Fantasy Time When It Is Cold: Thursday's Reflection

Yes, it is cold here, but no problem, for I've decided to go to Paris.
At least vicariously.

Now I know it is not Arizona or Florida warm there in the winter, but when I checked this morning, it will be 37 with light snow today. I happen to love winter, so this sounds quite divine to me. What could be better than strolling along Saint-Germain-des-Pres, stopping for hot chocolate and a croissant at some charming cafe. Of course, I have a chic scarf wrapped around my neck and beautiful leather boots, and a sleek coat in a sunset color. And I speak impeccable French.

A cold winter day is the perfect time for fantasy. 

And so, as I dream of Paris, I browse through a charming book by Minnesota artist, David Coggins. Paris in Winter, An Illustrated Memoir combines ink and watercolor drawings with vignettes about his family's annual New Year's sojourns to Paris. 

           

            

            Museums are like churches. At least old Paris

            museums. The light is dim, floors throw back

            footsteps and the air is rarified if warmer. Most

            people go to museums and churches for the same

            reason--to be uplifted, to be comforted. (p. 91)

            Days are clear and mild, with spells of light

            rain and chill to remind us it's winter. The blue

            skies are welcome, but don't seem quite right. 

            Paris in winter is most itself when the sky is low

            and gray and sun nowhere to be found. Streets

            are more wistful and private, colors are deeper,

            wine better. (p. 170)

            We cross the Seine on the Pond des Arts. It's

            midnight. The hour changes and the Eiffel Tower

            lights up. We walk along the river next to the

            Louvre and cross back over on Point Royal. 

            Down rue du Bac to rue de l'University looking

            in the antique shops. We go into the cafe and sit

            down in one of the red banquettes.

                "Yes, I know," the waiter says, "Two Cognacs."

             (p. 211)

Alas, that is not my life, but I intend to take to heart what Coggins says about his book, "I hope people may be inspired to go out and find their own pleasures, find their own Paris...what speaks to you."

So this year I intend to find my own Paris in the life I have here. I have a head start because I work in a garret with books tumbling all around me. I own many scarves, even one I bought in Paris when we spent two glorious fall weeks there several years ago, and in the summer I sit at a bistro table in the side garden I call "Paris."

I know there is more Paris in my life just waiting for me to notice or to notice with new eyes. A cafe, a museum, a book store, a stroll along the river, a small theatre, the Cathedral, a gem of a house on a side street, an antique shop with gold-gilt treasures in the window. 

My version of Paris awaits. 

An Invitation

Where will you find Paris or perhaps another place and time that beckons you? I would love to know. 

Winter Silence: Tuesday's Reflection

Finally, snow. 

Sunday night it snowed. Now, along with the bare branches, the birds at the feeders, and the dirty cars parked along the street, a glimpse outside says clearly, "Winter." 

With snow comes a certain silence. Unlike rain and wind, snow is silent, and its appearance can be a morning surprise. This forecast was clear, however. Snow and blistering cold temperatures for most of the week. Get thee to the grocery store! I wasn't the only one anticipating indoor days. The aisles were packed with loaded carts, many shelves were bare, especially in the snack food and soup aisles, and the check-out lines were long. As we waited our turns, we hardy Minnesotans talked, laughed at our willingness to put up with these extreme winters. One woman said, "I just moved back from Florida. Silly me." I chuckled when I noticed a young couple, college age, I thought, with stunned expressions on their faces when they saw the store packed with shoppers. Did they not listen to the weather forecast or were they used to someone else maintaining full cupboards for any occasion? 

Later, driving home from the senior living facility where my father lives and where we had brought dinner to share with him, the snow   delicately floated in front of us. One of those romantic snowfalls-- as long as you had a warm home awaiting you. 

An early bedtime called. Quilts. Flannel pajamas and sheets. A good book. A gentle snow. The best kind of winter night. 

A few hours later I woke up, as my old body requires, and I walked to the windows to see if the snow had continued. Yes, and along with the snow a layer of silence had descended onto my urban world. I sat in the snug for a few minutes, wrapping myself in that silence. Not an empty silence. Not a silence begging for sound, but rather the silence of rest, of sleep, of surrender. The house and our street seemed tucked into a tender hideaway. No one moved. No sound broke the hush.

In a few hours more, the silence would be broken by snowplows thundering through the streets, snowblowers bleating, and snow shovels scraping. But for a brief time how good it was to sit in the silence, just till my toes curled from the cold. In this pause I gave  thanks for the warmth I experience in my life, and I knew in the gift of this silence God would surely hear my heart beating in gratitude. 

