2003 Gratitude

Thank you, God, for 2003. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Look Around

I heard somebody say once, "Want to see what your thoughts look like? Look around!" This morning as I was having my quiet reading and writing time in the breakfast room, the dogs happily ran in and out through the open door. It was dark and drizzly--the ice on the pond out back melted away days ago and the 60 degree weather (in December in Indiana? Amazing) left in its wake a spring-like scent and the mud to match.

I took a long look at the thoughts I see manifesting in my life right now. Life is good. I am learning. God is close. I am opening more and more each day to receiving more beauty, care, fullness, love, abundance in my life. And those aren't just words. Over the last several years, God has thawed and set free many numb and frozen places in me--my childhood fears about worth and existence; my stoic insistence on hard work; my tendency to put myself last and make myself invisible, denying my own needs and choosing to focus instead of the needs of those around me. God has gracefully opened those mistaken ideas and touched them with life; not making me wrong but showing me where I'd limited my view of myself, the world, and the Divine working in it.

As Don, my new CPE director, said, "Just like there is a God of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, there is a God of Katherine, you know." Today I can say I feel that. And even when I don't feel it, I know it to be true. The God of All loves each of us with an all-encompassing, all-freeing love that we can only barely grasp. The Divine will for us is beauty, care, tenderness, fullness, life, love in abundance--not when we've done enough good in the world or we've netted all the bugs out of our personalities; not when we've solved all our problems and begun making better choices; not even when we resolve to treat people better and can say that we're (pretty much) living up to the Ten Commandments. Right now, as we are, flaws and wrinkles and all, God loves us with a never-ending, never-dulling, unconditional, transformational, life-giving LOVE. It's your God, the God of Abraham, entering your world. Just look around.

2004: A Year of Curiosity

Today after our Quaker meeting a friend gave me a beautiful book, called Grace Unfolding: Psychotherapy in the Spirit of the Tao-te ching, and I've spent wonderful moments this afternoon dipping my toes into its ideas and watching the ripples they create in the well of my mind and heart. Early on the authors remind us to be comfortable not knowing things. When we name something we put it in a certain cast--we think we have an answer and the mystery ends. Our openness--and therefore our learning--stops.

It was a good reminder for me, because I want to let my curiosity lead me into the New Year. I want to be surprised by Love, enfolded by Grace, tickled by Joy, and lifted through darkness. I want to get to know parts of myself I've previously ignored and expand muscles in my heart not often used. I want God to illumine my brain in such a way that Spirit can lead it directly. But most of all, in this New Year, I want to be freshly awed and amazed and affirmed and encouraged by the simple, wonderful ways God reaches to touch us each day, in every ordinary circumstance, from every gleaming or dusty rock and every smile, weary or wide. I know how the Universe hugged me yesterday, but tomorrow it may be entirely new and different. What will it be? An adventure, a journey, a mystery. How will I receive it? Hopefully, with grateful curiosity and the excitement of a child.

Happy New Year, everyone! :) k

Holiday Leftovers

Good morning! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We had lots of laughter and food and merriment. The kids all came home and brought friends and loved ones. Our house was full of people munching cookies, drinking coffee, and playing Trivial Pursuit.

But yesterday morning I woke up grumpy. A feeling of emptiness, a discomfort, an irritation seemed to cling to my shoulders and my mood. My husband worried about things...the ceiling in the garage, the bills, the office. It occurred to me that we each had different ways of handling the restless feeling of "now what?" that comes after something wonderful you'd anticipated is over.

At one point I looked at him from the midst of my funk and thought, "But even so, Christmas came." On this after-day when our emotions and tiredness surface, when we feel the natural letdown of separation that is the flip side of togetherness, I was comforted in remembering that the wise men are still coming...the kings are en route, the angels still sing and the baby sleeps quietly in the manger. Mary and Joseph are settling down from the sudden and less-than-perfect delivery of the infant; a place has been made; goodness is here, continuing, reaching, growing, maturing.

I heard once that whenever we're too Hungry, Anxious, Lonely, or Tired (which spell the word HALT), we run the risk of feeling overwhelmed by emotion and under-equipped to face the day. I'm sure Mary and Joseph rested the day after the ordeal of Jesus' birth. The focus of life became sparklingly clear. I need that reminder--and permission--to let my very human letdown surface even as my spirit whispers "Thank you" to a God who paints our hearts and houses in love and laugter, like bells announcing the arrival of Christmas Day.

