Canada Games Oval

There is nothing more Canadian than grabbing a pair of skates and heading off to an outdoor rink; in Halifax this winter it is a 400m oval on the Commons. To skate around and around with people of all degrees of ability, being blustered by wind on the North side,and enjoy the laughter and comments being made -there is nothing to compare. These are the simpler pleasures -grace- that makes winter tolerable. After starting to sweat, while the nose is cold, one begins to enter oneself no matter how many are on the ice. One's brain does a dance of working out pieces of gathered information and day dreams. The farther one skates the freer one becomes and the more grace is experienced. At 30 x 400m there was a lot of grace.

John1:1-20

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."
These words take on a new meaning when one looks at the work Dr.Masura Emoto is doing with "words of intent". His work involves finding the mystery of water. He experiments with words, music, or pictures directed at water, which is then frozen and viewed through magnification. Words like love and gratitude create beautiful crystals; the negative in any form causes water not to crystalize.
John's image of God in Word is quantum theory. Add this to speaking words of intent -God- and the world is given the gift, mystery, God-with-us, to heal the world and bring God's creation into God's vision. This vision is hope, love, peace,
joy.

"nothing beats the grace of a well thrown rock."  -from the movie "Men With Brooms"
 Or perhaps it is is watching the movie with ones family and everyone laughing.

words found in the front of my daytimer

The following are phrases I have collected over the years and write in the front of my daytimer.
The words and phrases have guided me and offered grace at times when the world seemed chaotic.
 One could say the words hit home.  They are light when I face darkness:

 Holy Chaos

 Otium Sanctum (holy leisure) 

Practice Resurrection

 Micah 6:8 

 Deja Moo

salem al e acum

 earth, air, fire, water

grace:  a telephone call from a person in-the-know, with love, caring and a listening ear

Grace came in the small voice of the little girl who with a knowing look stated her line of the Christmas pageant.  The simplicity and beauty brought tears to my eyes. It was grace to have joyful tears as my countenance is from moment to moment close to shattering.  I pray that my "little" girl might feel the warmth and simplicity and love that I experienced today - in the small voice of a little girl.

Think what the family would be like if children saw only affection and oneness in their parents.


-Dr.Charles Parker (for more quotes go to Crosslites)
 
As one of my children has left home before fully having wings, this quote strikes me as it hits the core of how I feel.  I am sadden that the affection and oneness that I perceive and feel in the household is not that perceived by one of the baby birds that shared the nest.  I pray she can find a nest that offers her the grace she so desperately needs.

“Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live.”

 Jackie Windspear

A grace thought by Paul Tillich

"In any case, the great panorama ceases to be chaos, if seen in the light of the ultimate questions of the meaning of life and the paradoxical answer to which the artists are witnesses; the grace of life in a gracelss world."   -1964 Lecture

Cross Training

This is not about the God kind of cross training, although there is plenty of grace in that.  This is about ice skating when the weather is so yucky  one doesn't want to go out running.  Today in Halifax it was extremely windy, then calm, with sun, rain, snow, sleet -all in an hour; repeated over and over throughout the day.  I walked through this with my skates and new helmet to the Forum where I skated  -very quickly- for an hour.  It was awesome! 
The helmet is my Christmas present from my mom and dad, bought early to protect my noggin. The freedom of not being afraid to fall -first time ever skated with a helmet.  Awesome!  Freedom is grace!