I started reading Neil Cole’s Organic Church this morning. I am highlighting like a fool, but one line caused me to stop and pick up my phone to blog: Before one speaks about starting or growing churches, one simply must wrestle with this question: “Who is Jesus to you?” Maybe what struck me so much…
paying attention
Today, in my devotional reading this thought from The Spiritual Life struck me: To be human is to pray… prayer is the disciplined dedication to paying attention. As I sit here and try to write this morning, I must admit I am distracted. Distracted by the remnants of water in our basement (our backup sump…
Praying for the Church
One of the practices I have incorporated into my renewal leave is to use Bishop Job’s, A Guide to Prayer, each morning. I have taken to setting up office on our back porch in the cool mornings where I can look out on the garden, feel the cool breeze, and breathe in the air. I…
2 days, 3 houses, 7 niblings
This weekend, we made a road trip to spend some time with family. Since we have moved, it has been harder to make a quick trip over to see our parents or siblings and the kids. One of my primary goals during renewal leave was to spend more time with family and to re-establish patterns…
Alternatives to Herbicide
I always through there were two options when it came to weeds. 1) you could spray chemicals all over them and hope they die… or use more natural chemical reactions like vinegar and hot water to cause them to wither. 2) you could get out there with a hoe, like my deda (grandpa) always did,…
Ever creeping, creeping charlie
Creeping Charlie was already flourishing in our backyard when we moved in last summer. We had been working on hand pulling some of it and forgot to apply a herbicide on it last fall when it would have been a good time to do so. So this spring, when we worked to till the southern…
Attracting Butterflies
This morning as I sat on the back porch, drinking a cup of coffee, I found a white butterfly flitting around. It is the first one I have had a chance to notice since we moved in. Maybe they have been here before and I just hadn’t stopped long enough to see. Maybe our butterfly garden…
Resting in the gaps
A cup of coffee on the back porch. Rain falling, gently at times, harder at others. I do have a plan for this time away. It is not vacation or down time, it is a time to practice different rhythms and see what grows. I hoped to weed the garden this morning. But the rain…