Soul Sister Time

          Why do people obey God?  In the midst of a crowed airport one couple caught my attention.  They were dressed in a unique way that made them stand apart from the tattooed, vacation-attired Florida airport crowd.  Their clothes were handmade from the same blue plaid fabric.  It wasn’t a popular paid either.  The fabric seemed as if it could have been purchased from a surplus store that everyone else rejected for their own sewing projects.  The woman had a jumper dress of the fabric, a dress that seemed to only touch the tops of her shoulders and hung loosely down her body.  I may not have even noticed if her husband were not wearing a shirt sewn from the exact fabric.  It was well made with buttons down the front and even over the chest-pocket.  I’m sure in their community this attire would be admired; but in the community in which they were traveling, it brought attention to their foreign choices.  I never spoke with them, but I assume they dressed this way because it was a

Abba, Father , he said, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. Mark 14:36 Through the years of my spiritual journey, I have bumped into Scriptures that have both stunned and amazed me. The first was in the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus prayed to God as, Abba or Daddy in English (Mark 14:36). It became clear to me that I can call God Daddy when I read in Romans 8:14–17, 23; Galatians 3:26; 4:6; and Ephesians 1:4–5. Jesus invites me to settle in and cuddle up to the God who invites me to call Him Daddy . Although Daddy is the best English translation of Abba , so many people have told me that this word is foreign to them even in their human family relationships. It is so far from what Jesus is trying to teach us that really knowing God is more than knowing Him as Father; it is actually knowing Him as Daddy (or Dad, Papa, Pop). Every culture is invited to insert the name for father that signifies the closest intimacy you

The reason I attended a 10-Day Silent Retreat was because I am hooked on periods of silence to restore my soul...It all began in the Baptist Church when our women’s class took 38-hour silent retreats.  I have been leading them, attending them and hoping to encourage others to discover them from that point on.  A weekend wasn’t enough for me.  I wanted to give more time to Silence.  That was the attraction to the 10-Day Silent Retreat.  I learned a lot more about silence. Even when my silence was day after day, I found out that I wasn’t necessarily being with God during all that time of not talking.  I did enjoy His creation, His church services, and His creativity and by the way, the three deer who walked right through the snow during my devotions were awesome; I even caught them on video.  We were instructed to be in Gran Silence where we are not supposed even to make eye contact with each other, but it doesn’t come naturally and people make eye-contact.  I personally would like

              The 10-Day silent retreat I attended was focused on centering prayer.  Centering Prayer is a discipline of praying without words.  Your full attention is focused on just being with God.  The recommended time period is twenty minutes two times a day.  I have only practiced it that way during two seasons of Lent.  My working, doing the dishes, paying the bills life does not seem to allow for that much time to be devoted to prayer.  On the silent retreat, however, I was praying like that for 3-4 hours a day.  It was intense.  The sessions were thirty minutes.  That may have been a welcome challenge for those who have made room in their lives for twenty minutes a day two times a week (at least it appeared that way to me), but for me it was difficult to keep my mind focused only on the presence of God using my sacred word to remind myself of the intention of my prayer. A great centering prayer time is when the gong, signaling the end of a session, surprises me.  That’s w