An update on the move to Patheos

March 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment
1toAdele

Hey friends! Thanks for your feedback this week on the header for the new site. You overwhelmingly voted for happy sweet Micha, as opposed to "pissed, reflective Micha" to quote Cameron in the comments. Although Lyndsey was hoping I could be a little less Beth Moore and more Anne Lamott (confession: I'm way too uncool to be Anne Lamott, and way too Texas to not be Beth Moore), she was one of the few who voted for the non-smiley header. In fact, my other favorite comment of the day was Davita … [Read more...]

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Poem-a-Day Friday: Robert Lowell, again

March 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Yes, I'm still reading Robert Lowell. But I promise a new poet next time. (Next Friday is Good Friday, and I will offer lots of stunning words from the best of the word-makers on that day.) Today, however, I'm posting this, not because I understand it all. (Lowell is not the easiest.) But because I want to understand it all, because it feels significant for our preparation for Holy Week, and because it was written in 1945 and has the line: "The nineteen-hundred forty-fifth of grace," which I … [Read more...]

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Let them tell this story: She was always being remade

March 29, 2012 By 38 Comments
bluebonnet3

I'm a stressed mom. I'm stressed too often. I worry that August's most prominent memory of his childhood will be my contorted anxiety face leaning over his carseat, snapping at him and plugging his seatbelt in tight. Sometimes he asks me, "Mama, are you stressed?" Sometimes he tells Chris when he comes home: "Mommy was really stressed today." Oh, how I hate that. That is not the story I want for my boys' childhood. Sweet Lord, I beg from my gut, unweave that story. Put a new one in its … [Read more...]

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{Practicing Benedict} When new clothing is issued

March 28, 2012 By 14 Comments

"When new clothing is issued, the old should be immediately returned to be put in store for distribution to the poor. Two tunics and two cowls should be enough for each member of the community to provide for night-wear and for laundering. Anything more than that would be excessive and this must be avoided... There is one saying, however, from the Acts of the Apostles which the superior must always bear in mind, namely that proper provision was made according to the needs of each. (The Rule of … [Read more...]

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I need your help!

March 27, 2012 By 108 Comments
MamaMonk3

Hey friends, I'm working on the new header for our move over to Patheos and I need your thoughts on my two possible headers. Will you leave me a comment with your opinion? Which do you like the best? or PS Special thanks to my brother, Jason Boyett, for the design and to Erin Molloy Photography for the general awesomeness! … [Read more...]

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Dirty House Thankful

March 27, 2012 By 3 Comments
catchingfireflies.com via Pinterest

  Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for me. (Psalm 66:14) For the prayer book I've been following for the past few weeks (The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle) and its collection of scripture that keeps sticking in my head. Like Psalm 66:14. "I will tell you what he has done for me." What a beautiful calling to live into... A house littered with toys and cardboard boxes and missing its kitchen table (the weather was so nice … [Read more...]

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Micha tries to write about music…

March 26, 2012 By 4 Comments
Su.Blackwel "While you were Sleeping" 2004

I don't consider myself a "music person." I love music and I always have. It moves me and speaks to me, though usually, it's the lyric that lingers longest in my heart.  Though I have spent a good portion of my life dancing in my closet while simultaneously buttoning my shirt and using my toothbrush as a microphone in the morning, I'm just not one of those people who talks about music in the cool kid language. I have nothing to say about rifts* and lifts and other things that rhyme with "ift." … [Read more...]

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Poem-a-Day Friday: Robert Lowell

March 23, 2012 By 1 Comment

I have this very heavy, beautiful, hard covered block of pages, also known as Robert Lowell's Collected Poems. Chris gave it to me for Christmas nine years ago and there's something about it--Its beauty? Its big words? Its scholarly poet on the front cover?--that makes me scared too really get into it. And that's crazy because Robert Lowell's poems on their own are always powerful to me. That's why for my poem a day, for at least a while, I'm going to be forcing myself to open up that book and … [Read more...]

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Lots of changes, all of them good…

March 22, 2012 By 48 Comments
photo 1

Two and a half years ago, when I moved to San Francisco, I had a 15-month-old and I had just left the job I most loved in the world. I was lonely and anxious and I had this tiny little seed of an idea in my head. It had to do with the books I'd been reading about Benedictines and the possibility that mothers and monks had a lot more in common than I'd ever thought. I had this thought that maybe if I could find the heart of monasticism, I might find the heart of this motherhood calling as … [Read more...]

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{Practicing Benedict} Receiving Guests, Receiving Christ

March 21, 2012 By 11 Comments

"Any guest who happens to arrive at the monastery should be received as we would receive Christ himself, because he promised that on the last day he will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me... As soon as the arrival of a guest is announced, the superior and members of the community should hurry to offer a welcome with warm-hearted courtesy. First of all, they should pray together so as to seal their encounter in the peace of Christ. Prayer should come first and then the kiss of peace, so … [Read more...]

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