Embodied

 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 glued to their hands at the table during a family dinner. I have been that very person, too.  I have observed entire families down the pew, glued to their screens while we sing "His Name is Wonderful." 

Sometimes as I sit in church pondering the miracle of God with us, I wonder, who is OUR God these days? And if the digital world becomes our whole world, who will we be?

I hope to finish out this year, this season of waiting we call Advent, focusing on embodiment. 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. What would it feel like, to heal with your touch? To wash someone's feet? To die for an enemy? Could we imagine it? If all our screens went dark and we had only the wild world in front of us, would we see God? 

Ideas for emboidment:

Go outside

Grayscale your phone

Write with pencil and paper

Use a paper calendar / planner

Read a real book

Unscubscribe from some or all of the things

Play real board or card games

Read your physical bible

Draw, paint, color, write

Workout without a screen or noise distraction

Journal. Think about what you used to enjoy before you had a screen available at all times. 

Pray

Meditate 

Breathe

Volunteer

Just be with your people

Who is Autumn?

 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.