The Thread of Understanding

This morning I wrote in my journal about the thread of understanding that connects each of us when we reach that point of shared meaning with another. We toss the word "understanding" around easily, as in "I understand what you mean," or "I can understand how that could happen." But I think the reality of truly understanding someone--in their heart, spirit, and life circumstance--is actually more profound that we realize.

Understanding is the act of standing under an idea, a burden, a joy, a hope, with someone else. It is a sacred thing. A Course in Miracles says, "Seek to understand someone and you cannot help but love him." If you've ever been misunderstood, you know how important understanding really is. It is the feeling of being joined, of not being alone, of being seen as you are and accepted by another. People who understand us help us simply by knowing what we are dealing with. That knowing doesn't necessarily solve our problems--find us a job, resolve our family conflicts, fix the hole in the roof, make our sickness go away--but it does truly lighten our load by sharing the burden we were carrying alone before we were understood. Maybe an answer will come from that sharing; maybe only the joining will happen. Either way, healing comes.

This Christmas I hope we experience God's understanding in a new way. The celebrated birth of the Christ is about a personal savior, a prophet, teacher, brother, and friend who brings the very real thread of understanding right into our daily lives. It's a direct lifeline to God; a way to understand the Divine and know we stand together--all of us--to experience and share the richness this gift of life brings. Enjoy your understandings today, and know that they are gifts to and from One who loves you. :)

One more note: In preparing for the new year, I've made some revisions on my other weblogs and added a new one. On Joyful Family Life, I'm going to post articles and free e-books related to finding balance, wholeness, and joy as individuals and families. I envision it as embracing all of what I write about faith and technology--the blossom of goodness flowers in our daily lives, right? Please stop by and visit that weblog if you feel so led. :)

The Good News

On Friday my sons and I went shopping. They are both still at ages where they find more gifts they'd like to have for themselves than ones they'd like to get for others. We went from store to store, browsing a lot and buying a little, but we laughed and traded stories and enjoyed each others' company. At our favorite bookstore, I walked up and down the aisles, seeing what was new, marveling at all the inspiration, hard work, and vision reflected in the thousands of books represented there. It was a bit overwhelming. So many people, working with such heart to produce these books. How will they ever get read? How will they all find homes? How will all that work be honored and received?

I found an open table in the bookstore's coffeeshop, purchased a soy chai (my favorite late afternoon indulgence), and sat down to wait on my sons. At the table next to me , a 60-something fellow sat, staring off into space. He looked a bit like a retired college professor, in his corduroy jacket and khaki slacks. His long overcoat was tossed over the other chair. Before him was a box of cards and a three-inch stack of worn 3x5 cards. I assumed that he was addressing Christmas cards and then noticed that the image on the front of the card was not related to the holiday but instead was a large painted image of ships at sea. Instead of writing, he sat and stared, thinking deeply, reliving something memorable, or searching for an answer, a name, or a message just beyond the edge of his consciousness.

Suddenly I felt sad for him, sitting in a coffeeshop, addressing cards, alone. Do people appreciate him? Does he have someone to have a cup of coffee with in the mornings? Does he feel defeated or victorious about his life? I looked deeper, beyond the emotion, to the place where God tenderly touches each of us in the depths of our souls. We are all victorious because our lives are the stories of Divine Love, I remembered. Suddenly the bookstore, my card-writing friend, and all of us in that place became the gleaming thoughts of God--good ideas, intentions, loves, and stories that were born to be shared. We are creation itself. We create our days, our lives, our homes, our world, along with and in response to the immeasurable and continuous gift of an all-loving Creator. I wanted to tell this man and all the authors of all the books and the music in that store that I was glad they were here, I appreciated their creations, and that in my heart, I gladly received the many gifts they offered--through their work or simply by their presence.

I think it's a message we all need to hear, again and again: Our presence matters, our contributions are known, our love reaches around the world and back again. We help complete the continuously unfolding story of God. It couldn't be told in the same way without us.

Merry Christmas to each of you, and thank you for the many daily gifts of love you bring into the world. I'm glad you're here.

Shalom, :) Katherine

Flying, not Fighting

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' famous first flight. I found it interesting that with all the hooplah organized for the anniversary--which included building a to-scale replica of the brothers' first plane--we weren't able, with our modern minds and tools, to repeat their success. The replica started across the field and nose-dived into a puddle. Commentators remarked, "Well, this just underscores what an achievement this was when the Wright brothers did it a century ago."

