One starry twinkle that pointed to a baby.

And who knew - that the One who arrived under that bright night star, will come again someday as “the bright and morning star”?! The Christmas star directs our hopes to the past and the future. This same coming that we remember, we anticipate.

Mary’s belief enabled her surrender. This is what moved Mary from being “greatly disturbed”, to a place of PEACE.

When control is taken from you or you sense you are losing it, how do you feel? How do you act?

In the tight grip of the COVID-19 crisis our planet is facing, I have been forced to face my own responses to control.

For me it started with a physical response, although I did not realize that’s what I was experiencing at first.

Here’s the deal - I have looked to you, and all the others, striving to get the approval, acceptance, admiration and applause that my soul craves.

It’s hard to say that out loud. It makes me sound pretty insecure, doesn’t it? But even as I write my confession, I sense the power of its hold loosen!

Always yearning

always knowing

I am not meant to live earth bound.

I am destined for golden pink horizons and 

views shared with eagles mounted.

For soaring over spires of pines and evergreen cathedrals and 

I’m knocking at your door,

“Come out dear friend.”

You’ve lived in this small room so long

the walls have become your skin.

The windows your eyes, 

shades lowered allowing in minimal light.

A rumpled rug at the entrance threatens to trip your coming out.

There are no mirrors in your space, 

could you not bear the truth you imagined?

We do need to come in close to look at snippets of our lives, but only for a time. If we stay there too long, the pieces we’re focused on will begin to quarrel and stop making sense and we’ll be tempted to think the entire piece is a ruin. The confusion can make us want to run and running never frees us from a distorted view. The last image is all we’ll remember and we’ll think it’s the whole truth.

The weight of every charge presses me down even before they’re made.

No one needs to speak them.

I am fully aware.

In my depths I know I am guilty.

Blasting through my days, I’m inclined to moving fast.

Too fast.

Sadly, this has been something I prided myself in. [Embarrassed face]

I can multitask my long, daily list with deft speed and furious efficiency.

Is there a mobile version of abiding?

One that stays attached, stitched in tight to the unchanging God, while traveling the globe of daily life freely and unencumbered in both realms?

My brain easily jumps ahead and loves to ponder and plan all the details and boldly step into new things.

Looking back however, the synapses short circuit and I struggle to recall details, or feelings or how something affected me.

Does the encouragement to find your focus word for 2020 resonate with you?  Perhaps a few practical ideas would be helpful to get you to the next step - implementation.

Visual Acuity. 

It’s 20/20 vision. And wouldn’t that be the best way to enter the year bearing the same name?

This morning one thought comes into focus and clears a path through the haze of first awakening blur…

I am God’s beloved.

Silence has a way of filling us.   We may at first fear it.  Alone with ourselves and no noise can disquiet our souls.  Or we may think that it is an empty thing;  nothing useful, nothing going in, nothing to inform or soothe or entertain or distract. But the truth is, silence is a salient way to clear space in our soul  and when there is space, there can be a filling.

Stretching from early evening to latest morn

the dark of the longest night wraps itself around me.

An ache that knows there is more and yearns to possess it.   The ache of Christmas is the call of our good Father.  

His is the voice that whispers to our deepest soul space.