i write to believe.

I am called back to the memory of Assisi. The pink stoned walls and the peaceful prayers whispered on the way up to the Basilica of Saint Francis. Francis. The name of our new Pope. He chose the name of a man who traced the pink walls with his hands. Once rich and robed, he tossed out his wealth to choose the countryside instead of his castle. A man who sang to the earth and called out to brother moon and sister sun. A man whose heart longed to be this channel of peace and borne out of his heart is Assisi. A peaceful little city crowning the mountains Umbria, Italy. I watched the news this morning to know more about Papa Francesco. They say he rode the bus to work and chose the apartment instead of the archbishop's palace. His first words to the public was to ask for blessings instead of giving his blessing. He seems to have a different default. Asking, receiving first instead of giving. And is it not such an act of faith? Of humility? To know that one is in ne...

aboard the Bateaux Mouche the cold and crisp air of Paris sang hands folded inside knitted gloves scarves like cupped hands around our necks the warm taste of coffee from a 4 inch cup held tight to last the 45 minute tour we waltzed through the canal the Eiffel loomed over shadows of its height all gray against the orange of fall the ride was slow and every bridge there greeted passerby made the foreign visit home Paris unveiled quiet dreams all forgotten in the backseat of desire stories whispering peace anticipated the holiday of trees we passed the bookshop where books hid lives and the clock ticked of time the clock ticked of time she waved goodbye and her heart gazed through her eyes but her smile, her smile a rosy colored bloom against the autumn Paris sky I write this in memory of Tita Lisa Caro.  One of the fellow pilgrims who travelled with us on Bus Number 5 during last year's  Europe tour. ...

There are many interesting things that have been happening to me these past 3 weeks. It's been a journey out of and into another chapter of my life.  And this chapter is the chapter that makes me face that thing I want to do the most.   Write.   The stories on this page have been slow because I've been trying to discover what it is that I want to really write about and when I ask myself this question, I begin to ask myself the most important question: what am I really about?  It doesn't feel so difficult to ask now compared to before.  I'd squirm and I'd let my gaze wander off into a blank wall or I'd stiffen up and change the subject because I don't really want to dig in too deep and ask myself that because I fear the answer to that question.  I fear having to say it out loud.  I fear having to type it out here.   What am I really about?  I don't really know.   I don't really have it all figured out just yet.  It'...

Every thought of the past often triggers an anxious thought about the future. When I look at what happened yesterday, I used to often wonder if tomorrow will be better or will be worse. It’s an endless cycle of anxiety that robs me of what God is doing today. He says with much conviction. SEE!  It is an urgent invitation as if He knows we are going to miss something good if we do not look. When I keep looking back at what has been. When I dwell on the trauma of what has scarred me I am not able turn my gaze to what God is doing now. This very moment. He is doing something NEW . When we do not feel that God is doing anything at all, it is not because He isn’t. It is primarily because we do not SEE. Seeing what God is trying to do calls for us to stop insisting on what we think He is doing or responding ever so quickly to a circumstance that jolts or shakes the ground we walk on.  Seeing God calls us to go slow into the moment and let His words take root ...

The week has been my first week outside the work environment I've lived in for 4 years.  I've packed my things in boxes and silently slipped out the door.  A week  before that a team of artists gave me a surprise gathering as a "send off" and a framed caricature of my face with all these handwritten notes thanking me for what I have done for them. It was an overwhelming feeling to be deeply acknowledged like that and I can only find my words in acts of gratitude.  There is nothing else to say when you know that you haven't been as perfect as you can be yet people see through your imperfections so gracefully and honor the heart you put into the effort. These are moments that seldom pass ones life but when they do, you can't help but stop and just lift up a song of praise for being affirmed that Heaven sees me walking. Heaven sees me walking.  Walking above the circumstances that may have brought me down.  Walking above the perceptions.  ...

A morning of light musings. Flipping the pages of the Holy Book and seeing Hebrews as a letter to me from Paul who wrote this centuries ago. I saw markings of where I stopped reading. Verses I highlighted seven years before starting only to come true for me seven years later. I'm hungry to dig into his words. Words fueled by the passionate witness of a Savior who set him free. Free from the life that accused him and stereotyped him. Free from a life of control. Free from the unnecessary anxieties the clamor for his attention. This is the life I want. And I am happy to have been able to reach this place despite the long journey that took to get me here. I'm walking feebly. Obviously exhausted from the past days of struggling to get to this freedom. And now I'm just tasting restoration moment by moment. Faith rising with the words, "We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and will possess life." I walk ...

When I sit very quietly in the morning, everything is indeed restful throughout the day.  And I feel that this is supposed to be my regular rhythm.  Starting in the quiet and leafing through pages of books and writing longhand across journals.  Reading other pages of others on a screen.  I feel very whole and integrated when I start my day this way. The morning rain just wraps it all around an embrace filled with peace.  I sound different when I read these words to myself.  Less hurried and commanding.  Less impatient and intense.  But I also feel that I am slowly becoming very deliberate.  Knowing that I can choose what to say and what to feel.  What to see and what to say about what I am seeing. The writing helps me ground things down.  And I wrote on my journal the verses of Ephesians 6 about the armor of God because I want to remember the words that offer a different response to the everyday anxieties I may encounter ...