by Gwen | Aug 3, 2020 | Anxiety, Beauty, Challenges, Community, COVID-19, Education, Faith, Grace, Hope, Jesus, Love, Truth, Uncategorized, Unity
I read somewhere that when two people look at the world one may see hate and division and darkness while the other sees beauty, love, and light. The interesting thing is that regardless of who does the looking, it’s the same world. We get to choose how we look at it. No one else chooses for us. But our choices make all the difference in how we walk through this time. The truth is that we still have much more than we have lost. We can choose to bring our best selves to the hard, messy work of finding our way forward though this new landscape, together. We have each other and we have grace. And that is more than enough.
by Gwen | Dec 8, 2017 | Anxiety, Christmas, Family, Holidays, Kids, Motherhood, New Year, Thankfulness
The season from Thanksgiving to Christmas is usually extra angst-ridden. On one hand it is my favorite time of the year. I love time off with family, decorating, baking, celebrating, pausing to be mindful of and thankful for all of the good in my life. On the other hand I find myself more mindful than usual that life, like the old year, is fleeting
by Gwen | Jan 13, 2017 | Anxiety, Birthday, Boundaries, Dr. Jason Warnick, Gratefulness Project, Mental health, Micha Boyett, New Year, St. Benedict, Thankfulness
I’ve been on the dark side a little too much these past few months. Remember the Dung Beetle post? Well, it’s gone downhill from there. Heathcliff advised me after that one that I needed to write something positive. Notice I’ve not posted anything in several months.
As Micha Boyett reminds us that Benedict reminded her, “Always we begin again.” We’re going to call this new era on the blog the Gratefulness Project. Here’s my plan. For the next year I’m going to write letters expressing my gratitude and publish them here. I hope you’ll join me by commenting things for which you’re thankful or even write letters of your own. I know it sounds silly but that’s okay. It’s scientific—Dr. Warnick said so. And after writing about Dung Beetles, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose.
Here goes.
by Gwen | Jul 6, 2016 | Anxiety, Equality, Exercise, Faith, Friendship, Homosexuality, Hope, Jesus, Justice, Love, Relationships, Social justice
Those dudes were resourceful and hardworking. And they essentially had taken a pile of something nasty and cleaned it up. No huge, sweeping gesture, no dramatic production. They had just done what they could do. Rolling the mess into little balls and taking it away.
by Gwen | Feb 8, 2016 | Anxiety, Beauty, Birthday, Challenges, Family, Kids, Motherhood, New Year, Relationships
It has been suggested that I may tend to take things a bit too seriously.
by Gwen | Dec 16, 2015 | Anxiety, Authenticity, Christmas, Family, Heathcliff, Holidays, Humor, Prayer, Relationships, Thankfulness, weirdness
Weirdness is what makes us unique. It’s those little things that are off the grid, not always easy to understand, impossible to replicate. Weirdness is us in our rawest forms. Unpolished. Honest. Hopefully open to interpretation, growth, and change, but weirdness is our truth. I would argue it’s the magic that draws us to someone or something—when we recognize another’s weirdness matches up with ours, and we are not alone. Anne of Green Gables might call those people kindred spirits.
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