integration

 I once wrote a lot about being unraveled. I wrote to process. Life can come at you hard. 

In the processing, I ran across the word qava, a Hebrew word that means to wait. Like a lot of Hebrew words, it has a physical meaning, and it also means to weave. This word picture fascinates me. While waiting, I am weaving. Or more accurately, God is weaving me together. 

Our word is integration, bringing separate parts, groups, or systems together into a single, cohesive whole. 

I created this picture of unraveling (above). Now as I look at it twenty years later, it could represent weaving just as easily. In suffering or unraveling or waiting, God wove a solid core. Writing that sentence evokes a deep well of gratitude in my soul. That gratitude makes me a rich woman, indeed.

noticing beauty

This morning I read my own tag line. And I thought, “dang, that is true.”

To muse is to be engaged in the present moment, observe something noteworthy, and to say so. I'm a southern girl who notices beauty in every day life and endeavors put that into words. 

What do you observe in this photo? 

This morning I noticed the beauty in the light coming in the window on the leaves of my beloved “Dottie,” a polka dot begonia. 

The rays of light and the way they hit the leaves brought me a moment of awe. When is the last time you felt awe? 

Dr. Dacher Keltner defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.” He talks about how awe reminds us that there is something bigger than ourselves and it out kicks our current knowledge. Dr. Keltner has devoted much of his life to studying awe. He points out that not only the expansive can give us awe but the ordinary. 

Experiencing awe changes us. He says that most people only experience awe twice a week. He has outlined a process of increasing that by going on an “awe walk.” 

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2598 

Why do it? Awe can reduce stress, reduce inflammation, and benefit your cardiovascular system. It’s a medicine for your soul, body and mind. I’m in. 

For maximum effect, notice the small to the vast. To continue the example I notice the rays of light on the leaves of Dottie and then  look out the window to the actual sun (without blinding myself). Dr. Andrew Huberman interviewed Dr. Keltner and talked about the specific changes in our brains and bodies when we do this. If you are a neuroscience nerd like I am, you may enjoy it!

https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/cultivating-awe-and-emotional-connection-dr-dacher-keltner

In a few minutes, Ruby and I will take a walk by the river. I will do this intentional practice of cultivating awe. I’ll let you know how it goes. For now, I am in awe of her cuteness. 

What I Know About Peace

What do I know about peace?

We are in the last day of Peace Week of Advent.  When I began to think about writing about peace, I blurted out loud: What do I know about peace? And then I hooted out loud. As you age, you talk a lot to yourself. You even laugh to yourself.

Laughter it turns out is a key to peace. This week as I drove to work  Silent Night came on the radio. The line “Round yon virgin, mother and child” made me laugh out loud. I remembered that my mother and her sisters used to sing: “round John Bert, mother and child.” John Bert was a family friend. It took years before they realized what the song actually said. Few things are funnier than misunderstood song lyrics. I noticed my body’s reaction to the laughter. I felt peace. That is actually what the song is about after all. 

Laughter mixes up a cocktail of neurochemicals for body and mind. Dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin all increase while cortisol decreases for hours. In short, laughter resets the nervous system. (My source for this is Chat GPT and some 30 years of nursing not to mention 35 years of mothering.)

Laughter ushers in peace. And peace is a commodity at Christmas. No?

Here I will mention our current situation. The range (stove and oven combo) we’ve used for 19 years finally croaked. We purchased a new one many days ago (11/29/25). The entire process has been a series of unfortunate events. It still sits in my kitchen pretty but not functional. A mama really needs her stove and oven during Christmas. You might even say that the range debacle has robbed me of my peace. It has turned into a marriage issue revealing tiny tears in our ways of relating. Finally, we have begun to laugh. With that kindness and peace have shown up as we live together and continue the fight, not each other but to get this range up and working in time for Christmas dinner. 

Here we are: no range. Here we are laughing. Here we are finding peace in the chaos. 

What lyrics did you sing incorrectly that still bring you laughter today?

Hope

 

What do I put my hope in? How easy is it for me to look to something else for hope? What do I hope for this Advent season?

My answer is that I put my hope in God. It is pretty easy for me to look for hope elsewhere on the daily. This Advent season, I hope that I won’t be as easily distracted by the shiny, the worldly, the temporary. 

Hope in God is solid, certain, weighty. It is not from my imagination but from God Himself providing me with the grace to hope. I hope in the lovingkindness of God. 

This morning I hold the hope of God in Jesus. It is not fragile or whimsical. I return to moments of Thanksgiving that I hold dearly. My adult children left yesterday and we put up Christmas decorations. Ornaments with their young faces grin back at me from the tree. Like Mary, I ponder these things in my heart and treasure them. 

I pray that as I sort the temporary and fleeting, God would send His breath and let them float away like so much smoke. The solid will remain. Hope even though not seen is certain. 

Note: The Bible Project has an Advent series. Check it out. These questions came from them.

Wait

The first Sunday of Advent always comes as a surprise to me. Hard to believe since the Sunday ushering in the season is earmarked from now to infinity. I usually am so dialed in to Thanksgiving that on that Sunday, I say to myself: Is today the first Sunday of Advent? Do I have Advent candles? Yes and no. 

This morning I am waiting. It is not a particularly holy place. I can’t think of a sentence that would include holy and Lane Kiffin. But I wait on him, unpopular as he is in my home of Volunteer fans. I am in my own battle between self-hatred and hope. Why do I care what this man does? I will waste no more words on him.

My point is that it doesn’t take long to see how far I have wandered from the Garden of Eden or even from a posture of waiting according to the Word of God. 

In Hebrew the word for hope is qava. The Theological Word Book of the Old Testament expounds on this word:

This root means to wait or to look for with eager expectation. Waiting with steadfast endurance is a great expression of faith. It means enduring patiently in confident hope that God will decisively act for the salvation of his people. Waiting involves the very essence of a person’s being, his soul (nephews; Psalm 130:5). There will come a time when all that God has promised will be realized and fulfilled (Isaiah 49:23; Psalm 37:9). In the meantime the believer survives by means of his integrity and uprightness as he trusts in God’s grace and power (Psalm 25:21). His faith is strengthened through his testings, and his character is further developed (Psalm 27:14).

Not many things show me how undignified I am more than Ole Miss football. Integrity? Uprightness? Not usually if Ole Miss is playing football. We have had a historic season. Every victory each Ole Miss fan feels they have fought for bravely. And now we wait and war. Do we even want him? LSU, really? 

I typically think of the meaning of advent as to wait, but it means arrival. Not only the arrival of Jesus as an infant but more typically throughout church history the second coming. The arrival of Jesus to complete the work of restoring all of creation. 

If Ole Miss football minimally has the purpose of convincing me that I need to be restored, so be it. I am convinced also that what I wait for is infinitely more satisfying than anything this earth has to offer.

I turn to my favorite psalm. 

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14