Amen. 

An Invitation
How has silence entered your life lately? I would love to know. 

The Sneaky Presence of Doubt: Thursday's Reflection

Several months ago my sister gave me a bag labelled "Revision Rewards." Read here. The bag was full of wrapped presents, and my instructions were to open one of the presents whenever I needed a boost. She knew I was about to embark on a major revision of the first part of my memoir, and this was her creative and generous way to offer her support. Who doesn't love an unsolicited present and what fun it has been to dip into the bag and unwrap a cube of sticky notes or new file folders.  

Now the time has come to begin a major revision of part two, and I needed a present, some inspiration to return to regular writing. The memoir has fallen by the wayside since the beginning of November when I went on the civil rights tour to Alabama and Mississippi. Then there was Thanksgiving and Christmas and a number of teaching/speaking opportunities along the way. All good, but not words on the page. 

And when there is a major gap in writing time, doubt sneaks into the room. I started thinking, "Why am I spending all this time working on a memoir? The chances of it getting published are next to impossible? Besides this is tooooooooo hard, and I love doing so many other things."

My inner dialogue continued, "Maybe I'll just drift away. Who would know and what difference would it make? Think of all the books I could read and all the miles I could walk. I could become more involved in causes that matter to me."

I don't believe in reading to the last page of a book that is boring or not well-written or just isn't the right book for that moment, so why should I continue working on a project that seems unending and eats up so much of my time and energy and may never have an audience anyway. 

Well, you can tell I was close to convincing myself to delete those computer files and toss all the notebooks and yards of paper full of messy drafts. My word of the year is "spaciousness," and I thought about how much more spacious the garret would be if I didn't have all that writing gear and how much more spacious my time would be if I wasn't constantly figuring out how to squeeze in a bit more writing time. 

And, of course, what I needed to do was to sit in silence. 

In the silence, I remembered how I have been in this same space before, the place of re-entering. This takes time. Perhaps you have had the experience of getting together with a friend after not seeing her for awhile, and you are amazed that you can pick up right where your conversation left off. That's great, but no doubt there are still blank spaces that need to be filled in, new information that needs to be shared.  

"I know you. I remember you, but wow, a lot has happened since we were last together. How much time do you have?"

That's what writing can be like, too. Time is needed to get re-acquainted. 

In the silence I thought about how this writing process is a process of self-discovery; a process of leaning into who I was created to be. Through my writing I make some deeper sense of my life, and I think (I hope) I am learning to be more honest and to claim the wisdom getting to this age has brought me. 

In the silence I sense how my writing continues to change me, to live in the world differently. Yes, I would love to think that if my memoir is published someday that someone reading it might be changed or moved, but for now I think my writing changes me. And as I change and grow and deepen, thanks to this process, perhaps people I meet in spiritual direction sessions, in my teaching venues, or just in casual connections, may be affected by my presence. 

In the silence I re-visited the past year, a rich and full year, including writing. Along with many other opportunities, 2018 was The Year of Part One. So now I can say--drum roll, please--2019 will be

                             The Year of Part Two

I write within the context of the rest of my life, and that is what works for me. That doesn't mean not setting aside time for writing. In fact, I have blocked out two full days a week during the coming weeks that are marked on my calendar as

                                       Writing Days

Today is the third of those writing days. After using two of those days to re-immerse myself in the memoir drafts and notes, today I will begin revising chapter one, part 2. 

I won't be alone in the garret, however. Remember the "revision rewards" bag from my sister. I opened another one of the presents and guess what I found: A Word Bird. 

My word bird has found a place to perch near my desk and is singing songs of inspiration and dedication. Who knows where we will fly together.

An Invitation
When have you needed to re-enter, to re-immerse or re-dedicate yourself to something that had been set aside? How have you responded to doubt or fear? I would love to know. 









                             
                             

My Tribute to Mary Oliver: Tuesday's Reflection

What could be a better tribute to a poet than to snuggle into a chair wrap up in a shawl, and browse lazily through her poems? 

Mary Oliver, whom I think of as the unofficial poet laureate of the United States, not just for one year, but for one year after another, died last week at the age of 83. More than 20 volumes of poetry by this Pulitzer Prize winning poet have been published. I own eight of those volumes, all stacked together on a shelf behind my desk where I can easily grab one for a quick poetry fix. How pretty they all look together. How smooth they feel in my hand. 

