resident gifting

"We arrive in this world with birthright gifts -- then we spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting others disabuse us of them. As young people, we are surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who we really are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to gain the approval of others.

We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of our lives. Then -- if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our loss -- we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim the gift we once possessed."


Parker J. Palmer
"Let Your Life Speak"

headwaters (river, part three)

Have you visited the headwaters of your defining dream? Have you made an inner pilgrimage to the birthplace of the vision that shapes your intentions?

It’s not an easy hike. Sometimes you come across dams you’ve built to block to flow of your own calling. Sometimes you encounter a culvert of pollutants you’ve allowed to empty into your passion.

But eventually you make it back to the simple source. A wellspring of clear water bubbling up from your soul-dirt... The Spirit flowing from your deep places...

Your family, your friends, your community need the living water that is meant to flow from you. You’re an integral part of a relational ecosystem.