As we embark into Lent, the time of preparation before Easter, are there places in your life you would like to be transfigured?

Living things grow and change, even as they stay the same. 

Since Ethel provided this week’s meditation, I can take a moment to write about the book I have linked for several weeks now at the end of my posts: The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) by Caroll Spinney with J Milligan

Today's meditation column comes from Ethel. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

On my door are two folders, simply labeled "My Mission Dream" and "The Cross or Burden I Bear". I would love for you to fill these folders with your thoughts, your prayers and burdens, your wishes.

And if you happen to have a transformative call, share your story, and be inspired to bring the light of Christ into the dark places.

Far from an idea that the Epiphany is a static event that we have missed out on because we were born 2000 years too late, these weeks are a period of further revelation and discovery.

Good Books for the New Year: The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) by Carroll Spinney

Release one expectation this season: one expectation that turns hope into hopelessness, joy to despair, peace to anxiety, and love to apathy. In the stillness left behind, open yourself to the love of God that surrounds you, let it fill you with joy, and peace, hope and love. 

"the poor have the good news brought to them." We are the ones who bring that news by our actions towards people who are increasingly invisible.

Don't cram before the exam.

It seems to me that there are two ways that people typically fall asleep: the light-switch or the muddy mire of insomnia.

When the building was quiet at the end of the day, the thought at the forefront of my mind was thanksgiving that the meeting had "gone off without a hitch". It took me a moment to remember the snow and sloppy roads that had greetedus upon waking up!

When you are giving a housewarming gift to another, do you give a half-used bar of soap, or would you give a gift basket of never used soaps?

What is the point of generosity, then, if everything is God's anyway?

Fire departments ask "Is There A Fire In You?" to recruit more firefighters. There IS a fire in you, and it burns without consuming. It gives you energy and passion, and shows you your structure of strength to carry out your inspired mission.

We are better able to know God, and to act on God's time, when we are open to not only welcoming the stranger as host, but also being the stranger as guest.

As we, as believing members of faith, fight over what characteristics make a person worthy to participate and what traits are beyond the love of God, curious folks who do not consider themselves believers hear the message that God's all-inclusive love is not as all-inclusive as advertised.

Living Peace is about healing relationships, forgiveness and reconciliation; freedom from the prison of resentfulness, anger, and hatred

How might God speak to us through the presence of strangers?