Reading her poems I feel as if I am walking with her, not quite beside her, but just a pace or two behind her. I strain to hear what she says, and I note where she points or pauses. 

I started reading Oliver's poems when we lived in Ohio on Sweetwater Farm. I was a city girl who wanted to be more at home with the gifts of nature, and Mary was one of my guides. She encouraged me --not that she knew it, of course--to pay attention, to lean into the precious world around me, even when the lessons offered were sometime painful. And then she helped me grieve. 

Behind our barn was a small pond, which wasn't visible from the house. One had to be deliberate about going to the pond, and, in fact, after my cancer surgery I measured my healing by the number of times I walked around that pond before needing to rest. The pond was often a resting place for a Great Blue Heron. I was only aware of it when I walked from the back door of our house to the garage or into the garden. My movement, my presence, even at a distance, bothered her, and before I saw her, I heard her lift off, her wings flapping like sheets on a clothesline, and then I saw her in the sky above me. 

I was always in awe of that unwieldy bird's ability to lift its top heavy body and take off, especially since the small pond didn't give her much space to make a running start. 

According to Animal-Speak by Ted Andrews, the heron is a symbol of self-determination and self-reliance. The heron's long legs are symbols of balance, and they represent an ability to progress and evolve and to explore life deeply. "But you must be able to stand on your own." 

The heron was a messenger for me during our Sweetwater Farm years, as was Mary Oliver's poem "Heron Rises from the Dark Summer Pond" in the book, What Do We Know, Poems and Prose Poems. Here's an excerpt:


                                     So heavy
              is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
                             always it is a surprise
                     when her smoke-colored wings

                                        open
                                    and she turns
                              from the thick water,
                              from the black sticks

                              of the summer pond,
                                      and slowly
                                  rises into the air
                                     and is gone.

                             ...

                          And especially it is wonderful
                             that the summers are long
                       and the ponds so dark and so many,
                             and therefore it isn't a miracle

                                  but the common thing,
                                        this decision,
                         this trailing of the long legs in the water,
                               this opening up of the heavy body

                              into a new life: see how the sudden
                                   gray-blue sheets of her wings
                  strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing 
                                                     takes her in. 


I wonder about the last poem Mary Oliver wrote. Did she write about a heron opening up to a new life? I like to think she did.

An Invitation
Do you have a favorite Mary Oliver poem? I would love to know. 

Book Talk: Thursday's Reflection

Meet Walter, the dog who reads.

Walter is a sheep-a-doodle who belongs to our daughter and her family. He is only a year old, but he is reading already.

Walter learned quickly that the expectation in our family is to READ. Smart dog. He prefers to read classics, and his current choice is one of C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. 

As I said, smart dog.


In France you are what you read. Or, according to The French Art of Making a Home by Danielle Postel-Vinay, at least what you include in your bibliotheque. Walter hasn't learned French yet, so I translated for him. "That means library, Walter."

        For the French, what you read is more important
        than the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the 
        rings on your fingers, or the watch on your wrist. 
        Books are more important than the job you perform,
        or how much you earn per year. ...In a society 
        obsessed by education, intelligence, and taste, books 
        are also an important link between who you are and
        what you tell the world. The books speak for you. The
        books you read matter. The books you display in your
        home matter even more. The absence of books in your
        life signals a deep and inexplicable void. 

An absence of books? I can't imagine, and I am glad Walter has figured that out as well. 

Rather than an absence of books, the problem in our household is managing the books we have. We don't quite have the "one in, one out" rule at our house, but we are paying more attention to books we want to keep and books we are ready to pass on to Little Free Libraries or used book stores. Or friends. Some Walter might eventually want in his library. 

I am using the library more as well. (Gosh, I wonder if Walter has his library card.) Along with being a more faithful library patron, my intention for the new year is to dip more frequently into what I already have on the shelves. My TBR (To Be Read) stacks. It's challenging, however, not to be tempted by new shiny titles. 

