How close people could be to us when they had gone as far away as possible, to the edges of the map. How unforgettable.~Paula McLain (From Circling The Sun)

The little boots on the porch took me back--back to southern California when my children were small and we lived on a green rectangle of space nestled on the outskirts of San Diego.

While walking in my neighborhood, I'd spied the boots--could see orange and blue butterflies between the splatters of mud. I stopped and remembered those days on the west coast. My two girls and I would take a blanket to our backyard and spread it with our lunch and a few books to read.  A bougainvillea vine grew against a wall, the purple-pink blooms vivid in the sun. A rabbit hutch sat in the corner with our pet bunny. When I saw those boots, I could still feel my children's closeness, hear their laughter.

It can be the tiniest slivers of memory that bring people near. My husband's robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, thinking of him bundled in it after a shower, his hair wet, the scent of shampoo still lingering in the air. A book facedown on the chair, the title on the spine reminding me of the beauty of story. Birdsong through the window, a nearness too.

It is remarkable how the ordinary and the existential are always stuck together, like the pages in a book so timeworn that the print has transferred from one to the other.~Kathryn Schulz (From Lost & Found)

I have a great love for and dependence on the concept of finding increments in one's life. I was introduced to the idea by Julia Cameron, the beloved author of The Artist's Way. I consider her a virtual mentor. I've mentioned her countless times over the years of writing these blog posts. She often reminds me that it is the small steps that add up, the increments over time that create something new--a book, a home, a relationship, a play, a painting, a song. A poem. There is always a choice when the day unfolds to choose an increment. There is nothing too ordinary. It is often in the mundane task that we find the most relief for our anxiety or melancholy. That scrubbing motion on the hood of a car or on a window pane that leaves us just a bit more hopeful when we view the shine, feel the slight pang from using our arm muscles. Often one microscopic action leads to another. "While I washed the car, I got an idea for my song. Think I'll go write down the lyrics, pluck it out on my guitar." 

We can always ask, "What's next for today?"

For a long while, she sat in vibrant paralysis, her purse in her lap.~Yoon Choi (From Skinship)

"It's sort of an emotional inflammation," said Dr. Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. Dr. Batterson was describing our society now. Having walked two years on the road of the COVID crisis, the world now finds itself moving through a doorway to war. We are "inflamed" as a culture--that location where we can feel helpless, powerless, angry, sad, depressed. In pain. Not knowing what we can do to move forward. Paralyzed.

Over the last two weeks, I've had a sore, tender back. Inflammation. I've hated it, honestly. I've fought the pain by attempting to keep going at my usual pace, but it's only made the discomfort worse. I finally gave in and listened to my body. I slowed my pace. Rested. Allowed myself space. Breathed deeply. Prayed.

Perhaps that's what we do now to decrease the emotional swelling.

We are miners striking new ore at every depth.~Julia Cameron (From Transitions)

I participate in an ill-advised practice regarding my endeavor to write novels. I don't follow an outline. Most authors speaking of their creative process do not support this technique--or lack thereof. I, too, feel somewhat threatened by own audacity. I engage in a rather mysterious undertaking of asking questions to my characters. "What are you trying to teach me?" I ask. This week a character spoke. She's realigning her life, attempting to get in touch with desires that she's repressed for years. She takes a walk along the coastline where she lives and looks up at the night sky, the stars flung out like a tapestry. She shouts amidst the clamor and murmuring of ocean waves, "Do you stars surrender to your brilliance?" 

I became intrigued by her question--so much so that I explored her cry to the starlit darkness in a poem.

It may be that we have lost our ability to hold a blazing coal, to move unfettered through time, to walk on water, because we have been taught such things have to be learned; we should deserve them; we must be qualified. We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.~Madeleine L'Engle (From Walking on Water--Reflections in Faith and Art)

This week I heard a story about a surgeon who transplanted a heart to a woman. The new heart did not immediately begin to beat. The physician then proceeded to do something unorthodox in the operating suite. He kneeled down and whispered to the woman, "I've removed your unhealthy heart and replaced it with a brand new one. It's all in place. Now you tell your heart to beat again." Almost at once, the woman's heart began to pulse with life.

Like physical hearts, sometimes our spiritual hearts can become hardened or wounded or broken. I believe that Jesus bends down and whispers in our ears, "Tell your heart to beat again. I've provided the mercy for that to happen. Don't be suspicious of the lavishness of my grace. Willingly receive my goodness, my Kingdom pulse."