i don't even have the emotional capacity to comment on this quote right now.

The circumstances of our lives are another medium of God’s communication with us. God opens some doors and closes others.... Through the wisdom of our bodies, God tells us to slow down or reorder our priorities. The happy coincidences and frustrating impasses of daily life are laden with messages. Patient listening and the grace of the Spirit are the decoding devices of prayer. It is a good habit to ask, What is God saying to me in this situation? Listening to our lives is part of prayer.

- Marjorie J. Thompson
Soul Feast

Lots of good stuff here.

Seize the day, if you must, but do so gently and never, ever shake it. All days are not alike, and some of them are just not meant for seizing. Some days you wake up with a headache, a dentist's appointment, and a long to-do list. But that's okay. Seize tomorrow instead and today follow the path of least resistance - because deciding not to seize this particular day is also a form of seizing the day, if you follow my drift.
Likewise, whoever came up with the bright idea that you should live each day as if it were your last has probably never taken this advice . . . what this cliche fails to address is that the day after your imagined last day quickly arrives and transforms your grand exit into an unmitigated disaster. Now you're chubby, broke, jobless, and have really spooked your cute UPS driver. And you're supposed to live this nightmarish new day as if it's your last. You see where I'm going with this - it gets old very fast.
Better advice is to live each year as if it's your last. Pace yourself. Prioritize. Most of all, enjoy the constructive daydreaming it takes to plan your fantasy, because if you don't, you're missing the whole point: Living each day as if it's your last is really about enjoying now. Even if you're not exactly where you want to be yet, there really is a ton of pleasure to be had in stopping to smell the rugosas along the way.
Adventure comes with no guarantees or promises. Risk and reward are conjoined twins . . . there are many good reasons not to toss your life up in the air and see how it lands. Just don't let fear be one of them.

- Mary South

bodeyes

"A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it. You still bring to bear all your prior experience, but you're riding on another level. It's completely liberating." - Nikki Giovanni

so. i change a lot.
i try to live my life with a "no parking" attitude - always moving forward, always living and learning. I try to open myself to the power of God and the power of my community and relationships to keep poking me into a continually new creation, to keep learning and growing into my own skin.

with varying degrees of success, i guess.

and i love this way of living.

i don't ever want to sit still. i want to live and move in the Spirit; to follow Her where She leads. Into scary and wonderful places, into both joy and pain. life is not living if it doesn't include both of these.

but then there are times where i wonder if my carpe diem choice of lifestyle has more to do with running from myself than running towards something. that maybe i am not sitting still because i am afraid to. that maybe i have not come as far as i thought i did. and maybe if i sat down and stopped striving to move and change i could actually connect with who i am today and learn things from that person.

i have had a difficult time relaxing lately. even star trek dvds aren't helping. i am restless, my spirit is agitated, and i can't sit.

these last few months i have been both running from and connecting to my body. at the same time. which is tricky to do, but i have have figured out the awkward balance. i pay attention to my need to connect with my body, with my need for yoga and chi and healing. but am frightened of and avoid that quiet place which i used to love sitting in. in my tent in the early mornings, or in the corner of my office when my day got too ridiculous. wrapped in the arms of Christ.

i wonder where this new fear stems from.

perhaps from the fear of connecting to and having a relationship with my own slightly broken body. to admit my physical mortality. The last few years have been so focused on my spiritual being that i have been neglectful of my physical being. perhaps even my emotional being. to admit the limits of this body, and of my short lifetime on earth, smacks of ridiculousness, stemming from my evangelical upbringing. i was brought up to always look forward to heaven, to write off what happens on this earth. that was REALLY matters comes next.

so i have a strong concept of my spiritual being. i am connected to her and her strengths and her needs and her weaknesses and her need to be challenged, to be loved, to always be changing and growing.

and it seems strange that in such a time - a time where i have spent countless hours working and focusing on my body in many different ways than i ever have before, that i realize my emotional disconnectedness from its functionings and its non-functionings.

what place does my body have in my spirituality?
what place does my spirituality have in my body?
and how do the two fit together?

time for quiet. i guess.

The Peg. By Kelly Hughes.

Award-winning Winnipeg author . . . Chandra Mayor says Winnipeg is a real DIY city. And she's right. Winnipeg is the MacGyver of Canada. We're not drowning in endowments and corporate cash, so we make our own fun with a paper bag, an elastic, a few buttons and some pipecleaners. Mr. Dressup would be proud. And we should be proud too. We should hold our heads a little higher, and lose the loser mentality. We as a city can slough off our mantle of insecurity and self-loathing, without losing our soul or sense of humour. These things can go: Complaining, Second-guessing, Indecision, Jeanne's Cakes, Peter Nygard, Burton Cummings' mustache. These things can stay: Feistiness, Good Prices, Bad Jokes about the Weather, Gunn's applejacks, Richard Hurst's mustache. And maybe, just maybe, by the time Gail Asper's Canadian Museum for Human Rights is built, we'll be ready to be the next Bilbao, Spain.
-Kelly Hughes, Aqua Books

worth it.

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
You satisfy me more than the richest feast
I will praise you with songs of joy.
I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.
Because you are my helper,
I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you;
your strong right hand holds me securely.
But those plotting to destroy me will come to ruin.
They will go down into the depths of the earth.
They will die by the sword
and become the food of jackals.
But the king will rejoice in God.
All who trust in him will praise him,
while liars will be silenced.

hmmm

anonymous, geez, winter 2006
"our prosperity has not been sinful . . . but if it seperates us so much from the poor, how can we say it is a blessing from God?"

Super interesting. Is it possible that what we normally consider blessings to actually be curses, seperating us from richer blessings?

Hmm.