One of the blogs about books that I follow, Modern Mrs Darcy posted a 2019 reading challenge, which intrigues me. I suspect I could fulfill the challenge with books I already own.
              * A book you've been meaning to read.
                    The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah (F)
                    Unbinding, The Grace Beyond Self, Kathleen
                           Dowling Singh (NF)
              * A book about a topic that fascinates you.
                     The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (F)
                     The Warmth of Other Suns, The Epic Story of 
                          America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson (NF)
              * A book that is a backlist of a favorite author
                     The Range of Motion, Elizabeth Berg (F)
                     A Place of My Own, Michael Pollan (NF)
              * A book recommended by someone with great taste
                     Autumn, Ali Smith (F)
                     Hearth, A Global Conversation on Community,
                           Identity, and Place, Annick Smith & Susan
                           O'Connor (NF)
              * Three books by the same author
                    The last three by Willa Cather: Shadows on the Rock,  
                     Lucy Gayheart, and Sapphira and the Slave Girl (F)                 
                    Three by Christine Valters Paintner: Water, Wind, 
                          Earth and Fire, The Christian Practice of Praying 
                          with the Elements; Awakening the Creative Spirit,
                          Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction; and The 
                          Soul's Slow Ripening, 12 Celtic Practices for  
                          Seeking the Sacred (NF)
              * A book you chose for the cover
                     The Good Doctor, Michael Kula (F)
                     Dreaming in Chinese, Mandarin Lessons in Life,  
                            Love and Language, Deborah Fallows (NF)         
              * A book by an author who is new to you
                      They May Not Mean To But They Do, Catherine
                             Schine (F)
                      When Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Enough,
                             Lillian Daniel (NF)
              * A book in translation
                         ???? This must be a category where I need to 
                         expand. I know I don't want to read War and Peace 
                         again!
              * A book outside your (genre) comfort zone
                         Station Eleven, Emily St John Mandel (F)
                         Onward and Upward in the Garden, Katherine
                            White (NF)
              * A book published before you were born
                          Howard's End, E. M. Forster (F)
                          The Story of My Heart, Richard Jeffries (NF)

I don't intend to be rigid about this list, but it would be great to focus on books waiting for me on my shelves. Stay tuned.

An Invitation
Do you have any 2019 book intentions for the new year? I would love to know. 

Preparing for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: Tuesday's Reflection

Approaching Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year feels different to
me than in years' past. Most likely that is because I went on a weeklong Civil Rights Tour, mainly in Alabama in Mississippi, this past November. (See my blog posts for November 13, 15, 20, and 27, 2018) I know the day will feel more poignant now that I have visited not only the place where Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, but also Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery where he was pastor and the parsonage there where King and his family lived together for the last time. 

Now that I have been to so many places where people risked their livelihood and their very lives in order to break the barriers of inequality and hatred, this upcoming holiday no longer feels like a commemoration of one man. He inspired many along the way. He made a major difference in the course of history in this country, but he wasn't alone. 

On Martin Luther King, Jr, Day, January 21, 2019, I will think about the courage of others who dared to act and who continue to share their stories as inspiration and as a call to the rest of us to act. 

Here are a few of the people, Civil Rights footsoldiers, who shared their stories with our group in November. 

Jo Ann Bland. After a supper of spaghetti and peach cobbler in the Tabernacle Baptist Church basement, Jo Ann shared her story, beginning with "I am tired of white liberal women." That got our attention! She clarified, saying she is tired of people announcing what they are doing. "Just do it." As the youngest person at age 11 to be jailed in Selma, she has DONE IT, and continues to do it. 

Jo Ann became a freedom fighter when she told her grandmother she wanted to sit at the drug store counter, and her grandmother told her she could do that when she got her freedom. Before that Jo Ann's mother died when she needed a transfusion after giving birth and had to wait for "black blood." She accompanied her grandmother many times to the courthouse in hopes of registering to vote, and she herself has been jailed 13 times. She marched on Bloody Sunday, TurnAround Tuesday and finally completed the Selma to Montgomery march to the Alabama Capitol in 1965. Jo Ann admitted how hard it was, how hard it is, to "meet hate with love." 

Vera Harris and her daughter Dr. Valda Harris Montgomery. The Harris home is located only a few doors away from the parsonage where Dr. King lived with his family. Dr. Montgomery was good friends with the King children and called Dr. King, "Uncle Martin." The Harris home housed 17 freedom riders on the third floor during the bus boycott in Montgomery and along with being fed, they were given sanctuary there. 

Dr. Montgomery shared how hate filled her after King's assassination. "I felt hate for the first time in my life," but she went on to transform that hate into a passion for education and for sharing the stories. How grateful I am she is doing that, for her mother, Mrs. Harris, who joined us on her front porch, saying with a big smile how happy she was we stopped by and wanted to know where we were from, is losing her memory and had no memories to share with us about Dr King or his family or the ways she and her husband had worked in the movement. 

