Of Winter Bread, Books, and Wonderings

   The written word has the power to change a woman and make a woman. Within the word, parchment thick, there are worlds that beckon. Thoughts that cause us reckon. 

   Based upon St. Francis of Assisi, Richard Rohr's, Simplicity, The Freedom of Letting Go, is exactly what I needed to begin a new year. Rohr reminds: it's not about stuff, it's not about the Church, and it's not about me. It's always about the One.     

   I can't help but ponder where we are with church. There's a tension. I believe the Church is emerging, personally, spiritually, and corporately, and those who seek their identies in Christ - will be the church nourishing and nurturing. Churches still seeking to define themselves by their ministries, their relevancy, by their form and function - will fade.  In churches lacking the One, we can be assured to find lack. To know the Gospel, does not mean I hold the Gospel within or the grace of the Son. Ouch. Each new day is an new journey. Today, I knew Him. Tomorrow, I might only know of Him. It's a daily embrace, a daily dance. And I know, I'm not home. Yet. This place is not where I belong. There's more. So I hold the tension within, and remember my Jesus loves me, His is for me, and He is for us. 

   The great temptation of the Western Church has been to imprison the Gospel in our heads. Up there you can be right or wrong, your position can be correct or false, but in any case everything always remains firmly in your grip. Action never allows us the illusion of control, at least not for long. True action never permits the illusion that we will always understand everything. When we get involved with the pain of this world, we notice very soon that we have only a little fragment of the truth.~ Rohr

 

Lila by Marilynne Robinson, is a must read. For all we cannot reconcile, but desperately want to. Deeply moving. My words cannot do this story justice. 

Against All Grain Because feeding those we love is a creative force for bodies and souls.

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams 

I'm writing a post. Look for it this week. 

Lilith, by George MacDonald, rocked my boat this month, and the reality is, I can't write more on this book, or I'd have to type up the entire ending! I will say, spoiler alert, even Lilith is redeemed. Loved it. 

   The fact is, no man understands anything. When he knows he does not understand, that is his first tottering step - not toward understanding, but toward the capability of one day understanding. ~ Lilith

A Path Appears, by Kristof and WuDunn is chock full of engaging, helpful, and hopeful essays. It's overdue at the library and I'm keeping it...for awhile. It reaffirms in my spirit that the best hopes are found in preventing pain in the first place. Prevention. Preschool. Prevention. Community. Prevention. Making it personal. Prevention. Community kitchen. Prevention. Opportunities abound.

He who opens a school door closes a prison. 

~ Victor Hugo