Last week I wrote about breathing in and out, taking in the Spirit of God and then acting in the world out of that Spirit. To do that we must first become aware of what attitude we’re expressing in words and actions at home, at work, and wherever we go. Am I loving? Were those […]

In… Out… In… Out… This time a deeper breath. In….. Out….. Deeper still. In: taking in the whole of the God’s Spirit—love, compassion, forgiveness, connectedness, grace, blessings. Out: giving back to the world—people, creatures, the created world—what you have taken in. Breathing in God’s Spirit, breathing out what we have been given. Breathe deeply into […]

One of the interesting things about living a surrendered life is that on the one hand we develop a deep and unshakable faith in God and on the other hand we are still human beings, expressing that faith in the world. Unshakable and human. Constant and inconstant. God’s love and a lesser ability to love. […]

Recently I came upon a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer on my shelves that I bought at some distant time and had never read. When I realized that it was a book of daily meditations from his writings, I put it on my bedside table and have been reading a page every evening after I write […]

I am sitting on the back porch this morning listening to the “clicks” of the cicadas’ song rising and falling in a sort of communal slow rhythm and to my neighbor’s water-feature gurgling. I could breathe to the cicada’s rhythm, meditate to its rising and falling just like my breath, now the volume grows, now […]

The Exodus story is so rich with symbolism for us that I am thinking about it again this week. As with the Hebrews God is calling us out of our stuck places so that we can follow him more freely and willingly. Pharoah and Egypt represent hardness of heart, imprisonment of body and mind, the […]

Here’s what I believe about the spiritual journey: God creates each of us with a purpose and a unique set of gifts that we can use to fulfill our purpose in the world. Each of us as we were created to be is needed in the world right now. We each have a contribution to […]

Living at the still point[see the 3/14/11 blog, “Living Deeply into our Lives”] allows the Holy Spirit to transform us from an ego-centered and culture-centered person to a person of God through whom God’s love can freely flow. As we are being transformed, our created selves are brought into focus.  This whole process unfolds as […]

I don’t need to tell you that our lives today are crazy with busyness: we have to-do lists that are endless and jobs that we carry with us through pda’s and i-pads on the weekends and even on vacations. Even stay-at-home parents feel pressured into taking on more and more activities for their kids, so […]

On Mondays I post my blog on my website, Facebook and our church ning site. Last week I began to post some brief thoughts for each weekday after Monday on Facebook at facebook.com/#!/pages/By-the-waters/146585815373488. On Friday I was essentially writing about bringing in the kingdom here on earth. The kingdom of heaven is very much on […]