Several times in these pages I have mentioned that I often begin my Saturdays with a trip to the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. In the beginning I was single minded. I focused on taking in the incredible artistic beauty of colorful produce lined up on tables and flowing out of the backs of trucks. I walked the three aisles taking everything in and then doubled back to buy whatever might grace our table during the upcoming week. I was in and out of there in thirty minutes or so and heading on to whatever else Saturday might hold.

But at some point of this summer I changed my pattern. I love to arrive early and have the first cup of coffee surrounded by farmers and vendors unpacking their wares. It is wonderful to watch them greet one another as they set up. It makes me long to be one of them, sharing the camaraderie of early mornings filled with loading and lifting, the goodness of things fresh from the earth. It is also interesting to see the ‘regulars’, those who show up at about the same time, usually pulling an oversized grocery bag on wheels. They also greet both sellers and buyers in a way that is reminiscent of the town squares of days gone by. Something about the experience unlocks a place of hope in me.

Last week while sitting watching this simple, yet profound drama of this slice of life unfold, I became aware of two little children who were probably about four years old. They were both wearing Minnesota Twins t-shirts and had that wonderful dazed and rumpled look that little children have in the early morning. Their mother was busy looking at first the salsa and then the hummus of the vendors straight ahead of the bench on which I had taken up residence. Their faces were sweet. The girl was a few inches taller than the boy. I watched their large eyes taking in the scene around them. The girl listened to the conversation her mother was having with the salsa guy. She looked a bit skeptical. I wondered what was going on in her mind.

Then my eyes fell to their hands. Every now and then the boy would reach out and touch the hand of his sister. Their fingers would flutter together, never fulling grasping a hold on the hand of the other. Their heads turned looking in opposite directions and yet fingers still reached for the other as if reaching out for the assurance that the other was not too far away. That was when I realized they were twins.

I watched them as their mother moved down the aisle of tables. As children often do, they observed what was going on around them with eyes that seemed to see a deeper understanding of the movement of the world around them. But they never lost the touch of fingers on fingers which seemed to ground them in a reality that had probably accompanied them in the womb. Their fingers seemed to be saying, “I am not alone. I feel you right beside me.”

Whether we shared the water home we all emerged from with another or not, aren’t these the words we assure ourselves with over and over? In the dark of the night. In the glare of a hospital waiting room. On the first day of kindergarten, of high school, of college, of a new job. As we move about our daily lives in all its mundane and exquisite moments. Don’t we all wish we could reach out and feel the soft, reassuring fingers of someone reassuring us that we are not alone?

The twins in their Twin’s shirts moved on into their day following in their mother’s shadow. I finished the last sips of my coffee and prepared to walk among the beauty and splendor of flowers and vegetables so rich with color they took my breath away. As I walked among the ever growing crowd, I kept my hands to myself. But I quietly whispered a blessing: ” You are not alone. I am right beside you.”

My fingers were itching in my pockets.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
~Matthew 6:12

Yesterday I was listening to the voicemails recorded on my office phone. I was jotting down the names and numbers of those who had questions and requests for return calls when one caller made what was to me the most astounding statement. ” I am an expert in forgiveness.” she said. I replayed the message three times just so I could hear someone, anyone, make such a claim.

Hanging up, I was consumed by desire. I want to be able to say that! I want to be able to say to myself and others that I am an expert in the fragile and courageous act of forgiveness. Unfortunately pure desire cannot make such a profound thing come true. While I may want to be a forgiving person, someone who can open my heart with humility to all I meet, I so often find myself digging a hole deep in the pit of my stomach and planting it full of resentments and judgments and just plain meanness. I am not proud of this but I know it is true.

How does forgiveness move in your life? Where does it find a home in you? How are you able to offer it to those you love, those with whom you struggle, those who drive you right up a wall? Reflecting on these questions, it is clear to me how difficult and yet imperative a life of forgiveness really is. It is one of the acts that keeps us moving forward in our spiritual lives,in the pursuit of happiness and in a quest for the common good.

