-
Awesome Tree Stump
Very little sunlight penetrated the thick canopy of old, dense tree growth, and where I walked was chilly and dark, despite the sunny day. Years of decaying leaves carpeted the forest floor, silencing my footfalls. I was deep in the woods in an area new to me in Butler Sanctuary. The 350 acres of field and woods, just over an old stonewall from my family’s ten wooded acres, were a sanctuary for me, a shy, hurting, often frightened child. But this area seemed different. I often wandered freely in the Sanctuary through fields and over hills and rock outcroppings, not following any trails, and somehow this day, I had found…
-
Musings Along the Rail Trail
with encouraging words from those who’ve walked this trail before… I haven’t known any of these people, but their words tell me something of them and invite me to sit a spell and ponder. I wonder what words I would want on my bench…
-
Owls in the Night
Sitting at my desk in predawn darkness, I heard a Barred Owl call faintly in the distance. Unlike most years, we haven’t heard many owls this summer, so this call immediately caught my attention, diverting me from my journaling about some inner tensions to gratitude for the owl; then gratitude for coyotes I had heard earlier (I love hearing their incredible range of yips, howls, squeals, and warbling wails in the night); gratitude for my sweet Lyska sleeping by my desk; and then gratitude for the subtle ways God touches my life even when I don’t sense his presence. I shifted my focus to journaling about longing to be closer…
-
Anointing Jesus’ Feet
This morning, I read the story of Mary the sister of Lazarus anointing Jesus with costly perfume in the week before he was crucified (John 12:1-11). That reminded me of a similar scene from earlier in Jesus’ life when a sinful woman wet his feet with her tears while he was dining at the home of a Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50). I did a prayer sketch based on that scene, starting with Rien Poortvliet’s rendition of it in He Was One of Us, then modifying it by sketching myself rather than the woman in Poortvliet’s sketch. As I sketched myself in the scene, not worrying about making a finished drawing but…
-
A Lenten Wilderness Sketching Journey
In the past five weeks of Lent, I’ve been meditating on the thought of being with Jesus in the wilderness. While we don’t have much geographical wilderness in our part of New York, there are other sorts of wilderness we can find ourselves in. Physical wilderness due to illness or injury; relational wilderness due to loneliness or broken relationships; emotional wilderness of grief and other hurts; spiritual wilderness of not knowing God or of not sensing his presence. I’ve found myself drawn to passages of Scripture that describe the challenges or express the anguish and longings that such wilderness experiences evoke, and while I’ve meditated on these passages, I’ve spent…
-
Sketching as Prayer Retreat January 4, 2025
We’re fast approaching the annual turning of the calendar. For many, that’s a night for staying up late, playing games, watching the New Year’s Eve ball drop, and toasting the New Year. In my home growing up, we would open the back door to “let the old year out” and the front door to “let the new year in” right at the stroke of midnight. These days I tend to be sound asleep long before midnight, preferring to rise early on the first day of a new year. For me, that first morning is like the sparkling of sunlight on a fresh snowfall, as yet unmarked by footprints, or like…
-
Reflecting God’s light
I was ambling along the Rail Trail this morning when I saw a tree with one of its multiple trunks brightly lit by sunlight. Not an unusual sight, but what caught my attention was that I could also see the sun behind the tree, where it couldn’t possibly be shining on the side of the trunk that I saw. And yet, a portion the tree’s trunk was brightly lit. The sun’s light was reflecting off another trunk closer to me and back onto the one I was seeing. As I sketched the tree, I meditated on how, as God’s people, we are to reflect God’s light in our lives and…
-
La Manzana del Ojo de Dios
Here is my original post translated into Spanish by a friend of mine. La semana pasada, nuestra iglesia tuvo una “Semana de Descanso”, cuando todas las reuniones y otros programas fueron cancelados. Al principio de la semana, nuestro pastor envió un correo electrónico diciendo que este era un tiempo para “DESCANSAR de nuestras responsabilidades en la iglesia, REFLEXIONAR sobre quién es Cristo y quiénes somos en Él, y RENOVAR nuestros corazones y mentes en la buena tierra de la gracia de Dios, para que seamos un pueblo que florezca bajo Su cuidado”. ¡Qué regalo! Estuvimos fuera de casa durante la semana, visitando a uno de nuestros hijos y su familia,…
-
The Apple of God’s Eye
This past week our church had a “Sabbath Week,” when all meetings and other programming were canceled. At the beginning of the week our pastor sent out an email saying this was a time to “REST from our church responsibilities, REFLECT on who Christ is and who we are in Him, and to RENEW our hearts and minds in the good soil of God’s grace so that we will be a people who flourish under His care.” What a gift! We were away from home during the week, visiting one of our sons and his family, so I wasn’t sure if I would have a chance to really engage with the…
-
Sketching as Prayer Retreat September 24-27
Tuesday, September 24 – Friday, September 27, 2024 “Earth’s crammed with heaven,And every common bush afire with God,But only he who sees takes off his shoes;The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”Elizabeth Barrett Browning Seeing heaven here on earth and recognizing God’s presence, whether in the wildness of a burning bush or in the shifting colors of autumn trees, requires slowing down, stepping aside from our busyness, and becoming receptive to what we haven’t yet perceived. Sketching can be a pathway to seeing, to noticing the ways God is speaking through creation, and to becoming aware of his presence in the world around us. In the process we are drawn…