Jeanne Graetz. Sometimes the footsoldiers were white. Jeanne's husband Bob was the pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, an all black congregation in Montgomery. Jeanne told us how Bob was asked to promise not to start trouble when he started his ministry in Montgomery. "He didn't. He joined." Her job, she modestly told us was to "keep children from being afraid," and that was no small task since they received many threats for their active involvement in the movement. She told a story about a group of white men who parked in front of their house in an attempt to intimidate her, and she stared right back at them until eventually they left. Their church and home were bombed many times and remembering one man who threw a bomb at the house, she said, "I forgave him many times and took it back. I finally got freed from him." 

I could go on, remembering Beverly and Randy McClelland in Philadelphia, Mississippi who fed us lunch, including the best peach cobbler I have ever had, in their cafe and grocery store. They went to a white elementary school and were told they didn't have to work, but just don't cause trouble. Or Waltha Kennie in Marion, Alabama who told us most of the people from Marion who marched in Bloody Sunday have scar tissue from the tear gas. "It is too much to talk about," and yet, she pushed herself to share stories with us.

And I think about Nancy Lee in Gees Bend, Alabama, who is one of the women carrying on the quilting legacy of African American women in that part of the country, dating from the days of sharecropping. We hugged when I told her my name is Nancy Lee, too. To be sure, we have different stories, but that doesn't mean we don't share the same hopes for equality and freedom. 

I hold all these foot soldiers, along with others, in my heart, and while I can never fully know what they have experienced in their lives, I can honor them and do what I can to achieve the goals of the civil rights movement. 

An Invitation

What will you do to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the ongoing struggle for equality? I would love to know. 

NOTE: Three of us from this civil rights tour will be presenting an adult forum at our church, Gloria Dei, on Sunday, January 20 at 9:30. All are welcome. 

Hometending and Creativity: Thursday's Reflection

We have restored the house to non-holiday order. As much as I love 
all the Christmas decorations, how good it feels to put them away and discover a bit of space in the house. Arranging new vignettes and filling in shelves in a new way is a form of creativity for me, and I love shopping the house for a new look. 

I often start with the table in the entry way.

And then fill the shelves of the old painted cupboard in the living room. 


I wander from room to room, picking up a book here, a vase there. I test them, turn them, stand back and look. Nope, not quite right, and continue the process. Yes, I know it takes time--time when I could be sitting at my desk writing, but creating a atmosphere that is pleasing and interesting and unique to our home, the ways we live and open ourselves to others in this home is important to me.

Elizabeth Gilbert says, "...creative living is where Big Magic will always abide." 

I suppose I could blame this on my mother, but, instead, I thank her. She liked to create change in her home, too. In fact, I remember her commenting once, and not in complementary way, about a neighbor whose kitchen table had the same centerpiece season after season, year after year. That didn't happen in our house. I loved seeing what was new on the family room mantel or coffee table when I returned home after an absence. 

We moved frequently when I was growing up, and she and my Dad quickly created home for us each time we moved, unpacking boxes even before the moving van had shut its big doors and pulled away from the street. Just because a piece of furniture was in the living room in the previous house didn't mean that's where it would be in the new house. She looked at her possessions with fresh eyes and matched them to each new space. 

I try to do that too.

Unlike my sister, I am not good with my hands. You won't find me at a sewing machine whipping up new curtains, and Bruce is the painter in the family. But I am an arranger. Re-arranger. (In a way that's what I do on the page, too.) I have a good sense of space and color, and our home is my playground. 

Some may say this is a form of distraction, but this process doesn't take away from my writing or teaching time, but instead it feeds it, nurtures it, and along the way, energizes me.

Again, Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic, Creative Living Beyond Fear: 

              Go walk the dog, go pick up every bit of trash on the
              street outside your home, go walk the dog again, go 
              bake a peach cobbler, go paint some pebbles with
              brightly colored nail polish and put them in a pile.
              You might think it's procrastination but--with the
               right intention--it isn't; it's motion. And any motion
               whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will
               always be drawn to motion. 

For now everything has a place and I like the way the house looks and feels, but that may not be true by this time next week. In the meantime, however, I will be at work at my desk, playing with words and ideas. 

An Invitation
Where does your creativity live and thrive? I would love to know. 

Word for the Year: Tuesday's Reflection

Happy New Year!

Do you have any new year rituals? 

