Gaining a heart of wisdom
The Christmas cards we send are a tiny point of connection that happens once a year. As a reader at Living Our Days, you have given me that gift of connection repeatedly in 2022, every time you have met me here over my offering of words. Thank you for all the many ways you have… Continue reading Thank You for the Gift of Connection: Merry Christmas 2022
Maybe the idea of a Peaceful Christmas feels a bit like an oxymoron by mid-December? The plans you laid on December 1st have dissolved, and now at the end of your rope, you've tied a knot and are hanging on until Christmas is in the rearview mirror once again. It's not too late to start… Continue reading How Can I Become an Instrument of Peace at Christmas Time?
We are covered to the elbows in red and green paint, but the festive wrapping paper stretched out to dry on the table before us more than justifies the mess. The toddler points to his distinctively tiny handprints and smiles his satisfaction, as his older brothers start wondering aloud about cocoa with candy cane stirrers.… Continue reading Find Room for Hope in Your Heart this Christmas
Fleming Rutledge describes Advent as a "season that begins in darkness and ends in light." Certainly for us in the Northern Hemisphere, the Light she writes about is "shed abroad in our hearts," but both ends of the day still make for challenging conditions if you crave sunlight for your power walk. Late autumn temperatures… Continue reading Heaven and Nature Sing, and You’re Invited to Join the Party
Welcome to the season of ceaseless striving! Of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas are never billed that way, and I truly hope that it's NOT your experience! However, if you're paying close attention to all the flickering candles and peaceful white twinkly lights on your Instagram feed, it's entirely possible that you're getting a different version… Continue reading A Peaceful and Joyful Holiday Season Begins with a Request for Rest
Are you ready? The holiday chain reaction has already begun with Christmas cards and huge inflatable Santas crowding out the pumpkins and the ghoulish costumes long before the back-to-school clearance bins have been packed away. A posture of resistance to the retail rush requires a better strategy, one with "expulsive power" to counteract the pressure… Continue reading The Expulsive Power of a Better Strategy for the Holiday Chain Reaction
Sunday Scripture Late autumn temperatures in the northeast United States require a certain fortitude of speech to continue naming the cold "autumn" when, clearly, the chill in the air and the snow underfoot are speaking the language of "winter." My giant sunflowers bowed their heads in October, the pumpkins moldered in the compost pile long… Continue reading How You Can Celebrate Light in the Darkness of Winter Solstice
As unimaginable as it sounds to 21st-century ears, Anna the prophetess made a career of waiting. Widowed after her seventh anniversary, the next eight decades of her life revolved around the temple in Jerusalem. Her patient attendance there embodied the posture of her people, the nation of Israel, for they had long been waiting for… Continue reading How to Find Christmas Joy in a World of Waiting
Sunday Scripture When my sons were all small, they loved playing Hide and Seek. Sometimes it was a big, summer-time game with the whole family hiding outside in the bushes, sometimes just a simple one-on-one at bedtime, but one son in particular would get so overcome with excitement he couldn't contain the secret. "I'm 'hind… Continue reading The Reason Why We Can Sing “Joy to the World”
“You can say ‘no,’” he said softly, in a whisper, so our son would not hear.Immediately, my guard went up. It was Christmas time, so my planner was bulging its squares with lists of things to buy and to wrap and to bake. What was my husband going to propose that required this ominous-sounding, front-loaded… Continue reading Say Yes to the Gift of Christmas
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