Other people had apparently been working on the possibility of flight back when the Wright brothers did it. The difference between others' attempts and theirs, however, was cooperation. Everyone else was trying to create solid, metal structures that would would slice through the wind without being affected by it. But the Wright brothers, who had previously designed and created bicycles, knew something the others didn't know: flimsy can be effective. Their plane, which was shaky and tentative on the ground, was controllable in the air. It responded to the gusts and flows of the wind and worked with them, not against them.

As I listened to this story yesterday, I found myself wondering which force I am cooperating with. I hope, moment by moment, that it is the transforming Love of God. Does it matter that I am sometimes a shaky and inconsistent contraption? Or is the most important thing that I am willing to trust the wind of Spirit and let my wings be buoyed by that which I do not fully understand and could not ever (and would not want to) control? Leadings and learnings help me navigate, but at best I am a swirling mix of temporal and eternal; never getting it completely right, never absolutely sure I know the direction, but always choosing to fly with the wondrous wind of God instead of fighting--in vain isolation--against it.

The Other Side of Things

One of my professors isn't very open to the way I look at things. After the close of the semester (or so I thought), I received one of my papers back in the mail. His notes and questions were all over it. He asked things that were difficult for me to answer; he wanted more "proof" in the form of quotes from theologians and backup data. I looked at his handwriting and shook my head.

This man is very cerebral, very intellectual. I tend to learn and write from my heart, having given up trying to "think my way to God" a long time ago. Now he's asking me to climb back up in my brain and communicate on his level. As I think about it, I realize that I'm not very open to the way he looks at things.

We've all heard that "the faults we see in others are our own and the resentments we hold against others are the same we hold against ourselves" (I just read this in my devotions in In God's Care this morning, in fact). But do we really believe it? I can see that my resistance to my professor's way of approaching God mirrors what I think is his resistance to mine. Is this really a through-the-looking-glass world? I think it is; more than we know. I'm going to go back to that paper with a willing heart and as open a mind as I can muster, praying all the while that God will show me how to bridge that gap between our understandings in a way that we can connect and ultimately learn from each other. I can't imagine how I'll be able to get from here to there, but I think being willing is a good first step.

A Tiny Breath before the Day

This morning all is quiet and the sun has not yet fully transformed us from night to day. We're in that in-between time, just before busy-ness and not all the way out of the reach of sleep. The boys are at school, a bit draggy and tired after a busy celebration weekend. My visiting nephew sleeps upstairs, resting after his first semester at college and glad to be in a place where snow falls and weather changes. The dogs lie beside me here, the now-big puppy George (who weighs in at 109 pounds) crunches a bone beside my chair; Edgar is calmly stretched out on the back of the chair in the corner of my office, keeping faithful watch out the window for any visitors, school buses, or ducks.

I am aware of a new week, a new day, new deadlines, new opportunities. I have just finished my first semester in seminary and have a bit of a breather, school-wise, until the next semester begins. I am researching a new book I begin writing this week, a book about telling the stories of our lives in pictures, words, color, emotion. God continues to draw all the beauties in my life closer in a gesture remarkably like pulling the satin chord on a jeweled purse--my work, my schooling, my family, my friends, my inner life all seem to be coming together in the center of God's hand. I can't fully understand or explain it, but after 40 years of watching for it and believing it would happen, I know somewhere very deep that God is very intentionally creating a beautiful mosaic from the kalidoscope of my life. I ask only for the eyes to see it, the heart to understand, and the continued willingness to trust the goodness of the Artist and the sacredness of His timing.

But just now, before the sun comes up, before the animals leap into their day, before I turn my focus to the first project on my to-do list, I wait in the early morning quiet, just to feel my deep, deep gratitude to a faithful, constant, and abiding God who brings miraculous beauty each and every day. It is a prayer. It is life lived. I am thankful.

Watch for the many blessings in your day today! They are there. God is good! :)

Let's Not Work too Hard

Let's not work too hard this Christmas. Let's let some of the little details go. Let's not worry about the perfect loop on the bow or the height of the candles before the guests arrive. Let's linger at the dinner table after the meal is done and we're all pushed back in our chairs, full of dinner and stories and the good feeling of being together. The dishes can wait.

