Newsletters

Dear Friends ~ Over the past several months, I've been gathering these quotes and now offer them to you as nourishment for the journey. I hope they bring insight, encouragement, and moments of stillness along the way. ~ Bob

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Dear Friends ~ My window looks over the neighbors' rooftops to the poplars, box elders, oaks, pines of the woods that rim our village. The morning is gray, slashed with bitter rain. The harsh winds of a March storm toss the tree limbs hither and yon. Their tender buds must be clinging with all their tiny might. The chaotic flailing mirrors these times and the thrashing of both culture and nature. It feels, it is, dire. But the storm is not everything.

Dear Friends ~ I wake before dawn. The sky outside the window holds an unrelieved grayness after a long night. January has always seemed to me to be a dark month. The candlelight and fires of Christmas have receded, leaving the dark and the cold. Yes, I know that the nights are shortening, that the light is returning. I know that January holds Epiphany, the feast of the Star, of Wise Ones who recognized God nestled and nursing within the circle of embodied Love and Belonging. I understand that the ancients considered the dark as revelatory as a sunrise.

Dear Friends ~ This season of Thanksgiving sings with resonance in my soul. I am grateful to live in an intentional community where we all have our tasks and teams to keep things running smoothly. I'm on the garden team, blessed to come together with others to plant, water, weed, and—indeed—harvest both bounty and beauty.

Dear friends~ This next year my beloved and I will be married 50 years. I have "known" Jackie for more than 53 years, and yet I can still wake up beside her in the morning and realize that this person whom I have walked with over the decades is still a mystery and so much unknown. The truth is that we are growing old together. But if we can embrace our physical diminishment with gentleness and grace, our heart's surrender becomes, as Jackie calls it, "the sacrament of diminishment." This morning she gave me a folder full of her favorite quotes about relationship and love.

Dear friends~ Slower, slower. Poorer, poorer. Smaller. Smaller.

This is slow work. It begins in poverty, and we become smaller, until we have enough being to be nothing. ~Bob

Dear Friends ~ Each spring the seeds stir and push up tender shoots through the warming soil; buds swell, lining the tree limbs like tiny jewels. All around there are signs that the Earth is renewing herself, that the Holy relationship of loving reciprocity endures. This is more than reassuring, because by now we must see that we are witnessing the unraveling of the sustaining systems of a myriad of worlds and realms. How shall we make sense of this? Old stories may help.

Dear Friends ~ Warmth sweeps across the globe in its own time, as does the cold. Wet or dry spells make their ecological homes, then ebb away. As I greet you, dear readers, February is inviting winter in all its glory, despite its chilly inconveniences. It's a time to draw in close to the fire, to snuggle up with a good book, or brave the elements, swooping down the slopes, gliding across the ice, building a perfect snow man or woman with young loved ones, or admiring the beauty of transformed terrain.

Dear Friends ~ December has always been a darkening month in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the descent into winter; not so long ago it meant increasing hunger as well as fading light. No wonder it is the time when in our bellies and bones we long for the sun's return. We observe the season of Advent, yearning for the arrival of the Holy Incarnate, the One who fills us. Now, I wonder, has there ever been a December this dark? I look and look, and find no supernovas, only a pinprick of light in an ebony night.

Dear Friends ~ October, at the heart of chilly autumn, is an intricate, nuanced, bittersweet time. The glory of shimmering trees, outrageous sunsets, invigorating winds, the scent of apples and rich mulch, the gratitude and joy of the harvest feast twines with oncoming darkness, falling leaves, the sense of letting go and passing on, the ephemeral nature of everything.

Dear Friends ~ The shaded spot along the creek where water pools between rock slabs revives us in the thick of muggy July. The kids quickly toss their shoes aside; The eleven-year-old picks her way across the stream to check on crayfish who lurk beneath the tiny cascades, and her younger brother returns to his dam-in-progress. They no longer require a steadying hand on the slick rocks or engineering advice like in past summers, so I perch on a nearby boulder with a novel instead.

"Do you think a dinosaur ever drank this water?" my son mused on a recent visit to the creek.

His big sister (our budding geologist) piped in, "Actually, the Appalachian Mountains are older than any dinosaurs. They formed before Pangea even broke apart, which means they're even older than the Atlantic Ocean!"

Dear Friends ~ Wherever you are in this world, greetings and thank you for your generous donations helping us bring Nan's letter to you. We warmly invite you to sit comfortably, breathe deeply. Look around and within, up and down, over, under, and out. Notice the diversity before your eyes. There's diversity of vistas and horizons, smells and tastes, and the abundant flora and fauna blanketing this earth. Diversity is immediately apparent, openly offering its manifold and minute gifts. We see it in the flowers, trees, and landscapes. We feel it in music, dress, and cultures the world over. We may seek it in myriad cuisines. We marvel in our crayon boxes of the many skin tones humans inhabit. If we are lucky, we live diversity in our relationships, personal, local, and global. I feel particularly blessed in the diversity of our own family, in which the divine provided five children, all now grown: Asian, African American, three born to us, white Irish and German parents.

Dear Friends ~ This morning unfolded early and briskly: A sick child woke before dawn. Our family's lovable rascal of a pet dog got himself stranded in the chicken yard and had to be rescued from the domineering hens. I waded through the texts and emails that accumulated on my phone overnight, gave my mom a call, and packed the not-sick child off to her day's activities. In a brief quiet pause, I intend to write this letter, yet I'm distracted immediately by the laundry pile that seems to raise its expectant eyebrows at me from across the room.

My wise friend, Katie, recently invited me to use a centering writing exercise; this hectic morning I give it a try. "Write a haiku," Katie urged, "that begins with the line 'I am looking at'". So I draw a breath...meet that laundry's eye...and feel unexpectedly overcome by the marvel of the colorful cotton chaos:

I am looking at
A heap of the clothes we wear
Striped socks and plaid shirts

Dear Friends ~ The crisp unfolding of a new calendar, stiff from unuse, tacked to the waiting door. The whiff of fresh paper opening into the morning rays piercing the study window—a new year bathed in light. We are creatures who need light to see the way we do, to move boldly forward and around pitfalls. Light is linked in our awareness with the assurance of visibility and the thrill of creativity. For this we justifiably label it good and imagine Divinity crowned with it. But what if Light was beyond good? What if Light was really about clarity, recognition, being essentially seen and radically loved? Wouldn't that ignite our inner fire and forge us anew? In that crucible would we not be burnished to glow like lanterns in the dark? Dear Friends, in this new year may each of you come to see and know your belovedness more clearly, and may you shine. ~ Lindsay