What might it look like to be an expert in forgiveness? I think a recipe might include a heart of compassion and a huge helping of humility. Added to that might be gentleness with both myself and the people I live with, work with, travel life’s road with. This would probably be driven by an understanding that, as a general rule, we are all doing the best we can in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. This thought, in and of itself, should be enough to keep our hearts soft toward one another. Even when it seems someone has wronged us or done something to make us angry, the idea that they are really doing the best they can, should give us the opportunity to take a breath and choose our words wisely. Words that will eventually lead us to a place of forgiveness.

No doubt,becoming an expert in forgiveness, like most everything else, takes practice. When we choose to make a practice of forgiveness, I would imagine each new opportunity to offer this sacred act comes a little easier. I would also imagine that if we give ourselves to the practice, our capacity for forgiveness increases with each precious day.

In the prayer Jesus offered his followers, he placed the act of forgiveness right smack in the middle of these words many of us offer with great regularity. It is clear from those words that the ability to forgive is a two way street…….as the Holy offers forgiveness to us, so we are to offer forgiveness to others.

Becoming an expert in forgiveness is a call held out to us by the One who breathed us into being. It is sealed in the words of this common prayer held out in the outstretched hands on the person who tried in every encounter to embody God. My hope is that I might someday be able to make the claim I heard on my voicemail. It will, I’m sure, take a lifetime.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly……” 1 Corinthians 13:12

For several months now I have been wrestling with an idea, a concept, a thought about what I have come to call wisdom. It is a wisdom that evolves, is not set in stone, grows with one’s experience and understanding. I know that this wrestling finds its source in the seemingly on-going dissension that seems to be everywhere in our culture. Government. Churches. Schools. Cities. Neighborhoods. Between so many individuals. It seems that, someplace along the continuum of the time in which we are living, in an effort to live together as people who are floating on one amazing planet, there has come a place in which we have little or no ability to work in civil ways with one another. I have tried to figure out when the fabric began to unravel.

This predicament has led me to think on the wisdom that comes from sticking with a person or a situation long enough to change and be changed. Take parenting for instance. Before I became a parent I had a list a mile long of things ‘ I was not going to do. ‘, things my children were ‘never going to have.’ Once I was in the trenches of being a parent and I was in moment by moment connection with these living, breathing, unique beings, I came to see these non-negotiables in a very different way. I learned that some of the things that seemed so very important to me pre-children were quite immaterial in the bigger picture of helping a child find their way in the world.

I recall how,as I approached my freshman year of college, I had ideas and goals that were quite well defined. I had a plan for exactly where I was going and how I was going to get there. But as the days and years flowed out, the experiences I had, the people I met, the successes and failures which I experienced, all contributed to the changes I made in the plan I had so carefully constructed. Some of these experiences were difficult and painful. Some wrenched at values I had held as sacred. But if I had not been open to those forces which provided a certain dose of wisdom, I would not be in the place I am today, doing the work I love so much.

This work I love so much has also provided spoonfuls of humility. Coming into the work of the church in my early adult years, I was so full of what was ‘right’ and what was ‘wrong’. I was so often ready to stand my ground on a particular issue, theological or otherwise, only to have my heart softened and my behavior gently chastised by a word or a tear offered by a mentor who was walking a very tenuous path. I have learned that even in the world of faith, or perhaps particularly in the world of faith, there are no black and white answers. There is much gray and the more we experience of it, the more wisdom comes our way.

Many of our elected leaders have come to office while riding a chariot of promises that are unkeepable. These sound bites that were part truth and part marketing can be dangerous to try to uphold. Over the last weeks I have often thought of the late Senator Paul Wellstone who was criticized for changing his mind on a few of the issues he had campaigned on. I remember what a breath of fresh air it was to me when he made a comment that he didn’t have all the knowledge or information he had gained once he was on the ‘inside’. It was only right to change his mind once he moved from being a freshman to being a senior.