Let's turn the last-minute, frantic rush to the store into a late-night adventure where we can laugh and talk and relax with each other, taking all the time we need.

God comes, moment by moment. The snow falls and the lights gleam and we see that the smiles on the faces of those we love are jewels worth preserving. God is good. Life is packed with blessing. More than ever before, let's hold an intention in our hearts this year to fully accept all the wondrous gifts God has already given and continually gives. I suspect that might be our greatest gift back to him, the babe, who is born anew in our hearts and lives each day. Merry blessed Christmas!

Yes, God

This morning I awoke a bit burdened. Cameron has the flu and we had a long night. About 3:00 am I started feeling queasy myself and found it hard to go back to sleep. When morning really came, I padded around the house in my fuzzy slippers, feeding the dogs, unloading the dishwasher, making coffee, but my mind was full of vague worries. Worries about my oldest daughter and son-in-law as they try to find a new car. Worry about my mother coming over for Thanksgiving tomorrow (should she come if Cameron is sick?). Worry about financial things, projects and school and what's-comingness.

I went upstairs to make the beds and open curtains. The early morning sunlight made it through the cloud cover and splashed on the wall in the hallway. I noticed. I started down the stairs, hearing in the back of my brain a word attached to each footstep, "Yes, God. Yes, God. Yes, God." When I heard myself praying this, I stopped. What was I saying Yes to? The answer was quick. Everything. Everything God has for me this day. Every blessing, every challenge, every blind spot, every worry, everything. I'm saying Yes to everything in front of me in the future, secure or not. Yes, God. Yes.

Our Choices Matter

Day before yesterday, I went into a drug store close to my house in the middle of the day. The store was almost completely empty--just a guy behind the counter and the pharmacist in the back. A young boy, maybe 10 or 11, came in wearing a bike helmet. He walked up and down the aisles. I thought, "Oh, I remember when I used to ride my bike up to the store and get candy...it made me feel big." Then I began to walk past an aisle and I saw him pick up a back of candy and stuff it into his coat. I stopped for a moment and took another step. He seemed to sense me behind him and walked quickly around the corner of the aisle. I thoughtfully, prayerfully wondered what to do. I heard the paper of the candy bag crinkle and thought maybe he'd put it back. I continued to stay open in my spirit for a leading about what to do, but paid for my purchase and left the store.

As I got in my car I saw the boy walk out the door, stiff-legged as though he didn't want the candy to fall out of his coat. I pulled my car over to the curb, rolled down my window, and motioned for him to come closer. There were only the two of us in the parking lot. I looked directly in his eyes and said kindly, "You know there's another way to get what you want, don't you?"

"What?" he asked, blinking hard.

"You know that there's a better way to get what you want, right?" I repeated.

"Yes," he said.

I put my hand on my heart. "You'll feel better about yourself," I said. "Don't steal things."

He nodded and said, "Okay." I nodded and drove off.

I felt that something very sacred had happened there, although I wasn't sure what. I think in some way the boy had been touched by God saying, "I see you. What you do matters." Perhaps my witnessing his choice--and my suggestion of a better way--will help him think more carefully about his future choices. He had the voice of an angel and the sweetest face. I wondered what family circumstances had left him so bored or so unnoticed that he was resorting to stealing for fun. But I took comfort in the fact that the same God who brought us together at that point in time is with him--and me, and you--right now. We are brought together when we need it as witnesses and helpmates to each other. Sometimes our witness says, "I understand you; I love you; you're not alone." Other times it says, "I see what you're doing to yourself, and I want to tell you there's a better way." Either way, God reaches through us, using our words, our presence, and our witness, to be the hands and voice of Christ to those who forget that their choices really do matter.

Laugh

Somehow yesterday afternoon everything seemed too big for me. My participation in my online courses felt so earnest; I later wondered whether I'd shared too much, gone too far, thought out loud just a little too long. I wanted to pull back, be quiet, rest. My work felt demanding and difficult, with too many projects, all due on Friday, and schoolwork to fit in there somewhere. I churned around inside, feeling that vague "something's-not-right" feeling, like a big boot was going to drop from the sky and squish me at any moment. Everything had become so important somehow. And overwhelming. And scary.

