An Intention to Learn

Linking with Emily's community for What I Learned in February. Join me as women of faith chat with humor, surprise, or tongue in cheek about the past 30 days of living this great big life we've been blessed with!

Here are my thoughts. Just the highlights, the best or the parts that are mine to share.

1. Mild winter weather has its beauty and I have enjoyed being outside on these uncommonly warm days. But there is a much bigger global picture to this phenomenon that is deeply concerning. A fictional account in Barbara Kingsolver's book Flight Behavior highlights how warmer temperatures can be devastating to the existence of multiple species dependent on stable environments for food sources and producing their young, not to mention the fires and floods that threaten human lives. A most impactful read.

2. Jeanne Oliver teaches online art courses. I'm participating in "Reflections: Paint Your Story" which includes collage, portraiture, symbolism, mark making, and more. It is awesome! Nurturing my soul and extending my art. Here is my work titled "Generation After Generation", honoring my family's deep ancestral roots.

Generation After Generation: Acrylic and Vintage Papers, By Lisa Moreland

3.Mentoring is awesome and has multiple examples in the Bible: think Elisha and Elijah, Mordecai and Ester, Elizabeth and Mary, Jesus and the Disciples. Studying Jessica LaGrone's curriculum, Set Apart, with a dozen other women this past month. Lots of self reflection and deep learning in this study.  

4. It's the final season of "Downton Abby" and "The Good Wife". I tell myself one really should not lament such trivial matters. Even so, a series with strong characters, excellent dialog, creative plot twists, and talented performances without terrorism and forensics are hard to come by. 

Grateful for these experiences and all the endless possibilities. New learning is available every day when we intend to have eyes that watch for it and ears that hear it.

The Thin Space Between Dark & Dawn

Slender light slips dim and slow through the window. 

Darkness still clings to the corners while tea steeps. 

Candlelight flickers on the kitchen table in honor of the 

thin space of heaven’s portals between dark and dawn. 

Cold rises from floor tiles, seeps around window panes carrying the scent unique to crisp winter air. 

Socks layered within slippers. 

Sweater layered over flannels. 

A scarf too, in a cozy loop around my neck. 

I stand at the window, 

a small witness to the new day’s splendor. 

A singular heart’s praise for the persistent majesty

of God's cosmic order.

Linking with Small Wonder, Tuesday Afternoon, Weekend Whispers,& Give Me Grace.

Readings Around the Web

Many mornings I begin with a steaming cup of green tea along side the laptop, scrolling through various favored sites that expand my devotional reading as well as inform and inspire my faith practices. I'll share these few. Perhaps your heart will be encouraged.

~

Christian poet Jane Kenyon  wrote beautiful poetry and essays on faith. A while back I wrote about her expressions of faith in her last book, A Hundred White Daffodils. It has recently been highlighted in this BrainPicking link. Kenyon is quoted, along with other writers, on the characteristics of pursuing a focus and routines that contribute creative living, specifically, a writing life. 


Jan Richardson wrote a fascinating book, A Sanctuary of Women, exploring the faith stories of selected Christian women including the earliest cloistered women of faith. She also writes an online Epiphany retreat for women each year. The retreat is a collection of short writings and engagingly beautiful art, designed to facilitate reflection and prayer. 


Jeanne Oliver is a multimedia artist who founded a website that offers online art workshops lead by several female artists. Each year the women also offer a free online faith workshop that is scripture based, video clips of women telling their faith story. This year's theme is LISTENING. Their stories cover the full range of a woman's experiences. Regardless if you are an artist or not, there is encouragement here. After you get to the site, click on Week One of the video's listed down the margin.

~

The days are cold. The hot mug warms my hands. People sharing their faith through words or art, warms my heart and kindles awareness of holy presence. Whether I hold a hardcover book or travel across the internet for words that inspire, God's hand is in it all. 



Linking with Weekend Whispers, Still Saturday, and Simple Tuesday.

Terrain and Lenses

Gazing out the window of an aircraft can offer the most magnificent of perspectives. Looking back reveals the terrain that has already been traveled across in all its undulating, traversing intricacy. Valleys are apparent, river crossings are complete, distances from one point and to another are fairly clear. 

Pondering the living of the past year can be approached from a similar perspective; spread it all out, look back for familiar markers, and consider the ground that has been traveled.

Nourishing Ties

As I do so, a large swath of such a blanket of last year’s doings represents family. Mine is large and geographically far flung, desert to tropics, woodlands to prairies, nearly coast to coast, requiring a determined “get out there” and see them intention. Those multiple travels rendered tender days of crisp memories, deeply nourishing ties that had gone adrift for too long. Though the effort to reconnect with so many still extends into the new year, its encouraging to anticipate the renewal of each relationship.

