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An Iron Fist or A Golden Arm

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This morning in my news wrap up email I read about two different men. One gave a speech to accolades on one side and scowls/ heckling on the other. The promises of a thriving country through control, dismantling, threats and hate speech. I could say more, but I digress.  The other man I read about was James Harrison, an Aussie who recently died at the age of 88. I can’t tell you a thing about his political swayings. No promises to save the world or take Australia back to a golden age, but he IS known as The Man with the Golden Arm. In the years from 1954-2018, Mr. Harrison donated his blood and plasma, which contained a rare antibody called Anti-D. He is credited with saving 2.4 MILLION babies. Twice a week, for over 50 years he gave the gift of his blood.  I was thinking about how much time this added up to, sitting in the chair or reclined on the table, hooked up and just giving what was given to you, to save lives. No crowds, no news conferences, no golden statues or reques...
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Embodied

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  I sit down to write this first draft with paper, pencil, and just my own hand and thoughts. It seems slow and clunky, but also quiet. Calming.  When I sit and write at the screen, the words tumble out in a frenzy.  Honestly, I long for the days untethered to devices, but I have forgotten how to live without them. My word of the year for 2024 was Embody.  Much has been said about our collective screen addiction. We take digital fasts or screen "detoxes", but we are up and running on that same hamster wheel chasing that dangling carrot again in no time.  Whatever your digital dopamine drug of choice: games, socials, news, videos, or even just a podcast to drown out the thoughts of your own mind; our devices have us connected to them, like an oxygen mask.   For some of us, our own bodies are taking shape to accomodate the medium by which we spend our days. Shoulders rolled inward, neck and head sliding forward.   I've seen adults with phones g...
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Who is Autumn?

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  Who is Autumn? She comes in with splendor. A garment: satin leaves of golds and ambers, rust and maroon. She walks on acorns and pinecones. As she goes, her garment seems to age, colors fading, it dries out, ugly, delicate, then almost dust.  Is she dying? No! Now she’s a wind! A nip in the air. She calls to the birds, “Eat! And fly far from here.”  To her woodland friends, her chill thickens their fur.  “Eat” she says, “grow your coats, gather what you need. It is coming, the time for rest.” Autumn, she reminds us that we are more than the outer man that wastes away. She is God’s glorious exhale.
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What Opens at the Close

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 I had just planned my senior son's last week of school.  Wrote that last 180th day at the top of Friday's lesson plan.  Last last day.  He has graduation at his co op on Saturday.  We have been working on a table we get to set up to honor him after graduation. Looking back through so many first and last day photos. Memories from public school and teachers and memories of homeschool and co op. Reading through old compositions. Seeing the progression from childhood to young man. The pieces of humor and sweetness that transcend the growing up.  The parts of them that forever change as your child becomes a young adult. It is such an unfolding.  I kept thinking of a scene from the Harry Potter book about the Golden Snitch. Harry puzzles over the meaning of the words engraved upon it: "I open at the close." He finally understands the clue, he must breathe his last dying breath in order to open the snitch. And inside is the resurrection stone that will raise...
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Wide Awake

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"Thunder rumbling Castles crumbling I am trying to hold on. God knows that I tried  Seeing the bright side I'm not blind anymore. I'm wide awake." -Wide Awake by Katy Perry      Sometimes a song brings forth one set of emotions for a time, but after a life experience it hits you in a completely raw, new way. This past Sunday, our minister at church spoke about the difficulties of living in liberation. The sermon had a fantastic title: "Craving Freedom, But Longing for Egypt." It was excellent. The sermon struck me in a different way, and I thought immediately about my own struggle against walking right into a new Egypt.      I don't think enough is said these days about the loneliness that comes from walking away from an old identity. Whether it be an abusive relationship, an addiction, or an ideology, there is a death to grieve. There are feelings to untangle, belief systems, motivations and patterns to address. Sifting through all of that isn't fun...
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Temptation to Resurrection

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    This lent, I gave up social media. Ash Wednesday was on Valentine's Day this year, so I was attending the JVC luncheon the first day of my fast. It was interesting to immediately be tempted by a desire to share pictures that first day. I have quit and re-started social media MANY times. I do, actually, hate it in almost every way.  There are probably more than two previous posts about my disdain for it on this blog.  AND YET... I keep circling back hoping to find it might have changed [like some toxic ex-boyfriend] only to find it is quite the same. An ad for ozempic next to my friend's post about her grief at the loss of her father.     I wish we lived in a world where people still wanted to call each other, to have the back and forth, the ummm hmmm and sighs and ohhhs of real conversation in real time.  We say we don't have time, but is that really true? The best most of us give and get these days are texts, marco polo videos, snaps, voxer record...
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The Two Still Standing

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  I’m no bible scholar, but it seems to me the people Jesus called out the most (when he wasn’t otherwise occupied with healing, serving, or teaching) were those who already thought they were holy. Today, I read in John 8 about when the Pharisees and the scribes brought a woman who had been caught in adultery into the temple. They did this because Jesus was teaching there and they wanted to test him, hoping his response would allow them to bring a charge against him. His penchant for grace was a threat to the law they so loved.  The first thing that struck me about this passage was that the Pharisees dragged the woman into the TEMPLE, into the house of God. Why? To accuse her, to attempt a stoning, and to bring charges against Jesus. It seems so horrible. The house of the Lord should have been a place of healing, grace, humility, repentance. A place to encounter God. Instead we see a sinful, prideful mob looking for blood and to raise their own elevated egos.   ...
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