What are your commitments? The habits that remind you that you are human, the values that shape your life? The disciplines you keep that give your life shape and your time purpose?
Wellness
Open
And yet, remaining open is essential to being alive. Openness allows us to experience joy, to share laughter, to feel the tenderness of love, and to dream new dreams. When I pause to look closely—when I zoom in on the everyday kindness, goodness, and love around me—I see glimmers of hope everywhere.
Home
I remember going to the drive-in with my family and falling asleep to the sound of The Wiz streaming through the car speaker. It was a big deal to be able to see the broadway production on film in an affordable way that my family could enjoy. Perhaps, the excitement was too much for me to bear. Up until then, the only rendition of the 1900s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz[1] I had access to was Judy Garland on TV clicking her red heels repeating, “There’s no place like home.”[2] Home. I tend to favor the The Wiz’ finale of “Home,” because its composer and songwriter Charlie Smalls wrote lines that grip me even now:
If you're list'ning God
Please don't make it hard to know
If we should believe in the things that we see
Tell us, should we run away
Should we try and stay
Or would it be better just to let things be?[3]
This voices my own existential search for home or even belonging. In this song, Dorothy believes that home is where love is abundant. She wants to go back to that place with her newfound, matured understanding of the world. The world in which she’s been chased, attacked, displaced, and lied to. How should she reconcile home or love with what she’s seeing? Is home a place to return to? Is it something that is outgrown? Can she slow down time enough to savor the feeling of home? I feel this wrestling like waves lapping the shore gently still shifting the seascape.
As a listener, I’m relieved of this dynamic tension in the song. Dorothy relieves me with her wisdom that home is a return to the heart where love chooses to live to the degree I allow.
I lost a friend a few days ago. Her mother texted me and my spouse saying that her daughter, our friend, was free from suffering and had “gone home to be with the Lord.” Home. Could it be that home is the landing place?
A soft meditation I land on because the world doesn’t always make sense, is sometimes disorienting, occasionally filled with grief, and can appear to have little place for me:
God is home.
God is love.
Love is home.
*breathe*
God is home.
God is love.
Love is home.
*soften breath*
Could it be that home isn’t a place but the absolute presence of God that no matter “where” I am, God is with me, loving me, home?
You’re welcome to listen to the version of “Home” I fell asleep to below ;^).
[1] L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (United States: George M. Hill Company, 1900).
[2] “The Wizard of Oz,” film (United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, August 25, 1939).
[3] Charles Emanuel Smalls, Home, Album, The Wiz [Original Cast Recording] Original Cast (New York, NY: A&R Studios, 1975).
Quiet
“If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can.” ― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
In these quiet days between Christmas and the new year, I invite you into rest, stillness, and presence. This season calls us to pause, to lean into the rhythms of winter, and to listen to what our bodies and spirits need. Learning to slow down and respond to our needs is not always intuitive. It’s a skill that requires practice, patience, and intentionality.
Winter offers us a model of rest. Trees stand bare, conserving energy for the spring. Snakes burrow deep, retreating from the cold. Squirrels rest after months of preparation, having stored their provisions. The natural world shows us the importance of embracing the season we are in, honoring the rhythms of stillness and restoration.
What would it look like to take a moment of quiet today? Quiet doesn’t always mean silence. It can mean creating space for stillness within yourself, even when life around you feels busy or loud. It’s about pausing to ask: What do I need today?
You are a whole being with needs that stretch across many dimensions—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. What might nurture you in this season? Perhaps it’s a short walk in the crisp winter air, a cup of warm tea, a long soak in the bath, or simply sitting still for a moment to breathe deeply.
After reading this, I encourage you to take a moment of stillness. Close your eyes if you can, and listen. What is your body asking for? How can you tend to yourself today with kindness and care?
Breath prayer:
Inhale: I am still
Exhale: I am present