The Gift of Community

Hi Readers, I'm back!  I've done the work to self-promote my book and now I'm releasing my energies to get back to writing (the blog, just once per week, and my next book) and letting God* get to work to have the right people find my writing.  Thanks for all your support and please enjoy the blog again.  Post a response when you feel moved to do so and happy journaling.
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THE GIFT OF COMMUNITY:  For city dwellers, not having a car may not be as much of a problem as for suburban dwellers.  For suburbans, given the right dynamics, it is doable, but still sometimes presents a challenge.  For me and my husband, we decided not to buy a fourth car so that each driver in our household could have a car.  We also decided that we'd give each of our children a car for this school year and then evaluate what should happen at the end of these ten months.
This means that my husband and I must communicate our schedules and be flexible because we are sharing a car.  We've done this before - when we first married.  What it means is that we are back to sometimes needing to be dropped off and picked back up, sometimes using our bikes, walking or taking the train, and sometimes we rely on other people.
The beauty of it is that it allows us to be in community with each other and others.  When he and I drop each other off somewhere it gives us time in the car together.  When we ask a friend for a ride, we get extra time with that friend.  When we are in a pickle (spouse goes away for the weekend and the homebody still needs a car), it always works out that someone has a car to lend us.
When I ask God* what else I should know about this, what I hear is that my community is dependable and generous.  For that, I am thankful.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, the community and I would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else.  Most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.
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Reflective questions:
1.  Are you as dependable as you could be?

2.  Who do you depend upon?

3. What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, "God, what do you want me to know?")

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, Sensibility, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Photo and artwork by MH

Note:  These posts are part of a broader call to do spiritual journaling (read more at CardinalTouch.net).

Called

This morning I wrote one paragraph in my journal and thought, "Is this is all I have to write today? What am I going to do with this extra space?" After all, it's only 5am and I don't need to leave for chair massage until 8:15.  

I guess I just don't have a lot to write today. Maybe it's because I wrote a total of 10 pages in my journal between yesterday and the day before. Usually it's about two to three pages per day.

I've never done this before, but I feel called to give you an example of one of my journal entries. It makes sense to be called today because it's so short:

I'm still doing lots of book stuff/marketing  Next week is a short week with the holiday and New York (for a day) so the week of September 11 is the week I get back to writing my novel.  I don't have much else to tell You today.  

God,* what else should I know?  Use your book today to get a message from one of your poems and use the extra time to stretch.

So I opened to to a page in the back of the book and rested on page 146, the last two stanzas of Coming and Going.  The last stanza speaks to me and so I write in my journal:

This is the creation story, isn't it?  The beauty of ...delights and struggles - the comings and goings. Do a blog post today.  

It's now 5:15am.  Time to stretch!
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, the community and I would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else.  Most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.
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Reflective questions:
1.  How do you utilize your extra space?

2. What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, "God, what do you want me to know?")

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, Sensibility, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Photo by MH

Note:  These posts are part of a broader call to do spiritual journaling (read more at CardinalTouch.net).