Spiritual Journey Thursday – Doors

One of the interesting old doors in the Manama souq in Bahrain.

Today is Spiritual Journey Thursday, and Bob Hamera is hosting. Bob asked some interesting questions about opening and closing doors. They brought to mind a time 12 years ago when God surprisingly opened a new door. We went to Bahrain to live and work. I taught English to Arabic-speaking children, and my husband was a hospital chaplain. Before moving there, we had never ventured out of North America. We got our first passport the same year we moved there, and I quit my teaching job and committed to move there before we had even visited. God opened the door wide open and confirmed with everything that happened in our lives. How did my life change? I learned so much about the world and the variety of people in this big world of ours. I learned how God works through everyone and every situation. I met amazing people of different religions and different kinds of Christians too. It was transformational living, and we got to do it for eight years.

Lately, there are faith doors closing and new ones opening. Christian Nationalism is a big slamming door as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want anything to do with that faithless “faith.”

I just finished reading How to Fight Racism by Jemar Tisby.  I realized that I have learned Christianity from pastors and books who overtly or inadvertently practiced “theological racism.” Over my lifetime, I have read and heard more from theologians who believed in slavery, like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, than from theologians who had been enslaved or were descendents of enslaved people. I can’t even name any Black theologians off the top of my head.

I’m closing the door on faith that would judge Jemar Tisby, as reported in this article: How evangelical Christian writer Jemar Tisby became a radioactive symbol of ‘wokeness’. I am attempting to walk through the Courageous Christianity door that Tisby writes about in How to Fight Racism. I have lots more to learn. He speaks of the ARC of Racial Justice–Awareness, Relationships, and Commitment. I highly recommend his book full of things you can do today to begin to bring about racial justice in your community.

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Regenesis

Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche is hosting the Spiritual Journey Thursday group today. 

Last year my one word was Cherish. In the final quarter of 2024, I could not cherish all that came my way. It’s been a bleak chapter.

I considered going a different direction for 2025 and choosing the word resist. I wanted to resist the claptrap, crimes, and corruption that are sure to take place in America’s 2025, but I decided against that word. Of course, I do want to resist and stand up to injustice and chaos, but I also need something hopeful, to rebuild my faith in God and a good future. Therefore, I’m choosing regenesis (n. renewal; new birth). This will be my one word for 2025 because I need to be renewed in my spirit and start fresh in this next chapter of my life. (Perhaps it can also be a prayer for a healthy regenesis of our country’s politics, as well.)

Renew and reimagine
Each new day.
Gently hold on.
Emerge anew–
Nascent in my
Elderly promise.
Springboard to
Impel a new
Spirit within.

First, I spelled regenesis wrong–regenisis, so I had to improvise that final E.

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Wintering

Kim Johnson is hosting this month at Common Threads.

wintering

the coldest season
of the year approaches and
we will face winter

wintering is to
“pass the winter in some place”
(Etymonline.com)

like mourning the loss
of a beloved baby girl,
worrying about

the ugliness of
our world, the war, the senseless
slaughter of innocents,

deception-chaos-
hatred in our country, waning
faith, and hopelessness

Is there still hope? How
can we winterize our pain?
I choose to believe.
God is not weary.

I read Isaiah chapter 40 today, a passage full of hope. Here are the last few verses:

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary;
His understanding is beyond searching out.
He gives power to the faint
and increases the strength of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength;
they will mount up with wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not faint.

Cherish it All

Thanks to Patricia J. Franz at Reverie for hosting Poetry Friday this week. Thanks to Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise for hosting Spiritual Journey Thursday this month.


I’ve decided to live this week, this last wretched week of the presidential campaign, with joy and anticipation. We will not be divided forever. We have just one world, and it’s beautiful. Here is a poem I found in Linda’s reflection paragraph about her one little word on her blog post.

My one little word for 2024 was CHERISH. I wrote about it here and here. I also lived a huge chapter of cherishing for most of the year when I found out my granddaughter was coming. Then the cherishing continued on August 13 when I met, held dear, and treasured my precious Phoebe until we had to say goodbye to her on September 8. Now, even more than before, I have cherished my 2.5-year-old grandson.

Today, I’m finding a need to cherish America and the hope, freedom, and justice that is and will make it a more perfect Union. So I will carry on cherishing 2024.

What do you do about the “I Don’t Knows”?

