Soul Scribe

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this Christmas, it is good to remember that Christmas is more than one day a year. It was and is the start of something much more.

I want to share a special story about another Christmas birth this year. It was published earlier this month in the Arkansas Catholic.

Christmas blessings to all of you and your loved ones, and best wishes for the New Year!

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.

Chinese Proverb

Man is what he believes. 

Anton Chekhov 

Where has God revealed himself today?  The answer is everywhere – if we happened to notice.

Time is that elusive prize we chase, yet waste and let pass us by often without a thought.  We need to take more time to see the world around you – to watch the clouds as they move past.

Let’s be real for a sec.  I don’t always get to just be and sit with thoughts.  And neither do you.  I’m working; I’m busy; I’m watching reality TV (oops, busted); I’m chatting; I’m reading; I’m Wii-ing (oops, busted again); I’m studying; I’m blogging; I’m praying; I’m doing.

But am I being?

Without that being, some moments are lost.

Today, I saw a tiny finch perch perfect between two branches, a canopy spread over it’s head – a delicately white-gold bird pausing for a moment of rest.  There was God.

With life swirling around us everywhere, we lose when the hustle of daily activity gets in the way of living.

And for us this is the end of all the stories.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on Earth has read…in which every chapter is better than the one before.

C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle,
Chronicles of Narnia

Stand by the roads and look, ask for the ancient path, which is the way to good.  Walk on it and find rest for your soul.

Jeremiah 6:16

The etymology (fancy name for where a word comes from) of the word vocation takes it back to the word voice.  I love the idea of that relationship.

My vocation is my voice in the world.  It’s what I’m charged to do every day.  My voice is my vocation.

As a writer, voice is that all-important, yet unexplainable thing that makes great literature.  It’s all about the voice.  No one can slap a real definition on what voice actually IS, but they sure try – sorta like God.

We try to define God, but we really only capture the smallest essence.  That’s part of the evolution of faith – we understand a bit more each day of what God has revealed to us.  But try as we might to define God – God will never be contained by us.

God is so much more than we can imagine.  It’s the greatest mystery of all time.  Keep up the sleuthing and we’ll be rewarded with a glimpse of the truth.

I’m settling into my vocation.  It can be difficult to throw thoughts out there into the world, because it contains my voice – my soul is in everything I do.

So despite my trepidations, I’m sharing my vocation/voice/soul with the world.  Maybe one day, I’ll hear back from you about it.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels  unaware.

Hebrews 13:2

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar, but on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light.  You eye is the lamp of your body.  If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness.

Luke 11:33-34

New Revised Standard Version