Unseen Reality
Seeing is believing, so they say. What about not seeing? Can we believe in what we don’t see? How often do we respond only to what we see and never question what’s beneath—what’s beyond? I asked myself these questions as we toured a massive, live cave in southern Arizona last week. On the surface, no […]
Pride and Humility
We climbed the mountain last week. Mt. Wrightson, at 9,453 feet, is the tallest mountain in the Santa Rita range south of Tucson, Arizona. On our last day of vacation, we decided to do a little day-hiking. And what were we thinking? Not much. We set off with two large water bottles each, a bunch […]
Prickly Pears
I remember our first trip to the desert with our kids. We warned them not to touch cactus and what did one child do? She touched a cactus and promptly got a needle stuck in her finger. Of course, we were in a public place with no instruments to extract it so we had to […]
Humility: The Trailhead on the Path to Life
How often do we come to quiet places in our days and contemplate who we are and how we live before our God Almighty? This desert place—this still place—where only gentle breeze and intermittent buzz of small insects is heard—this place has stripped me down to essentials. Who am I? And who is the I […]
Thirsty?
How does one become so sick—so dehydrated—when one doesn’t even feel thirsty? I found out and learned something beyond body needs in the recovery process. After several days in the desert place, enjoying the company of good friends, eating great food, and hiking at a time when cactus are blooming everywhere, I felt great. And […]
Desert Truths
When I thought of deserts, I thought of arid, horribly hot, lacking color and life. Here I am, in the desert, literally. I have been to the desert a few times in my life—desert places of desperation where tongue sticks to roof of spiritual mouth longing for a drop of refreshing. Just—one—drop to sustain one—more—day. […]
Rise Above
Heading south toward the airport, lightning bolts tear through sky fabric dark and wet. We are flying to a dry place—a desert space where we don’t need faith in the sun we can’t see. Spring in Wisconsin often gives dry thirst where we long for warmth but have none—where we long for sun, but […]
Fear Not
I knew it was bound to happen one day. Someone would discover my writing. Someone would search the Internet to find my heart—not to embrace but to criticize—to find “ammunition” to support negative theories. Perhaps this is why I have waited three decades to answer God’s call to express. Perhaps I needed this much time […]
The God of All Comfort
Juggling horrifying and heavenly—being blown this way and that by the ever-shifting winds of life–such is the raw and rugged stuff of human existence in a broken world, not yet healed. Yesterday, another terrifying and deadly bombing killed several and injured many in Boston. Closer to home, a dear friend found one of her horses […]
Prodigal Cat
Oh, how I wish we had a film crew to capture the ridiculously funny scene from yesterday! One of my BFFs (best friends forever) came up for the afternoon to talk and walk our trails with me. Last I saw her was two weeks ago, on Easter Sunday, when she and her family came for […]
Where is Hope?
“Have you ever been hopeless?” The question spilled straight out of heart through mouth. And there the heart-words gushed, hung heavy, waiting—pleading. How do you respond when the hope-starved beg for a crumb, eyes looking straight into yours, begging for just one little crumb of open-hearted self-disclosure? In these moments of desperation, do we […]
A Pair of Pears
We had a death on the farm last fall—one of our two young pear trees left the other standing all by itself. It’s alive but it won’t grow fruit. The poor lonely pear needs a companion. It needs a different companion, similar to itself in kind, but different in variety. That’s how pear trees grow […]