It's a conversation...

Today is the first week of Advent. In this season of anticipation, traditionally the first week is a time to reflect on the hope that is ours as followers in Jesus. 

Anne Lamotte says "hope is a conversation". In the face of things we cannot make any sense of, we get only glimpses. 

“We clean up beaches after oil spills. . . . We return calls and library books. We get people water. Some of us even pray. Every time we choose the good action or response, the decent, the valuable, it builds, incrementally, to renewal, resurrection, the place of newness, freedom, justice.”

“You start wherever you can. You see a great need, so you thread a needle, you tie a knot in your thread. You find one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch, one simple stitch, nothing fancy, just one that’s strong and true.”

As the random shooting of schoolchildren, car bombs, disease, and sadness threaten to shatter our inner compasses and our hearts, Lamott reminds us that “hope is a conversation.” What allows us to continue, and occasionally glimpse a momentary goodness, she writes, is “attention, creation, love, and dessert.”

May your week be full of....

Let's keep the conversation going....

BOOK REVIEW ‘Stitches ’ by Anne Lamott By Kathleen Hirsch

GLOBE CORRESPONDENT   

  NOVEMBER 05, 2013

A tardis ride... Saving the Worlds Women

What I really want to do today is celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who. While I'm envisioning cookies decorated like the Tardis. Bow ties for everyone. Sonic screwdrivers.... there are "more pressing" issues. Sam has band practice. I need to get my hair cut and my hair stylist has apparently abandoned me. I have homework to do. Gene has a meeting that may interfere with the watching of Dr. Who... if we even get the channel that it's shown on... Maybe we should get tickets and go the theater - oh, can't cuz I'm on call tonight.....  Every day, tasks at hand and something more fun to do lurking in the back of my mind. Homework deadlines...

Maybe I can do both....

In honor of Dr. Who, I can think about the challenges of the universe. The Women's Crusade: Saving the Worlds Women, in the New York Times online magazine is our tardis.

“Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. (Kristof, 2009)

Let get in the tardis and see what we can do to make the world a better place, starting by being educated about the world around us. I guess I can do both... time travel is a wonderful thing. 

Looking forward

"Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our lives. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness . . . But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us." Henri Nouwen

"Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:2

Today's song

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love 

Here's my heart, take and seal it

Seal it for thy courts above 

A birthday wish....

By definition a wish is "to feel or express a strong desire or hope for something that is not easily attainable"....

What's bugging me today?

“If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.” – Jim Rohn

I feel it. Something is bugging me. It's time to figure it out, stop thinking about it and do something. I have never thought of myself as a tree, but it's good to be reminded.

“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.”

― Eliza Tabor Stephenson

no more secrets

"Share one thing about yourself that others may not know." " Share something we don't know" ..."share three things that you want us to know".... these are among the reasons that I don't enjoy group introductions.

One of the 13 changes of 2013, I am going to embrace those ridiculous notions that group leaders have and I am going to be ready! 

I am  a health nut. I obsess about diet and fitness. I keep up with the latest thing in apps  available for tips, inspiration and tracking of diet and activity.  I am the author of a blog designed to promote wellness. 

In 2013, I have resolved not to keep such great secrets.

Today, so not to  be one of those people who go gung ho right out of the gate and then don't have what it takes to finish strong, I have set up small achievable goals. I am thinking up a fantastic incentive program. yesterday I purchased a good pair of shoes. today, I took my vitamins. tomorrow  I 'll go for a walk.... That walk, will begin a lifelong journey of telling the truth about who I am and who I am becoming.

No more secrets, no more surprises. Next time I am asked to tell something about myself that others  may not know, I am not going to have to admit that I am healthy and not too lazy to care for the one body I am given to live this life in.

I may even update and publish that wellness blog, who knows? Did I just commit to health, wellness... weight loss? it's what I meant to do.

One thing that I would like others to know about me...