Unfolding

One of my favorite flowers is the rose. Go figure! As a child, I used to really, I mean really, dislike my name. Why would my parents name their oldest child after a flower of all things? I was teased relentlessly at times, called every other flower but my name, Rose. People expected me to…

Alone with My Thoughts

Local Cedar Rapids writer Lyz Lenz tweeted on Monday: “When this is over I’m never spending time alone with my thoughts ever again.” On a Monday morning—following a holiday weekend typically known for its social spirit but this year spent largely alone—I completely agreed. This introvert had had enough solitude! All it took to remind…

Song & Time Travel

Music brings resilience and strength. A story, an invocation or a verse shared in song travels beyond reaches of rational thought to make its home in the soul’s memory. In his 1964 book Why We Can’t Wait, Martin Luther King Jr. said that song was the soul of the Civil Rights Movement. Hope and determination…

Morning Symphony

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” —Joseph Campbell These summer mornings I love waking up during the pre-dawn moments before the “robin concertmaster” sounds the first pitch of the morning symphony waking up a sleeping world. She announces…

Demarcations

“If we reach common ground, and can understand what everybody’s going through, we can really affect change. And make sure that everyone is treated equally and has the same freedom.” —Colin Kaepernick One day, as I walked the land at Prairiewoods, I saw the tree photographed above. Note how it stands in a place of…

No Such Thing as Bad Weather

Last week, when the rain came, I found myself awash in its energy while also dry-of-foot. I walked through the gardens and trails at Prairiewoods and found the message I needed in that moment. Donning my waterproof boots, straw hat and little blue umbrella, I held presence with the rushing stream, the dripping canopy, and…

Holy Wandering

I am familiar with the practice of pilgrimage, having been a pilgrim to the Holy Land and to Rome and Assisi. Pilgrimage is a journey to a holy place, that requires an interior journey as much as an outer one. The Celtic practice of peregrinatio is similar in that it also calls me to sacred…