It is the hope of every individual to grow in wisdom, I believe. Wisdom does not come without its fair share of mistakes, embarrassments, and recognitions that we are not as smart as we thought we were. I think of Moses as he began his journey with the people of Israel. He was as green as leaders come. But over the years he led this grumbling, thankless lot through plagues and parted seas. He grew in wisdom and applied each failed attempt to build these people into a nation to his next effort. It wasn’t easy or pretty. And, in the end, he didn’t even get to cross over to the Promised Land.

My prayer this day is for wisdom that continues to evolve, day by precious day.

Sometimes we perceive a convergence of experience that would make sense to no other person. But when it happens to you, you know you are meant to make something of it. Such a convergence happened for me this morning. I walked into our basement to throw a load of laundry in the washer and passed through a room that once served as the ‘boy’s’ hangout. It is still equipped with toys and posters on the wall, a couch, and tv for playing video games. But over the last couple of years it has also become a home for a large bookshelf and books we rarely refer to.

As I walked through the room I saw one slight volume that was tipped out of the row, calling to me. It is a book I once read over and over. Its pages are dog-eared and yellowed. It is a translation of poems of Rainer Maria Rilke entitled Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.  It contains, I was reminded, some of the sweetest and heartfelt words I have read. Lines like:

” I read it here in your word,
in the story of the gestures
with which your hands cupped themselves
around our becoming- limiting, warm.
You said live out loud, and die you said lightly,
and over and over again you said be.”

Beautiful, comforting and imagination capturing! But the convergence of these powerful words are simply the wave arriving on the beach.

Last night my husband happened upon a poetry slam competition of young poets on television. It was fascinating and pain-filled and hopeful. All these young people using the power of words to tell the stories of their world, our world, in ways that were so filled with truth and life in all its rawness. To see an audience of people cheer and cry and applaud for the ways in which words were chosen, shaped and delivered, sent shivers up my spine.To watch these young people harness the power of words and use them to tell of their deepest longings was, indeed, inspiring.

The beginning of this wave of words had begun on Tuesday when my book club, of which I have been blessed to be a part for 25 years now, made a pilgrimage to Mankato, Minnesota to the home of author Maud Hart Lovelace, creator of the Betsy-Tacy series of books. These books which harken back to a time of greater innocence still capture the hearts of young girls, helping them understand the complexities of friendship and the joy and confusion of growing up. I know this is true because accompanying us on our tour through these recreated houses of life in the late 1800’s was a young girl and her family who had flown from Virginia to make her own journey to ‘Betsy’s’ house. She had been pulled across thousands of miles by the words imagined and written by an author who believed in the story she had to tell, of her time, of her life.

And so today I am sitting in the convergence of the gift and power of words, others’ words and my own response to them. Something in me says this is one of the things it means to be human. To take the words that come at us, words of both terror and beauty, and to make something of them. It is how we interpret our world. It is one of the ways we make sense of our faith. It is also one of the ways in which we come to name the movement of the Holy in our lives.

What words are calling to you today? Whose words are capturing your imagination? How are the words you read or hear making a home in you? The words we embrace and allow to weave their way into our way of walking in the world must be chosen well and guarded wisely. They shape the story we tell ourselves and the one which will be our legacy for generations to come.

It behooves(what a great word!) us to choose well.

Have a blessed weekend……..

This morning I gathered with a group of colleagues to brainstorm about our church theme and emphasis for the coming year: Practicing Beloved Community. We spent time thinking about the many ways these words can be illuminated, studied, embodied in worship, lived out through our meals together, extended into the other communities of which we are all a part. It was fascinating and enlightening to listen to what these words mean to each one gathered around the table. Like most things, this phrase meant often very different things to different people. Perhaps that is just another important learning about what it means to be in community!

