#Safety #AdventWord

I have just learned of a Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum.* She was held for a time at the Nazi transitional concentration camp Westerbork, then ultimately died at Auschwitz. While she was at Westerbork she kept a diary, and the excerpts I have read convey a woman of extraordinary spiritual maturity. She found safety in the arms of Divine Love even as she was fully aware and embraced the reality of her situation, a reality surely among the most precarious and horrific humans have ever experienced. I believe she understood what I have been groping towards for years, namely that…

#Earnestly #AdventWord

A gift of music of music, earnestly played–or prayed–for the healing of Earth. The site is a quarry, a huge scar on the face of earth created by bulldozers carving out fill to broaden the nearby highway from two to four lanes. But in a sacred act of loving resistance, Earth stopped the bulldozers with turquoise water from a spring hidden in the limestone depths. I have participated in the resurrection of this place, not only by going there to play music, but also by documenting photographically the return of vegetation and critter life. The story is a chapter in…

#Sprout #AdventWord

Continuing my “life and death are one” theme from yesterday… SPROUT There was once a coffin that freaked outDue to an injustice that made it poutAs it sought to avengeThe pain and anguish to changeAn innocent life into grass that could sprout. John Sensele

#Redemption #AdventWord

Life and death, two moments in the sacred ongoingness. And they redeem each other, over and over again. Something dies and makes way for something new to be born. Something new is born and conquers death for a time. And on and on. I feel like I should try to explain that, but I don’t think I can. Other than to say I have come to see this way by observing and absorbing the sacredness of creation.