Gloomy Tuesday in Seattle

It's a gloomy day here in the Pacific Northwest.


The gardens are all put to bed for the winter--only a few herbs still grow. The leaves are almost all off the trees.

There is a chill in the air, in the houses, in the floor. In me.



Even the crows look hunkered down. It is a very gloomy day.


It's the kind of day that might lend itself to going to a coffee shop to work. A good coffee shop, with wi-fi and a view of the water. You could wear the cute jeans and the new sweater and the leather jacket. And lipstick.

But we're down a car. And there are places other people in the family need to go. I'm on the big work day of the week, anyway. Working from home should be good.

It's more like pulling an all-nighter.

And then, just when it looks like the sun is going to set at 2pm in the afternoon, the light shines. Not from the sky, but from lesson prep.

World Prayers.

Michelle Richards has written this great curriculum for middle schoolers called "Popcorn Theology" everyone in my church is jealous of the middle schoolers and their weekly movies. And the resources are wonderful. The prayers are wonderful.

Here's a "Keep it in perspective" for me today.

Blessings All!

Wage peace with your breath. Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields. Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees. Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact. Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud. Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers. Make soup. Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages. Learn to knit, and make a hat. Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish. Swim for the other side. Wage peace. Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious: Have a cup of tea and rejoice. Act as if armistice has already arrived. Celebrate today.

wage peace - judyth hill - september 12, 2001