The God of glory will secure your passage...I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places--firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling stream that will never run dry. You will use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past.~From Isaiah 8: 8,10,11 (The Message Bible)

The other day a James Taylor song came up on my feed as I scrolled. I have loved his songs since adolescence. The first line of the lyrics goes: "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time." I'd recently talked to one of my sisters, and she described her life as "a collection of seasons." The song and her words made me think of the last decade of my life, ten years here at this site. I'm on the cusp of an updated website that I'll debut in early 2026. While the blog posts I've written can be transferred to the new site, the comments so many of you have written, cannot be. I've been printing the posts and reading back through what I've written and how you've responded. Thank you. Your words and faith and love and grace have often gotten me through a rough patch, a hard month, self-doubt. Kept me from giving up. 

At times, step away from your instrument to hear clearly.~Stephan Moccio

Recently, I conducted a teaching at my writing group. Here is my outline that I thought may be helpful to you as you move forward in your creative pursuits...

Over these last weeks, I've been intrigued by the concept of sounds that we convey in our writing. First a reading from The Sacred Journey, A Memoir of Early Days by Frederick Buechner. 

I wrote these words at home on a hot, hazy summer day. On the wall behind me, an old banjo clock was tick-tocking the time away. Outside I could hear the twitter of swallows as they swooped in and out of the eaves of the barn. Every once in a while, in the distance, a rooster crowed, though it was well past sunup. Several rooms away, in another part of the house, two men were doing some carpentry. I could not make out what they were saying, but I was aware of the low rumble of their voices, the muffled sounds of their hammers, and the uneven lengths of silence in between. It was getting on toward noon, and from time to time my stomach growled as it went about its own obscure business which I neither understand nor want to. They were all of them random sounds, without any apparent purpose or meaning, and yet as I paused to listen to them, I found myself hearing them with something more than just my ears to the point where they became in some way enormously meaningful. The swallows, the rooster, the workmen, my stomach, all with their elusive rhythms, their harmonies and disharmonies and counter point, became, as I listened, the sound of my own life speaking to me. Never had I heard just such a coming together of sounds before, and it is unlikely that I will ever hear them in just the same combination again.Their music was unique and unrepeatable and beyond describing in its freshness...And yet as I listened to those sounds, and listened with something more than just my hearing, I was moved by their inexpressible eloquence and suggestiveness, by the sense I had that they were a music rising up out of the mystery of not just my life, but of life itself. In much the same way, that is what I mean by saying that God speaks into or out of the thick of our days.

Here are a few questions I'm curious to ask you.

I've always loved the month of October. Today, the weather is cooler, the hurricanes blown out to sea.~Journal Entry, October 1, 2025

Sometimes we take risks to say what nobody really wants to talk about. I watched this 21-minute video on YouTube where the late Eugene Peterson (Author of The Message Bible) speaks with Bono (of U2) about their connection with the Psalms, the joy and pain of life, and how the Bible speaks to both dynamics. Each of them challenge Christian artists to speak of both the truth of light and dark in their work. If you have the bandwidth to watch this clip, you will be touched and inspired, even if only to see the vibrant joy in Eugene Peterson's smile. The video moved me to write about the beauty and merciful truth that Jesus holds both our pain and our joy.  Interview With Eugene Peterson and Bono 

I think of these last weeks. A train of anxiety, a high-pitched whistling clattering through my life. My body reacting in ways I hadn't expected, having held trauma for too long. The syncopation of my heartbeat too rapid, not to be ignored. My mind frozen in tracks of panic. I needed help, my hands over my ears to stifle the trumpeting train, too close, too loud.

God's mercy ever tangible, He led me to a counselor who is conducting a new therapy with me called ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy). With the direction of the Holy Spirit, in conjunction with the skills of the therapist, I am moving forward, the anxiety now more like the sound of a distant train.

Jesus says, "My yoke is easy;" the word "easy" comes from the Greek chrestos, meaning "well-fitting." In Jesus' day a carpenter would carefully craft a bespoke wooden yoke for each ox--it served as a harness for animals used in farming. Each individual yoke was made to fit comfortably. ~ From Lectio 365, September 24, 2025

I'd never thought of the yoke that Jesus talks about in Matthew 11:28-30 as being custom-made. I'd always had a more negative association with the word yoke, doubting the reality of "easy."  However, the concept of "bespoke" brought a different insight. I've  wished I could have "bespoke" clothing tailored for me. My legs and arms are short. Often, cuffs hang down to the middle of my hands. Pants pool in layers of material below my toes (although my granddaughter says that this pooling at the feet is now quite fasionable). 

Isn't it just like the Lord to make a custom yoke for us, especially as we face life's uncertainties, the battles of our age waging against light and darkness? 

Above all, never question the truth beyond all understanding and surpassing all other wonders that in the long run nothing, not even the world, not even ourselves, can separate us forever from that last and deepest love that glimmers in our dusk like a pearl, like a face.~Frederick Buechner (From The Sacred Journey)

Today is the twenty-fourth remembrance of 9/11--that traumatic day in 2001 when the Twin Towers were attacked by terrorists in New York City. When we watched in disbelief as the structures crumpled. It felt like a movie, but it was our reality. That day, I heard the news just as I was leaving a doctor's appointment with the good report and relief that a lump in my breast had dissolved and I did not have cancer. The day before, September 10, 2001, my husband had been in New York City near the vicinity of the towers. Only a day later he might have been killed. Mercy and horror. What do we make of this counterintuitive brew?

Then just yesterday Charlie Kirk,31, Turning Point USA co-founder, was assassinated during a rally held at Utah Valley University. I'd watched him on YouTube several times fielding questions from college students as he traveled around to different campuses in the United States. He invited people who opposed his views to sound their voices. His communication style was direct and respectful. He spoke not only of his political views, but also of his deeply held faith in Jesus Christ. He was married and had two small children, both under four. A little boy and a little girl. He said what he most wanted to be known for at his death was his faith.