Spiritual Journey Thursday – Blossoming

The bloom where you are planted
plaque on my Grandma’s wall led me

here. Here, to this stage in life,
privileged to be blooming old. 

We sang this song on Sunday, the verses were in Spanish, but we sang the chorus in English. (I’ve been attending a Spanish language service for several months.)

All my life You have been faithful
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

(On a side note: As we sang, I realized the beauty of singing and worshiping in my native language; I’m rarely touched by the Spanish lyrics because I’m working so hard to figure out what they are saying.)

I will sing of the goodness of God.

When I ask myself, What about the devastation, the sadness, the unfairness in life? I just have to answer, I don’t know, but with every breath that I am able (and I’m not always able, I admit) I will sing of the goodness of God. I would rather do that than the alternative. Like Peter, I say, “Where else would I go?” (John 6:68)

As I spend time in nature, especially during the springtime, I am reminded of the goodness of life and the goodness of God. Even in the heartbreak and havoc of this world.

On here Spiritual Journey Thursday post, Carol shared this quote from Kohayashi Issa, “A world of grief and pain. Flowers bloom, even then.” Yes, indeed.

Peace to you all in this season, especially to Carol V., who lost her dear husband last month, and to Patricia F., whose father died this week. Carol Varsalona is hosting this month at her Beyond Literacy Link blog.

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Lamenting

Today Ruth in Uganda is hosting with a beautiful psalm of lament. Since it’s Lent, she suggested, “Consider writing about lament, the traditional posture of Lent. If you want to include the poetry element, you might write your own Psalm of lament…”

I wrote a psalm with a stanza each of protest, petition, and praise. I know there are millennia full of terrible history and brokenness in this world, so I want to quit thinking God is always just on my side. God is just and true, and I’m sure God is not a member of a political party. I am trying to practice petitioning that all mockers, scoffers, liars, and haters be exposed, especially when I find myself in those groups.

Peace to all this Lenten season.

Psalm for Today

The road is winding, steep, rough
too many pathways to choose
We cry, ‘We’ve had enough
of this exhaustive ruse!”

God, mockers rebuff.
The scoffer refuse.
Expose the liar’s bluff.
No haters excuse.

You are God and enough:
Bringer of Good News!

 

Spiritual Journey Thursday – Wholeness

Spiritual Journey Thursday for March 6, 2025, is gathering here today. Please leave your link in the comments section. Thanks!

Wholeness

Wholeness is a big word
full and complete–
the perfect length–
good and true.
Wholeness is a word
with the ideal heft.
There are no holes here,
W has its arms wide open
to hug and hold,
to accept and approve,
to love and live
the whole of you–
satisfied,
healed,
forgiven,
crowned
in wholeness.

I appreciated hearing Scott Erickson (@ScottthePainter) tell about wholeness (see the Instagram reel below). In summary, he shared how salvation is rooted in wholeness. A metaphor for wholeness is to imagine a table. Then imagine all the parts of yourself invited to that table. What part of yourself can’t be at the table? Or the parts that you don’t let come to the table? That’s what a lack of wholeness is. Wholeness is allowing all the parts of yourself to be at the table because the parts you feel you can’t bring–those are the parts that we absolutely can bring in and heal from.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Scott Erickson (@scottthepainter)

Psalm 103 seemed like a passage that speaks of wholeness. Some words found their way into my poem.

Psalm 103:1-5

1 Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
I have few answers, but I am looking forward to reading what you wrote about wholeness today. Please leave your links in the comments below. Thank you!

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