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(Never) Enough Time
Are we enslaved to Time? Must we march to its relentless rhythm, powerless as prisoners shuffling on and on under the watchful eye of such a dispassionate guard? This week I ticked off milestones, one after another. My six and eight-year-old daughters returned to school, growing up ever so slightly with every passing day. We…
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To Create is Divine
To create is to connect with the Divine. It never fails to amaze me when I consider the endless variety of creation. The infinite shades of blue that make up the earth’s waters. The intricate, minuscule details that adorn a tiny insect’s body. The spectrum of emotions we humans feel and the bodily responses that…
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Some Days You Gotta Play
It’s one of the first languages we learn. The language of climbing and chasing, swinging and sliding. Of cartwheeling past fireflies, somersaulting to joy, embracing the slow fade to twilight, the end of the day. Play is how children learn to live in this world and interact with one another. It’s the gateway into science…
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It Starts With Attention
It starts with attention. What am I paying attention to? And by extension, what am I not paying attention to? This morning I stood in our messy kitchen, eyeing the breakfast crumbs and the lunch fixings left out from the kids’ lunch packing frenzy. My husband stood before me, our girls at his heels, briefcase…
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Reset
I can’t tell if I’m running my life, or if it’s running me. It happens every year. As summer approaches I dream of lazy pool days, restful rhythms, playful adventures, and maybe even some spiritual renewal thrown in for good measure. My intentions are admirable, even if they are hopelessly unrealistic. Still, it’s a humbling…
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Here is your reminder to breathe.
I didn’t tend. I didn’t water, or fertilize, or weatherize. I did prune – once. And yet it blooms. I look at these roses before me, bigger than my hand, and wonder how such beauty can blossom from such human negligence. “I planted the seed,” Paul ruminated, “and Apollos watered, but it is God who…
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The Blessedness of Boredom
I haven’t been bored since 2005. Yet here I am, swinging in a hammock, waiting for the Covid brain fog to dissipate. Sure, there’s plenty of work to do, but I find I can’t concentrate for long. So, I take breaks. I lay in the sun. I listen to the birds. I count the leaves…
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Love at the Foot of the Cross
I’ve often heard it said that all of Jesus’ friends abandoned him on that Good Friday, his time of greatest need. But it needs to be said that not all of his friends disappeared into the darkness of the moment. A few were there, at the foot of the cross. They were the women, the…
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You, Ex Nihilo
What surprises me most about love is how uncomfortable and risky it can be. While it fills us with the heady feelings of safety and joy and delight, it simultaneously pushes us beyond our comfort zones, beyond what we thought feasible, beyond what we dared expect of ourselves, beyond our bruised and tender “edges”. Love…
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How To Find Your Purpose: A Poem
Your life is bigger than you think. Stretching arms wide as its Maker, it strains to hold the abundance of God within you. You say you seek purpose. I say: seek the living imprints of God on your soul, and you’ll find what you need. Look for slivers of love and passion, justice and longing,…
Rev. Laura Johnson
Pastor | Author