Beloved community is spoken of or at least implied in the gospels. It is, I believe, what Jesus hoped to create among those who followed in the Way. It was also what the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, hoped for when he instituted the Holy Clubs, small circles of people who gathered for prayer, study and mutual accountability. Both wanted people to make visible the invisible lines of connection that binds us together as the people of God.

But it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said what I believe to be one of the most challenging statements about the art of being community, and, make no mistake about it, it is an art.In speaking of his hope for the movement for justice in our country which he helped birth, he said: “Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”

Beloved Community. It might be easier to think of how we can make quantitative changes in our lives than to think of a change in the quality of our souls. This is a a much more challenging quest. Exactly how might we do this?

I am not completely sure but somehow I think the key might be held in the very word ‘beloved’. To be beloved by definition means to be a ‘much loved person or a dearly loved person’. To be ‘beloved’ is to recognize that we are first and foremost a loved being. As people of faith, we can say that not only does this gift pertain to us but to all. Being beloved community means recognizing that each dear one is equally loved by the Sacred and our role is to try to extend that love to ourselves and to all others. To do this is a soul changing experience.

Who is beloved to you? How are you the beloved of another? How can that love be extended in grace to all? What does the Beloved Community mean to you? When have you experienced it?

These are very big questions. That is why I am thankful for the practice. The every day getting up and going out into the world kind of practice that allows me the chance to have ‘do over’ after ‘do over.’ As I continue to keep this phrase before me, my deepest hope is that in the practicing I may make a tiny dent in improving the quality of my soul and that the beloved ones continue to grace my path

Blessed be.

“God, why do I storm heaven for answers that are already in my heart? Every grace I need has already been given me. Oh, lead me to the Beyond within.”
~Macrina Wieherkehr

Several times a week I either walk or run a route that takes me along the pathways of Cherokee Park and the bluffs that line the Mississippi River. The sidewalk moves through residential streets on one side and the dense trees that form a canopy through which, if I’m lucky, I will see barges or riverboats moving on this powerful body of water. Over the last year or so I have been aware of particular tree near where the path ends at the High Bridge that pour Smith Avenue into downtown St. Paul.

Sometime last year I noticed a large zip lock plastic bag tacked to a towering oak tree. I walked over to the tree and read the note inside. It was a plea from the parents of a young man, asking him to come home. I watched as the seasons changed from summer to autumn to winter and back to spring. Nothing changed within the plastic bag. From that I had made the hopeful assumption that the young man had, indeed,been found.

But this week as I was running down this same path, this time in the heat and humidity that has marked this summer, my eyes were distracted from my route by several items placed on and around the tree. Tacked now to the trunk is a large yellow ribbon looped as so many are that symbolize a certain cause……AIDS awareness, the fight against breast cancer, to name only two. Written in marker on the ribbon were words of love, again with the signatures of “Mom & Dad”. Another plastic bag was hung just below the ribbon. Inside was a hot pink post-it note with the frilly hand writing of a young girl. Also a lovely picture of a sunset over a lake. At the base of the tree,ringing the ground, was a bouquet of yellow roses, a package of Sour Patch Kid candy, a can of Monster energy drink, and a hand painted red wooden heart with the word ‘forever’ painted in shaky white letters.

It is difficult to know what to make of this Message Tree. Its presence along this well traveled path fills me with a deep sadness and many questions. Who is this young man? More importantly,where is he? Why did he leave these people who obviously care for him? Why this tree to hold these messages? Has he seen their pleas?

Seeing this outpouring of care toward this person causes me to think of all those who are lost, whether by choice or by chance. It reminds me of the many who are not physically lost but are spiritually or emotionally making their way through a dark and troubled land. It also stirs up the times in my own life when I have felt like I was wandering in the wilderness, unable to find any kind of signpost to guide my way. Has this ever happened to you?