But these ebbs are always followed by flow, thank goodness. And last night, I cuddled on the couch next to my youngest son, with my oldest son sitting not far away, and we took a rare hour and a half to watch a funny movie: The In-Laws, with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks. It may have been that the movie was really that funny, or it may have been that I just plain needed to laugh, but the kids and I sat in the family room hooting and howling and laughing and stamping out feet. We raised quite a ruckuss. I remembered the smile muscles in my face. Laughing felt like transformation. I "heart"ily recommend it. :)

Quiet Peace

I feel very quiet inside just now. When I let our dog out this morning, I went out and stood on the deck and just looked up at the stars for a long moment. Orion's belt. Other constellations I should know but don't. A great peace stole over me, a holy moment. I just wanted to stand there, looking up.

I took the boys to school and came back to the house, noticing the spreading of a glorious pink and orange sunrise. The high clouds were touched with pink on their tops. They were the first to receive the light of the new day. I just wanted to stand there, in the driveway, looking up.

There's something very quiet and tender and awestruck going on inside of me today. I have a list of tasks to accomplish, a book to edit, a school paper to write. And yet, the sky is the color of a robin's egg and the now-gold light has painted everything in bright, fresh colors. How can I make myself climb back into my mind when my heart is so obviously awake? New learnings, new gifts, new wonders. I think I'll go back outside, in the cool morning air, and look up.

Enjoy your day! :)

Inner Beauty

The natural world surely has lots of lessons for me right now. As I was driving yesterday, I just felt swept up in the beauty of the fall colors. It seems to be an unusually beautiful fall here in Indiana, but then I may say that every year. My breath is just taken away by the vibrant oranges, the gold and yellow, the shocking red, mixed in with the continual carpet of green, touched with brown. I don't have to push my imagination much to see God with a palette the size of Texas, lovingly painting fall colors from one end of the country to the other.

But yesterday I had a new thought. I let my mind play with cycles--cycles of newness, of growth, of maturity, of fading, of passing into something new. I thought of our lives, born as perfect infants, growing and gaining physical and emotional control, learning and changing and building, reaching a sense of mastery in our work/lives/selves/relationships, the eventual fading of our strength as we watch others begin to bloom around us, and finally a passing into a realm that is new to us, leaving this season for another to grow into.

I wondered about the colors and how they intersect with us in our lives. In the beginning of springtime, when leaves are born, they arrive as buds and spread into leaves. Some trees flower; some trees cover themselves in leaves--most are some shade of green at the beginning. There is diversity among the young leaves, but it's minimal compared to what happens late in the cycle. Then those young beautiful leaves and flowers do something miraculous by drawing on some inherent natural ability none of us knew about--they change before our eyes into red, orange, yellow, gold--who knew they had such beauty in them all along? And although a single bright fall tree can raise our eyebrows and lift our spirits, a whole forest of them--along a highway, across a hill, behind a school--tells us something of Divine mastery, the perfect sacredness of timing, and cycles, and hope. A whole generation of trees turns beautiful in its aging, showing inner gifts in unique and amazing ways. Don't we do the same thing? As we grow and mature, aren't we also more able to show our own innate, natural gifts in a way that is free of the social pressures to be just like everybody else? And doesn't it make us, as a generation, that much more beautiful when others still coming along see us growing into our own abilities and sharing naturally what we've been given?

What color are you today? I'm feeling a bit orange. And grateful, too. :) k

Natural Growth

I don't think my next-door neighbor understands the way grasses grow. Along the edge of his house, he's got the most beautiful ornate grasses--long, lush, deep green, swaying in the breezes coming off the lake. But twice now, just as the the grasses display their graceful tasselled heads, tinged with a hint of purple, he hacks them off into a uniform, page-boy cut. Instead of standing long and achingly graceful in the breeze, they are blunt and linear, topped off to align with the handrail on his deck.

Yesterday I saw a few of these grass heads in my yard and I wanted to go pick them up and tape them, somehow, back onto the stalks from which they were severed. I know how silly that would be. But I wished for a way to be able to tell him how beautiful they were in their natural state--that yes, they are a bit messy and uncontrollable, and no, they don't perfectly match up with the height of the deck or the angle of the landscaping. But perhaps that's the point. Natural movement. Easy beauty. Simple grace.

I've very aware that the lesson for me here is to leave someone else's version of beauty and rightness alone. It's his yard; he can do what he wants with the plants in it. Surely we all have that right.

And yet something inside me aches for the plants that never get to show the world how brilliant and perfect and awesome they'd be if they were allowed to grow to their own wonderous potential without anyone else interrupting and controlling their growth. Maybe that touches me so much because I want it so badly for each of us, too.