A couple weeks ago I shared Alice Walker’s poem “I Will Keep Broken Things” with my wabi-sabi poem for Poetry Friday. If you haven’t heard Alice Walker read her poem, I hope you will take time to listen to it today. Or listen again. I find it so comforting.

In one of the essays in Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott talks about doors and the power of hinges: “A hinge both fixes something in place and helps it open. It’s ingenious.” Later in the chapter, she describes the suffering of her son’s addiction, the healing of self-love, and the serendipity of falling in love. “I don’t know how that happened…” she writes. Then she quotes her husband saying, “‘I don’t know’ is a portal. ‘I don’t know’ is also a hinge.” Such a lovely healthy view of “I don’t know.” There are many things we don’t know these days. Sometimes the not knowing feels overwhelming. Today I will choose to embrace the I don’t knows–each a portal and hinge to our spiritual and mental health.

I Don’t Know

I will keep the
uncertainty,
the unknowing,
for all of Life is
unsure–
full of either love
or suffering.
Both are proof
we are living;
so, I will keep
it all, learn
during the
suffering,
and wait.
When I am
confounded,
I will rejoice
amid the
I don’t knows
because
tiny miracles
abound
in all of it–
like the lily
and sparrow
know without
worrying,
even in
the nameless,
the uncharted,
the strange.
These all add up
to an unabridged life.
I will keep it all–
the life,
the love,
the suffering:
the Love.

_________________________________________________________

Since I’m on the road this week, this post will be for TwoWritingTeacher’s Slice of Life, Spiritual Journey  Thursday, and Poetry Friday posts. Thursday’s host is Ruth Hersey at there is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. Friday’s host is Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Cherish

Thank you, Margaret, for inviting us to join in the Spiritual Journey Thursday sharing today.


Cherish – my one little word.

In 2024, I want to focus my attention on cherishing, based on the two greatest commandments of Jesus:

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Matthew 22:37-39

I appreciated all the synonyms of cherish that fit those two commandments.

Adore, honor, revere, and worship God

Cultivate, entertain, and care for others

Treasure, hold dear, and appreciate this life of mine

(with an accidental acronym of my 2023 word, act)


I can’t help but think of The Association’s song “Cherish,” an old sappy tune from 1966. The record had significant success, so when the record label suggested the song was “too old and archaic,” it made Jim Yester, an original member of The Association, say that it “just showed we can have archaic and eat it, too.”

Then there is Madonna’s “Cherish” from 1989.

Finally, on the cherish song front, here is a wedding song by Mark Wills.

Poetry Friday – Renewal

Today is another day to expect joy and hope.  I’ve just been watching a National Writing Project video interview with Stacey Joy and Gholdy Muhammad. It’s making me feel more hopeful. Peace to all of you this day–Spiritual Journey Thursday and Poetry Friday in one.

Reading these times through eyes of empathy
Engaging in poetic thinking, reading, and writing
Noticing God at work in a broken world
Embarking on a new chapter
Watching my kids and six of their friends drive up yesterday
Anticipating joy
Laughing in the midst of tears

 

Thank you to Fran Haley for hosting at her beautiful blog Lit Bits and Pieces.

Thank you to Buffy Silverman for hosting today and celebrating early-flying flakes.

 

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Grace

Patricia Franz is hosting Spiritual Journey Thursday today. I am here on my phone, with so much joy about the theme of “Life at the Speed of Grace.” We took a little trip to the mountains and just got back from a hike–six miles round trip, but it seems like 12! Now we’re off to eat Mexican food.

I took a beautiful striking line from Patricia’s post to write a Golden Shovel poem about today: “I am learning to live life at the speed of Grace, letting God catch me, surprise me, love me, right where I am.” Thank you, Patricia, for the wonderful inspiration.

I won’t be in such a hurry, because I
am here now in this moment. If I am
learning anything, it is
to be present in this gift of Grace, to
live in Hope today because
life isn’t promised tomorrow. Hiking
at San Jacinto Wilderness today with
the four of us 60-somethings, turtle
speed at times, we were hikers
of sore knees, fall risks, and only
Grace to make it 6 miles up and down,
letting me know to thank
God for tiny big miracles that
catch me off guard. Dazzling
me with no twisted joints, but
surprise and pinecones. Finding
me in
love with life and lizards.
Me, who am I
right here
where God can Grace me?

am a grateful child caught by Grace.