Along with starting a new journal and diving into closet and drawer cleaning, I listen for a word to guide me in the coming year. My word in 2018 was "devotion," which was a reminder to maintain my morning devotion practice, but also to pay attention to where I devoted my time and energy. In 2017 my word, actually words, was "sacred yes, sacred no," words that continue to challenge me. 

This year's word is:

                Spaciousness or Space

In recent years I have developed a fascination with the prairie. I have always loved being near BIG water, and the prairie inspires some of the same feelings--a feeling of openness and yes, spaciousness. There is room to stretch, to grow, to see beyond. I love the diversity of the prairie, also--how it changes with the seasons and how it supports such a wide range of plant and animal life. And, like water, there is always movement. The wind touches and talks with the grasses and wildflowers, and all I have to do is listen. (NOTE: You may not be able to play this short video, but if you do, you will hear the wind through the grasses.)

Being in the season of my 70's, I feel the need for greater spaciousness in my life. Yes, I want to continue to grow and stretch and to stay open and vibrant, but now I also look to the spaciousness of the prairie in an additional way. 

I need more open space in my life. I need to give myself space for restoration, space for stillness, for renewal of spiritual energy. Space to refuel. To focus. To maintain. To open to the movement of God within the space of my life, the span of my life. 

I am aware that I need to wrap myself in space between projects or big tasks or events. I am no longer as able to jump from one big thing to the next big thing. A writing friend said she thinks of surrounding herself with a moat when she needs to either prepare for or recover from something major in her life, even when the event itself is pleasurable and welcome. Although the moat imagery feels a bit restrictive and confining to me, I appreciate how it is a symbol of self-protection, self-care for my friend. Self-designated retreat and reflection time. 

Imagining myself standing in a prairie, I breathe. I unfold, and become present to the whispers of the Divine. The compelling calls of sacred yes, sacred no become clearer, less complicated. And in creating intentional spaciousness for myself, I believe I can be a more spacious presence to others.  

The days between Christmas and New Year's were spacious prairie days for me. The excitement and richness of Christmas and family time had become part of memory, and the pull into new year intentions and organization had not yet moved onto a To Do list. Instead, I spent lots of time reading in the snug, wrapped in a shawl. I had saved the new Louise Penny book just for that time and read it slowly, savoring it. I slept until my body, rather than my phone alarm, told me it was time to get up, and I went to bed when I no longer registered what was on the page in front of me. 

And now here we are in the new year and already what were blank squares on the calendar are filling with tasks, yes, but also delicious opportunities and interactions. I am overflowing with ideas for the coming months. How easy it would be to ignore my word of the year, to fill the available spaces. So how do I transform spaciousness from a concept to a spiritual practice? 

I am not exactly sure (that's why it is a practice!), but here are some thoughts.

1. Maintain my morning meditation time. There is always room for that, even when I don't think there is. I know from past history that when I bypass this morning time, there is less time in the day for everything that presses on the day. How that works I don't know, but it does.

2.  Stop and breathe deeply and slowly or do a couple T'ai Chi moves when I finish one task, even if it is just making the grocery list, before starting the next task. That pause gives me time to listen to my heart. 

3.  Create blocks of spacious time on my calendar. The advice of many writers is to make writing appointments with yourself and put them on the calendar. I have not had much luck with that in the past, but perhaps instead I need to mark the calendar with blank spaces. Give space priority and authority. 

4.   Pay attention to how spaciousness feels. The last few months I have tried to leave my garret at 4:00 --turn off the lights, leave the laptop behind--and move to the snug for some feet up reading time before I fix dinner. That feels spacious to me, as does quiet conversation with a friend or walking in the neighborhood, when there aren't icy sidewalks.  I feel a sense of the spacious, also, during stretches of writing time; time when I can fully immerse myself in the writing.  

5. Develop a closer relationship with "sacred yes/sacred no." Take my time to weigh when to exercise "yes" or when to adopt "no". 

This morning I read the following in a chapter about Mary in Jesus Approaches by Elizabeth M. Kelly: 

                  You are creating the space inside you for a

                   a child to grow, but don't actually meet the

                   child until he is born. It requires real faith--

                   that this child is growing and developing

                   and you continue to nourish your body as 

                   best you can, so that it remains a hospitable

                   place for the child...Giving Christ the room to

                   grow in us is actually quiet and hidden, but it

                   doesn't mean that nothing is happening. Even

                   when it is quiet and seemingly empty, it is

                   often those times that the Lord is working and

                   growing in you the most.

In spaciousness I meet what is growing within. 

An Invitation

Have you discovered a word beckoning to you for this year? I would love to know