May your day be filled with a loving acceptance and honoring of the beauty you bring to the world, your way.

Much love, Katherine

Fully Rounded Moments

Today I've been working on a proposal for a book on scrapbooking. I've spent the whole day immersed in beautiful images, wonderful colors, textures, photos, buttons, letter blocks, ribbons. I ventured out to the scrapbooking store (we actually have a whole store full of scrapbooking supplies here in my midwestern town) and was shocked to see no less than 20 different people--mostly women--shopping in the late morning, buying scrapbooking supplies. The ladies behind the counter were wonderful and smiling. They know a secret to life I've only begun to discover. Time. Time to do things, just because. Time to save a ribbon from a package, pull it out of a drawer, straighten it, put on a bead, and hot glue it to a scrapbook page. Time to cut a hundred little shapes out of their favorite patterned paper. Time to plan a page, a fully rounded page, that captures a husband's return from the war, complete with scraps of his letters from overseas, the postage stamp from France, a sepia-toned photograph with those colorized cheeks, and much, much more. Time to think, to dream, to feel the emotion they felt when the moments first occurred. Time to relive the great gifts of love and challenge and joy those items mean to them.

It's something I want to learn to do--savor the moments, the fully rounded moments in which I'm aware that life is happening at its fullest, right now, in me and around me. The time we can take to fully experience the color, sound, taste, feel, and touch of this moment is up to us--in spite of what I say or think, nobody sets my priorities but me. No one else is keeping me from slowing down and letting time expand into a greater meaning. Maybe it's just a question of focus, of making more room. I'll give it a try and keep you posted. In the meantime, keep those scrapbooks handy. :)

Clarity

Little shining silvery moments make everything sparkle for a moment. A laugh at the dinner table. A quick but fully-meant hug on the way out the door. A child who misses you. An unseen fall cyclone, lifting a dozen leaves and swirling them magically, happily through the air. A breaktaking curve down through a tree-lined valley--red, orange, gold, and brown. God is here, inside, and there, everywhere. Sometimes the beauty is just too much and I wish so much that I could take it all in, capture it, remember it, keep it. But I know it's not mine to have and hold; just to accept for now, to pile up, to jump into, to embrace, to love. When it goes, it goes. But there's more God where that came from. :)

Witness

I am thinking this morning about the importance of knowing people for whom the promise is working--people who make daily choices to live by faith and see it working in their lives. People who face frightening times and tell stories about a God who took every step with them, never leaving their side. People who can nod and smile when we tell them our struggles, who can assure us they've been there, too, and that God was faithful.

Perhaps more than anything else, this witness is what we miss when we haven't yet found a community of faith where we feel welcome and at home. We need not only to hear the words of the sermon and accept the challenge of the readings; we need to see God's love working, uplifting, embracing, transforming the lives of those around us. It's God's witness, reaching out to us through one or maybe dozens of people who have gone before, that makes the difference for us now, today. And one day soon, we will be the storytellers pointing God out to the ones coming after us on this path.

Transformation

Last night, after running errands all over town, a quick dinner, the carving of pumpkins, bathtime, and bed for the little one, I settled down in a quiet house and turned on the television. I had intended to finish a chapter I need to read for class--but instead I found myself watching Style Court. Style Court! I laughed at myself as I watched the "plaintiff" and "defendant" present their cases, I listened to the "judge" issue a verdict about the attire of the defendant, and saw him send her off for a complete makeover. I was aware that I was wasting my time in a big way, time that I should have been spending on homework. And yet...as I watched, and endured the second story in the show, I realized that what I was waiting on was transformation. I was eager to see how the defendant turned out, with her new corporate-casual clothes and more sophisticated haircut. I wanted to see her smile and know she was happy with the attention and the results. I wanted to see the "plaintiff" satisfied and smiling at the change. I waited, despite all my other obligations, to see what the result would be.

I think as people, we love transformation. We wait for it, we know it's coming, we know God's up to something--in us, in our lives, in those we love. We know we are in the midst of a great makeover, from likeness to likeness, from struggle to peace, from fear to love. Transformation is our hope and promise. A look in the mirror shows us how much we've changed--and not only in physical ways--as we grow and learn. A look up or within reminds us that we still have a way to go. But we can trust our Stylist, and we can know that the change will ultimately bring out our natural, sacred beauty.