Being lost at one time or another is a common experience of growing up and growing into wisdom. Many of the great stories and myths that have shaped us and brought meaning to our lives contain a thread of being lost, of trying to find a way home. Along the path are often guides or signs that give hints and hope to the wayward traveler. Sometimes these are actual signs or even animals that point the lost one in the right direction. Sometimes there are angels to protect the lost soul. Other times there might even be the voice of God to give direction. All of these stories always end with great learnings about the self and the wisdom the journey has offered.

And so, on this day, I offer my prayers for all who are lost. For all who are wandering, trying to find a way to the home for which they long, may there be guides and signs to guard the path. And particularly, for the young man whose name is written on the yellow ribbon that has made its home on the oak tree along my daily path, may you be filled with the Beyond within. And may you receive the blessing of this tree so full of messages just for you.

Late last week I found myself in blueberry heaven. Nestled in the rolling hills and rich, green valleys of southern Wisconsin lies Rush River Farm. It is a wonderfully idyllic place filled with row upon row of luscious blueberries and bright red currants. The white farmhouse and sturdy red barn welcome city immigrants to taste the goodness of farm living and working for a few hours at a by-the-pound fee. Colorful prayer flags fluttered in the breeze as pickers bent and reached between scratchy branches to turn their fingers blue with the fruit that hangs suspended in clean air and blazing sunshine. Conversations floated over the hedges, children’s squeals and laughter danced in the air, and birdsong both real and recorded(to scare away the winged ones) provided a soundtrack for our work. Looking out across the field a wide assortment of hats moved methodically down the perfect rows.

Picking berries is a kind of prayer for me. On Friday I was still in that place of ‘thank everything that is thank-able’ that I wrote about earlier in the week. And so I was quietly thanking the plants and planters, the tenders, soil, water and sun for providing this bounty. I was also thanking a Creator who dreamed up such a wild process by which we live, a process that calls us to be in tune with the often forgiving land that feeds us.

Picking can also be an obsessive kind of activity as I was reminded when a woman made her way down the row beside mine. Carrying her loaded down basket of berries, she stopped to add a few more to the dark blue mound. “I just can’t stop myself!” she said. ” It is just greed, I guess.” I agreed that it is difficult to know when to stop. We laughed and she headed to check out. I returned to creating a larger pile of summer’s abundance.

I thought then about her statement about greed and realized that for me it is not so much about greed. It is about responsibility. A responsibility to not waste any of the gift of this plant that offers itself to me. I want to save and enjoy each berry offered. What if no one comes who will pick this one? Or that one? What if they fall to the ground, uneaten, and die? Which, of course, some will. But that is a part of the whole amazing cycle of which human, plant, earth and creatures are a part. What I am unable to pick will also become food for another human or the birds or insects or make its way into the soil as next year’s fertilizer. It is a wonderful miracle.

Because I was still in that ‘thanking’ place, I thought of Jesus’ stories about farmers and seeds and not worrying or being overly responsible for things out of my control. I also thought about the psalmists, many of whom made their lives by being thankers: “ These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.”(Psalm 104) 

I left my picking experience with several pounds of dark blue berries and a heart overflowing with gratitude. A gratitude that will be refueled each time I open the freezer and pull out a bag of fruit offered to me from the gifts of earth on an exquisite July morning. Thanks be to God!

Check out Rush River Farm………www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrVRZU3rM6A

This past week I received a letter from Douglas Wood, the author of such wonderful books as Old Turtle and Granddad’s Prayers of the Earth. I have been a fan for some time and we have invited him to be our guest at Hennepin Church on October 9th of this year. He was confirming with me the details of the day and sending along a contract. Tucked inside the envelope was also a bookmark sized paper that had a list of suggestions on ‘How to be a Writer.’ As I read the list I was filled with laughter, with a sense of hope and even a glint of tears.

