominent Polish psychologist, Casmir Dabrowski, teaching at the time at the University of Alberta. He had written a number of books around a concept he called “positive disintegration.”
Positive disintegration. […]

Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany, Cycles and Seasons | 3 Comments »

**I added some information below on the tools I used for the stamp carving
I have been really captivated by rubber stamp carving these days.  Bette got me started and now I keep thinking of things I want to carve.  I love making a design and then carving away the excess until only the form remains.  […]

Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany, Art and Spirituality | 12 Comments »

I measure my life in vessels.  They trace the contours of my days.  Teacup, bowl, oil lamp, pitcher, baptismal font, Communion chalice, basin, bathtub.   I sleep in the belly of night and wake under a downturned bowl of blue. I ponder their shapes as I begin to understand my own longing: wanting to be held, […]

Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany | 4 Comments »

There are many metaphors for spiritual transformation: birthing, unfolding, awakening to name just a few.  I love the image of waking ourselves up from the ways we have been asleep to our callings and to the nature of the world.  Milton at Don’t Eat Alone posted a wonderful poem by Antonio Machado who writes:
Beyond living and dreaming
there […]

Posted in Poetry, Advent Christmas Epiphany | 3 Comments »

This is now.  Now is,
all there is.  Don’t wait for Then;
strike the spark, light the fire.
Sit at the Beloved’s table,
feast with gusto, drink your fill
then dance
the way branches
of jasmine and cypress
dance in a spring wind.
The green earth
is your cloth;
tailor your robe
with dignity and grace.
-Rumi
I feel my creative fires continuing to kindle and spark.  How lovely […]

Posted in Advent Christmas Epiphany, Art and Spirituality | 9 Comments »

The window above is from the Shafer Baillie Mansion and the window below is from the Conservatory in Volunteer Park (this photo is turned on its side and then duplicated in mirror image to create a mandala).  I walk by both of these lovely buildings almost every time I go for a walk in my neighborhood and I have never […]

Posted in Photos, Advent Christmas Epiphany, Art and Spirituality | 5 Comments »