Tag Archives: Thanks

November 2010 Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, , , , , , ,

Living in Sept. 12

Looking toward Thanksgiving has me gazing backward to our family worship time the weekend of Sept. 11. We folded paper into thirds so that it opened like the Isenheim Altarpiece (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isenheim_Altarpiece). On the outside we depicted events from history, from around the world, and from personal experience that carried elements of Sept. 11, 2001: the hatred, the terror, the violence, as well as the dignity, the valor, the mythic heroism. Inside the paper altarpiece, we depicted our choice to live in a Sept. 12 world: first acknowledging the truth of Sept. 11 (as well as other events and experiences that rock us to the core), then choosing to live the next day and the next . . . in hope.

What practices would belong to your Sept. 12 world? What, for you, is hope? How important is hope in your life?

November 2009 Soul and Solace

Creativity/Spirituality, ,

Surprised by Thanks

“Give thanks.” The words meet us everywhere during this season: hanging from banners, printed into worship bulletins, drifting through radio speakers. And if, as is the case for many just now, you’re going through a rough patch, the exhortation can feel like another impossible expectation life has imposed on you. This season, perhaps we can relax into thanks, remaining open and letting it find us. For instance, while walking Town Lake one morning, a beautiful scent reached me: roses, apparently unaware that it was mid-November, bloomed in a riot of color, their fragrance more real and strong than any rose I’d experienced for some time. Dew sat up proudly in the ridges of the roses’ leaves, pure and powerful in the morning air. And thanks found me.

This holiday we can give ourselves the gift of permission: permission not to work ourselves up to a feeling of thanks, but, rather, letting go and allowing thanks to find us.