I have read this list over and over in the last few days. I shared it as a devotional with our staff on Tuesday. The list includes things like…..Wake up….Attend sunrises….Skinny dip….Pack light….Learn to stop stepping on rakes….Notice how unusual everything is….Do the thing you fear…..and on and on. At one point I actually decided I would adopt one thing per day to focus on and see where it might take me.

Of course, I do want to be a writer so I welcome any ‘how-to’s’ successful folks like Wood can offer. But mostly I realized these suggestions were equally as helpful in how to just be a good human being, a good ‘I love this life’ kind of human being. Which is what, if I am honest, is what I want to be most of all.

So on Tuesday I took up this suggestion: ‘Know that The News is not the world.’ This one came in quite handy given the crazy making news coming at us fast and furious from any number of media sources. Listening to the reports of greed and corruption in England, I reminded myself of the gentle, gracious, fun-loving people I have met in that lovely country. I thought of the waves of God’s Presence that have washed over me as I have walked the emerald green countryside and rocky beaches. I remembered the healing power of stone circles and groves of trees that connected me with ancient wisdom that transcends the momentary flourish of powerful people behaving badly. This is the world. I felt blessed to be reminded.

Tomorrow I plan to take up another point on the list: ‘Thank everything that’s thank-able’. I have been thinking about it all afternoon, planning my strategy. And here is the rub-what isn’t thank-able? When I wake up in the morning, a thanks goes to the bed that housed me and the light that greeted my waking. A huge debt of gratitude to my feet and legs that hit the floor, oh yes, the floor that is but one in the home I love. Thanks for being the nest that I get to fluff day in and day out. Down the stairs to put on the tea pot….that’s filled with clean water I needed only to turn on and place on a fire that was mine at the flip of switch. My heart overflows with gratitude.

But I am getting ahead of myself. If you are out and about the Twin Cities tomorrow and see a woman roaming the streets speaking thanks to stoplights and construction workers, smiling at orange-faced daylilies or geese swimming by, be kind. I am busy giving thanks.

If my life today had been a movie, its title would have been ‘Surrounded by Hope’. It seemed everywhere I turned I either heard or saw the word hope. Not a bad message to have washing over you on this steamy, July day.

The not-so subliminal message began while listening to a CD of a lecture by church historian Diana Butler Bass. In describing a book she had recently read on the subject and study of happiness, she quoted the author as saying there are basically three things that need to be present in a person’s life for them to describe their living as happy: Meaningful work. Meaningful relationships. A sense of hope in the future.

While I was listening to this CD, I was making my rounds of some Twin Cities hospitals as I visited church members following surgery or illness. As I continued to listen to Bass speak, my eyes fell on a mural painted along a wall on the freeway: Hope is Life. Colorful swirls of paint flew out from this roadside message making the words seem to dance in the deathly heat rising from the asphalt. Hope certainly had my attention now.

Moments later MPR radio host Kerri Miller announced that Bishop John Shelby Spong and Sister Joan Chittister were going to be on her radio show talking about, what else? Hope! I began to think there was some kind of cosmic conspiracy drawing me into its vortex ready to brainwash me to the virtues of hope. But then I woke up and told myself that I was not the only person needing this message, needing to have this unwieldy word unpacked. So I looked at the other drivers in their cars and began to believe that they too were receiving the same message: Hope. Hope. Hope. We were, all of us, linked by a common message. It made me feel, well, hopeful.

It is fair to say that the last few weeks have been not quite so hopeful. With both our state and federal governments unable to play well with each other, it has led to some dismal conversations around supper tables and at coffee shops. As the people of Africa once again are gripped in a horrific drought and we see images of children dying in the arms of parents and caregivers, it is easy to move into despair. When we allow ourselves to think about the vast extremes of weather around the world which points to the kind of climate change scientists have warned would happen, it can cause many of us to place our heads in our hands in grief. For me personally,all this global pain,accompanied by several situations in the lives of friends and in our church community, have created a climate where it could become easy to be taken to the depths.