Soul Space and Lunar Reality

Across the months of any year there are the shadows of darkness. Events that stun, circumstances that pull the air out of every sail. A backward glance at the past twelve months can’t ignore the hues of heaviness that we must learn to bear. There is much to be said about the understandings that were seared by the hurt and the capacity of endurance that was tested. However along side that level of learning, I garnered additional insight about the elements of darkness that are more benign, the ancient history of God’s presence there, the long lost value of being familiar with the dark. Barbara Brown Taylor writes of such wisdom in Learning to Walk in the Dark. Knowing darkness well, both as a soul space and a lunar reality, tempers fear.

Global View, Scriptural Compass

Increasingly as world dramas have ticker-taped their way across every screen and voices intone in decibels just below shrill screams, I have strived to imagine a global perspective, since presumably this is God’s perspective — of His world, His people, His cosmos. From the thinnest atmosphere, with the benefit of recorded history, and through the lens of scripture…that widest scope influences priorities and opinions.

The terrain of 2015 was as diverse as each of its predecessors, both personally and historically.  As the phrase from A Tale of Two Cities declares, every era “is the worst of times and the best of times”. In any calendar year, it matters greatly what maps and lenses you use to guide your way.

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Linking with Emily Freeman's What I Learned Community, Coffee for Your Heart, Weekend Whispers, & Tell His Story.

Lo! How a Rose E're Blooming

This year the rose blooms remain far into December, 

velvety petals still opening to the sun’s strong rays. 

Hardy shrubs retaining foliage,  

bursting with color beneath towering trees 

that have shed all their splendor and stand bare in contrast, 

spindly against the horizon. 

Tender blossoms, uncommon, out of season. 

Just as the birth of the holy babe was uncommon. 

Not explicable in the timing, the mother, or the place. 

Tender buds opening still, precious babe, coming still; 

despite the certain cold that lies ahead. 

Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming

16th century German hymn, author unknown

Lo! How a rose e'er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung

Of Jesse's lineage coming,

As those of old have sung.

It came a flower bright

Amid the cold of winter

When half-spent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,

The Rose I have in mind;

And so then we behold it,

The Virgin Mother kind.

To show God's love aright

She bore to us a Savior

When half-spent was the night. 

~

May unexpected mercies bless you in this holy season!

Lisa

Christmas Gifts

Gifts counted, 
some small and quiet, 
others hard and tear stained. 

These few rise to the surface to share for your eyes too. Numbered past 1400 and even then I know hundreds were offered but escaped my inked list! Blessed, so blessed.

~ sharing cake, coffee, and faith blessed friendship in front of the Christmas tree

~ silver strands at greying temples, ribbons of tribute to long life

~ winter moonlight glitters silver on water's dark surface

~ Earth's global lights become a beacon in the universe

~ women's bonds and Bible searching in covenant relationship

~ crimson and indigo berries winter's suspended beauty, nature's chilled sustenance

~ hours  of quiet

~ women's charity that empowers independence


~ the wisps of dreams, bits of soul tales lingering into waking moments

~ memories of the silver cross suspended at mama's heart

~ voices, cards, posts sending faith filled Christmas joy

~ "Come thou font of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise." Nettleton

Merry Christmas!

Jeweled Leaves

The jeweled leaves scattered like gems spilling from a chest of treasure, reflected the setting rays of light. How does one see that and not be drawn to kneel low to view so much momentary beauty.

Crawling low to frame the image and catch the light’s stream across the park’s wide yard, clicking repeatedly as the sun slid steadily beyond the horizon. Leaves casting transparent color and curving form against emerald grasses.

In the grass, seated on that carpet of verdant green; how long had it been since I last felt the surface of soft living turf… countless times; walking by this miniature world raising spires of green praise to the sun, to Creator God… me, passing it by without a thought. 

Barbara Brown Taylor writes in An Altar in the World, of Jesus’ walking into the countryside, by the sea, into the desert, and from town to town. This gave Him time to move slowly, to notice the vineyards, to look up into the sycamores, to see the people, the sparrows, the lilies of the field, the bushes seeming to burn brightly, and to hear God’s voice. 

A slower pace can become an act of reverence.

An appreciation of minute details heightens a sense of sacred design and holy presence.

“Remove the sandals from your feet, 

for the place you are standing is holy ground.” 

Exodus 3:5 

Linking with Weekend Whispers, Monday's Musings, and Coffee for Your Heart.