In the beginning God created.... and it was good. This world and everything in it belongs to God. He made it and He charged us with its care. Psalm 24:1-2: The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. As part of the creation, it is our responsibility to tend God's creation but we too often have failed and instead treated it as if it were our to use up for our own consuming purposes. What are some practices we could take to tend and care for the earth in a better way?

What does it mean to have a Holy Conversation? From Colossians, we can learn a better way to evangelize by seeing, listening and engaging WITH others, as opposed to convincing, debating and forcing our voices ON others.

The power of story. We are the only creatures that have a story. Story grounds us and helps us find our place in this world. We have our own stories and are part of The Story.

Learning to Listen - from late Spring of 2020. Did we listen in this past year? What did we listen to? What did we hear? What did we learn?Hopefully we've learned to listen to the still, small voice of God above all the noise.

God made everything and it was Very Good! For too long we have separated the body & spirit with many harmful results. Genesis starts with God creating everything - including us and our bodies - and declaring them not just good, but very good. It's time we honored this by honoring and loving our selves, body and all. In order to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must first value the Imago Dei in ourselves and then in ALL others. 

From the beginning, we have been getting lost. Lost in the Garden, Abram, the Israelites, .... Instead of fearing Getting Lost as the worst thing, we have the opportunity to remember that it is a time to trust God's leading, trust his presence that is still with us even when we don't think he's there and see it as a time to surrender and learn and grow. Our lives' journey, which cycles over and over, is always: not yet begun, on the journey or arriving at the promise. Genesis 12

Sabbath. It's not a punishment. It wasn't made to keep us from fun. God created and then - he rested. If God wanted or needed rest, then of course we do! It was His example as a gift for our best life - the one He created! We are so addicted to more, more, more that we say Yes when we would benefit from saying No. In that rest, you will begin to connect with God. You will begin to experience what it means to have life in the Kingdom. Life to the fullest! As you deepen in that experience, you will learn to let your yes be yes, your no be no, bless those who curse you, forgive your enemies, serve your neighbor, and love your family well. God will be honored, and your soul will be restored. Matthew 5:33-37

You can be generous. Instead of having less when you give more, we actually gain so much when we are generous in what we give away. We can be generous with grace and forgiveness because we recognize that God has been generous with grace and forgiveness for us!

Practice: rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks IN all things. Wow! Tall order....?!? When we remember that God is always with us in the good times and the bad, we can do these simple but not easy things. Joy is deeper than happiness, prayer is being aware of presence, and we don't give thanks FOR all things. Gratitude is the foundation that it is all built on. Practice gratitude and the others will flow from it.

Spiritual Practices: what are they? Let's look at them in a new way. Are we awake to what is happening around us? Jacob saw things in his dream that woke him up to the fact that God is everywhere, that God was & is there, not that God all of a sudden showed up where he hadn't been before. Are we aware that God is always there, always here, always with us? Let's practice seeing God in all things. There is not the sacred OR the secular. All things are spiritual!