So for whatever reason the Universe decided to open my eyes to hope today. Not only did the word show up in countless places and conversations. It also showed up as I witnessed a hospital worker in navy scrubs walk into the quiet, candlelit chapel and sit down to pray. Its face was shining forth in the gardens planted by the Sisters of St. Joseph where I had a meeting today. Flowers planted in circles, vegetables reaching toward heaven, neatly tended soil shown forth the work of both Creator and co-creator. In a moment between meetings, I held a baby we recently baptized. She proudly showed me her shiny, new tooth and boldly waved goodbye knowing we all believed her to be both beautiful and brilliant and, most certainly, loved.

Hope, I have come to understand, is not something we have or don’t. It is something we choose. And so today I choose hope? What messages are you choosing these days? For what do you hope? If what the book that Diana Butler Bass was quoting is true, our ability to hope is directly tied to our ability to be happy. Are you willing go choose hope, to be happy, and to have the courage to help your hopes take wing?

It seems to me the alternative is not so promising. So, I’m in. Are you?

“The wonderful thing about simplicity is its ability to give us contentment. Do you understand what a freedom this is? To live in contentment means we can opt out of the status race and the maddening pace that is its necessary partner. We can shout “NO!” to the insanity which chants, “More, more, more!” We can rest contented in the gracious provision of God.”
~Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

Every morning I receive an email with a short piece of prose or poetry from a website called ‘Inward/Outward.’ These writings never fail to nudge me and fill my spirit. Today’s offering was no exception. These words by Richard Foster hit me with their full power.

Contentment. Now, there is a word we don’t hear often or, at least, not often enough. Its pursuit seems, in so many ways, counter-cultural, at least in our American way of seeing the world. To be contented must mean we are not working hard enough, our goals are not high enough, our desires not full enough. We are taught from a very early age to ‘never be contented’ with what we have but to strive for more….whatever more means. It is the way we reach beyond ourselves toward a success that is planned just for us by some unseen force we cannot name. This is the message that sometimes gets labeled ‘the American Dream.’

Now I don’t want to give the idea that I have anything against the creation and pursuit of goals, of making a good life. To create a comfortable, safe, productive life in which we pursue what we love doing, are surrounded by people we love, in which we have our basic needs met, is what I believe we mean when we talk about the ‘common good’ for all. It is a way of life that understands that ‘more’ is not necessarily better. Understanding the simplicity  of ‘enough’ in our lives can lead to this experience of contentment.

Perhaps I was drawn to these words because for whatever reason I had a full body experience of contentment this past weekend. It was not a particularly profound experience but one I did take note of. My weekend was simple, not too many things going on. I did a little work around the house, replanted some flowers in a window box, took a trip to the farmer’s market and then sought relief from the heat inside the house. At one point of the afternoon I walked to a neighborhood coffee shop and did a little writing and spent time with a novel. At one point of this experience I realized that my body had relaxed into the soft leather, low-slung chair. I looked around at the other people present. One man was nursing a cup of coffee while playing solitaire on his computer. A woman and her young daughter were having a sweet, intimate conversation, their heads close to one another as they shared this time on a sweltering Saturday afternoon. Another couple, a man and woman, were engaged in a quiet conversation I heard bits and pieces of that showed their genuine concern for one another. The ceiling fans whirred overhead as my iced coffee glass produced moisture on its surface. I nestled even further into this comfy chair recognizing the pure contentment I felt.

All was not completely right with the world or our country or even our state. All was not even completely right in my own life. But I was still contented. Contented to have what I needed, to be able to read a good book and have a cool drink to ward off the heat. Contented to have enough provisions that I recognized God’s movement in it all. My prayer is that, each day, all people may have a glimpse of just such contentment. Enough of a glimpse to embrace a simplicity that leads to a life of contentment and freedom for all….one day at a time, one life at a time.

Blessed be.