Seeking Renewal

Vernon Marsh on a Springtime Morning

As I sit by the Vernon marsh soaking up the morning sun, a soft haze covers the marsh as remnants of this morning's fog remain.

I hear all the familiar birds and waterfowl, and my spirit is calmed.

I come here for this.


We need to deliberately seek peace for the renewal of our spirit.

Our chaotic lives leave little time for the peace our spirit needs. We need to learn how to nourish ourselves in body and spirit.

Just as our bodies need calories and vitamins to thrive, so does our spirit need to be fed.

We must seek ways of spiritual nourishment in order to feed our spirit. This may be as simple as finding time to be still. It may seem difficult to find time for a spiritual practice, but without feeding our spirit, we are running on 'empty'.

Nourishing practices of prayer, meditation, and yoga allow our focus to turn inward, while freeing tension and stress from the body.

This, in turn, allows the spiritual 'body' to rejuvenate. Oftentimes, as we actively release tension from our bodies, we free our minds to seek higher thoughts.

In other words, we let go of the ways of the world and open our hearts and minds to the healing the spirit provides.

Sometimes this practice will result in a great revelation -- that "ah-HA!" moment. The nudging the spirit was trying to use to get our attention had been blocked by busyness and tension, and can now find its way into our conscious mind.

Burr Oak at Waterville Prairie

 
When we open our hearts and minds in a spiritual practice, we are free to receive messages our physical body has been trying to tell us, too.

And when we open ourselves to just 'being', we are free to receive messages from the Holy Spirit who whispers to our soul.

That still, small voice cannot be heard above the distractions of this world.


So, take time to be still. Quiet the mind, rest the body, and open your heart to seeking renewal.

This can be as simple as finding a quiet place, away from the demands of life and and our endless to-do lists.

Late Autumn Blooms at Retzer Nature Ctr.

I like to escape into nature, where I find peace and a purpose far beyond the busyness of our human lives. Here, the simple purpose is life, and living. And I celebrate that!

Wherever you go to seek quiet and peace, even if it's in your closet (trust me, there have been times when that's the only place I could find). Try to make seeking peace a practice. Here are some simple steps to guide you.

When you rest and meditate, pray that God's white light will surround you and protect you. Bask in the feeling of comfort and love. Breathe deeply, and gently, to connect with your inner self. Connect with your breath, consciously breathing out the stress.

Use this time to pray for healing, allowing yourself the honor of praying for yourself.

Pray for others who have great need, and in your earnestness, seek the comfort and counsel of the One who can guide us through the difficult and often tumultuous waters of this life.

Give thanks for the life and breath we breathe, for this moment of peace, and for the beauty in the world. It's there, if we take the time to look.

My first tulip!

A bird's song, an opening flower; the smile of a friend. New life all around us. Celebrate with joy, and you will be fulfilled, and ready to face whatever life brings your way.

Believing in Prayer

 

Photo Courtesy Best Light Photography

 Sunday Scripture

and a

Song

"God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the Good News about his Son."

Romans 1:9 NLT 

Has anyone ever said to you, "I'll pray for you"?

Those words bring comfort when you are going through troubling times. Knowing that someone would make time in their life to lift your spirit to the Lord in prayer is very heartwarming. 

And you can truly feel those prayers. I never would have believed it if I hadn't experienced it for myself. 

During a lengthy illness a few years ago, when indeed dozens of people were praying for me, I could actually feel a peace envelop me, a comfort, to carry me through those difficult times. It is rather indescribable, but I would say the feeling is like being "lifted up" and carried on the wings of prayer.

After a bad fall recently left me with pain and injuries, friends offered to pray. I did not solicit the prayers, but upon hearing of my circumstances, people told me they would pray for me.

Everyone who knows me knows that I love to sing; indeed, singing is like breathing for me! It is my praise and worship, and my joy in living. Last evening we had our spring concert with the community choir in which I sing. My injuries threatened to steal my enjoyment of the night.

But through the prayer and love of my friends, I received a blessing of grace, and I was able to enjoy my concert and the reception following with no pain whatsoever.

I can't explain it, except to believe in the power of prayer.

The change was so dramatic from how I had been feeling. And I know that there were some friends, old and some very new, who were lifting me in prayer.

Experiencing this has charged my prayer life. Though I pause frequently throughout the day to pray for others, when prayer requests are received, or when someone who has a need comes into my thoughts, I know I will be more diligent and earnest in my requests for God's presence in these people's lives.

I believe in the power of prayer.

And I pray in gratefulness for those who pray for me. You know who you are, and I love you. 

May we all be enriched by knowing our Savior in every aspect of our daily lives, believing in the power of prayer to change us and guide us on our life's journey. Amen.

Enjoy "The Prayer" by David Forster, with Lyrics by Carol Bayer Sager

Sung by Katherine Jenkins and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, 

with a brief intro by the composer  

Subscribers please click on Hope to find to watch this video on my site.

Mobile viewers may choose to view this video on YouTube. 

Morning at the Marsh

I can finally feel it.

 
Life, returning to the earth. The bitterest of winters has finally retreated, and spring is ushering in new life where there was nothing but a frozen world.





Plants, for many months dormant under the frozen ground, eagerly push up through the softening earth. We rejoice at the sight of anything green after months of nothing but white.

