I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I'm longing for something more. The longing and the gratitude, both. I'm practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can't, that he's weaving a future I can't even imagine from where I sit this morning.

When you eat, I want you to think of God, of the holiness of hands that feed us, of the provision we are given every time we eat. When you eat bread and you drink wine, I want you to think about the body and the blood every time, not just when the bread and wine show up in church, but when they show up anywhere- on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach.

That's why it's hard, I think, to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. I love that line from the Bible, but it's so incredibly difficult sometimes, because when you've got reason to rejoice, you forget what it's like to mourn, even if you swear you never will. And because when you're mourning, the fact that someone close to you is rejoicing seems like a personal affront.

I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud...I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.

There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming.

When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life.

Life hands us opportunities at every turn to get over ourselves, to get outside ourselves, to wake up from our own bad dreams and realize that really lovely things are happening all the time.