coronavirus
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Pivot
We are almost to the one-year anniversary of the time when everything changed. And there’s not a date we can look to, specifically, but there is a feeling we can name when we increasingly understood that something big was happening at this time last year. Maybe it was when you or your dear ones had to…
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A 2020 Thanksgiving Blessing
A Blessing for a 2020 Thanksgiving Loving God, we thank you for the good this year has brought, for our health and jobs and homes, for our friends and our families, for the things we’ve learned and the clarity we’ve received in a time of trial. We thank you for your provision and for giving us…
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Plant
Last Sunday, we gathered in the early morning with some friends who have not returned to our Catholic chapel community since March. We brought chairs and spread them out physically distanced across our sweet friends’ big backyard on a beautiful Sunday morning. We sat in masks, made the sign of the cross, sang, practiced Lectio Divina, prayed…
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Lost, Kept, Found
I woke up this morning really missing my pre-COVID life, specifically teaching early childhood music in person in classrooms with real human kiddos. I’m working hard at making remote classes work in some of my usual settings, but as of now there are three schools plus a children’s museum for which my connection has been totally…
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Yolk
I’ve had a few doors closed on me lately. If I’m honest, it’s more than a few, and it’s caused me to look out for new ones: new doors, new windows, new possibilities. I’m training my eyes up and out to see if I can recover the plan, if there is such a thing, and I’ve had…
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Way
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. ~Isaiah 43:18-19 I’d be surprised if there’s a soul reading these words who doesn’t feel we’re…
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Illumination
Remember that scene at the end of Castaway where Tom Hanks pulls over at a four-way intersection, gets out and flips open his map? And then, a woman in a red pick-up truck pulls up and says, “You look lost,” and then proceeds to educate him about precisely where each road will lead. The roads,…
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Hope
On December 31, 2019, I had a lot of hopes. At our sweet friends’ New Year’s Eve party, I shakily wrote my resolution on a thin piece of cardboard: ‘attend my first writer’s conference’ and then I paused and added something like, ‘pursue publishing’. In the weeks that followed, I applied for and received a…
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Psalm 20:7
As it often does, my Jesus Calling devotional pointed me to a verse today I’d heard multiple times, but never really considered. Today, it was Psalm 20:7: Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. The times I’ve trusted in a horse are limited…
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Breath
I sang a recorded mass for Pentecost, the first mass at which I’d ministered in months. In choosing the music, I considered all of my favorite Holy Spirit songs, but kept one on the shelf: O Breathe on Me, O Breath of God. In a time of pandemic, we’re keeping our breaths to ourselves, or…