I honestly thought it might not happen. There was a time, several weeks ago and more than five months into the worst winter in thirty years, that part of me felt I would never see green again.

I want to capture the morning sounds of the marsh as I sit with my window open and write. My vista is the scenic overlook of the Vernon Marsh at the end of Frog Alley Road in Mukwonago. My home is somewhere across this wide expanse of nature-in-the-wild.

I come here, where the morning sun warms my face, and listen for the sounds of life returning to this place. It has been a frozen world for so long. It makes me feel peaceful to hear life returning to this place.

Now I can hear the songs of many songbirds that have returned, including the red-winged blackbirds calling to each other. If I close my eyes, I can imagine steamy, hot summer afternoons in the marsh, with tall cattails towering over me, and turtles hiding in the cool water or resting on a log warming themselves.

As I sit here with my coffee, I can hear the sand hill cranes call out sleepily from some hidden place below me in the marsh.

I hear the robins, who have begun their earnest song: 

"It's Spring! 

It's Spring!

It's Spring!"

 

 
After a difficult day recently, I came here early to spend time with God. I wanted to spend time in prayerful thankfulness for His constant presence through the trials of the previous day.

I found such healing beauty here in the morning songs of the birds, the caress of the sun, and the soft vistas of morning light, that I vowed to come back here frequently to start my day.

I've always felt closest to God through nature. And though I've never felt far from God through this seemingly endless winter, my heart has longed to feel life and hope through my connection to the living, natural world.

I always do my happy dance, at least in my heart, when I can finally feel the earth's life energy return; when I can feel the earth coming back to life as I walk through my back yard with bare feet in the cool grass.

Winter in the woods at Retzer Nature Center

Though life is present in winter, I liken it to molecules frozen in ice -- they move so slowly as to seem non-existent. This is how most of the natural world feels when we are in the deep freeze of a long Wisconsin winter. 


But now I can feel that the earth, at least here is our part of Wisconsin, is once again a living, breathing entity, full of life, offering the promise of the next two seasons of great beauty in the flowering and green plants that thrive in our seasonal warmth.

We all feel it. Everyone seems to have more energy, and people smile more readily. Perhaps this is a partial explanation as to why we live here, and why we endure the long months of bitter cold and snow.

Perhaps we wait for the reward of new life; that feeling of renewal, that grabs us and turns us to face the sun and its warmth. To know the inexplicable joy that finding that first blooming crocus brings, and to see the tulip leaves pushing up through the earth with their promise of springtime beauty.

Now I'm not saying that I wouldn't like to try living on Maui, where flowers and natural beauty bloom year-round. I'm certainly not saying that at all!


But our reward for enduring months of cold, bitter winds, is the promise and hope of new life that springtime brings. We feel this deep in our being, and wait with hope for the change in the seasons that will bring life back into our natural world. 

Truly, this renewal feeds me to the core of who I am. My creativity is flowing again, right along with the sap in the maple trees. It won't be long until summer is in full bloom. But for now, let us cherish the simple joys of springtime. And offer thanks for the many little surprises of new life that blossom around and within us. 



Here are the early morning sounds of the marsh I captured on video to share with you. Enjoy!

We are Free to Love

 Sunday Scripture

and a

Song

"Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.
   
 Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it. For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining."
1 John 2:7-8 NLT 


 A beautiful reminder of the freedom we have in Christ, sung by Aaron Shust
"We are Free"

Subscribers, please click on Hope to find to view this video on my blog site.
Mobile viewers can click on Hope to find, or visit Youtube by clicking here.

Signs of Life

My red maple coming back to life

 

It seems easier to breathe when I've left the darkness of the tomb behind. Our Easter celebration brings me great joy, sharing a feast with family and friends. 

Knowing we are celebrating the very fact that makes us Christians; the belief that Jesus died for us and rose again as a promise of our eternal life with Him, fills me with peace and a deeply felt joy.

However, I experienced a real let-down after the holiday. There was lots of food preparation to do and music to prepare for worship. A LOT to do.

I found myself feeling a little like Christmas, when we can put too much into the "doing" and not enough into the real meaning of the day. And perhaps, that's why I felt the "post-Easter" blues. 

In addition, everyone went home. While five of us in the house is hardly empty, with everyone home the house is so full of life, and I love it. It reminds me of when all the boys were growing up, and we always had a houseful, whether it was just our family or the always-welcome friends of our sons who came and ate many a meal here. 

So, to distract my brain from my sadness, I started to write. Not everyone's cure, I'm sure. But what has been birthed is my new blog, Colleen's Gardens. I've been wanting to start a gardening blog for quite some time, to share my horticultural knowledge and experience, and deep love of all things green and flowering. 

So now you can read my words in two places, but this blog will still focus on my faith. And the hope of springtime, for me, is what faith is all about. 

I spent a morning recently, on the overlook by the Vernon Marsh. I'll write about my experience there tomorrow. Taking this time out to just "be" in the early morning hours renewed my sense of who I am in this grand scheme of life.

I'm excited to note the changes in my landscape with the warmer days and sunshine. Next week will be cold again, with rain, but for now the sun is shining and the skies are blue. Enjoy the beauty of the world awakening around us. It is truly a gift to feel life stir within our hearts and lives again. 

Blessings to you, my friends.