Aligning with Grace

I am marveling at things I recorded in a journal a year ago. Though I have journals going back to when I was 15 years old, I rarely revisit them. Why? Many reasons, but that's beyond what I want to share today... This year, I decided to go back and review what I wrote and plan to dive further back into the shelves housing my collection. I am deeply touched by the level of insight and prescience I experienced in the last year and look forward to revisiting other journal entries. "For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice." T.S. Eliot Maybe you already keep a journal. Maybe you think you can't do it. But here's the thing: It can be whatever you want, when you want.  Over a period of nearly 55 years, my journals have taken shape as poetry volumes, and evolved into various formats. They have been collections of favorite quotes or lists of books read, or pictures, or an assembly of practices I found help

What will you give birth to in this new year of 2024? Many people like to begin the new year with a word that exemplifies what they want to focus on, give birth to, and embody in the coming year. This year, the word "Hope" chose me. Perhaps it did, because it is so needed in our world right now. I certainly need it this year. You can always pick a word for yourself - one that you want to work on or experience more of. Or a word can come to you spontaneously. Mine came in so many ways - it was insistent - demanding my attention. I couldn't avoid it. It showed up in everything I seemed to read. It does not have to be one word. It can certainly be more than one, but I find that even with a couple of words, one of them tends to be the predominant one. If this speaks to, it is a simple yet wonderful practice to anchor in the coming year and refer to from time to time. You might want to journal on it periodically to see where you might currently be in your life and decide wheth