Creating place, finding spaces

So far this year,  I've been in my house for two and a half months and I leave again in mid- October.  I hope to return in February for some real winter, maybe even skiing.  I'm regularly asked, "So why do you even have a house here?"  Besides the snarky answer of "It's where I stash my stuff," it is also my home.  But home ownership also means maintenance of log structures and dealing with cluster flies, destructive woodpeckers, and pesky deer, and a pasture with invasive weeds and broken fences.  My sister and I got the bathroom "refreshing" almost finished (she does all the painting around here; I hang the art),  All the old yellow light bulbs have been replaced by white LEDs- a huge difference in a log interior. Plus the normal weeding, cleaning and fussing.  All the tasks that make a house a home.  I recognize as much as I love my home and it's become a sanctuary for others, it's also a chore list for me.  And I'm fine with that part of home ownership- especially if stretched over time.

But today I went to St. Martin's Monastery in Rapid City and as we sat in companionable silence, I realized this small Benedictine home for a few dozen nuns has become my sanctuary, my grounding space. I have no responsibilities other than showing up and enjoying my friends. We affirm one another and each express our love and appreciation for the beloved ninety-four year old nun who leads us.  We each start to stand she struggles and  glance at each other when she waves off our help. We speak slowly and loudly after her hearing aid falls and the batteries are lost.  The love flowing toward her and from her fills the small space.
http://www.blackhillsbenedictine.com/
https://goo.gl/images/VQ9GOK

The plan was for a full day workshop on centering prayer but our time is amended due to low attendance and her frailty.  After our time together,  I head up the hill behind the adjoining retreat center and walk the labyrinth.  My friend, Sandy, built it and I hadn't seen her since my return.  She'll end her summer in Yellowstone just before I leave for Ohio.  But this space she has created links us. And here's Sandy walking the prayer space.

http://rapidcityjournal.com/lifestyles/labyrinths-guide-worshipers-to-god/article_773cd125-ecfc-5ad5-82f8-eb911ff47b07.html
https://goo.gl/images/VQ9GOK

Today I walk barefoot in the soft grass and wonder about the rocks that line my path. Where did they come from? What did it take to create them-heat, time, weathering?  Now they form the boundaries of a space for slowing down, breathing slow, creating space for thought—space for the sacred.

In my home, I've created a place for myself and for others. One of the nicest things anyone has ever said was, "I feel safe here. This is my safe space."  What a blessing to have those words spoken out loud. We sometimes hesitate to say what is touching our hearts, it's too much of a risk.  Well, this labyrinth is worth my words.  For me, the space Sandy created is life giving and soul expanding. 

 Safe and stretching. 

What are your soul stretching spaces?  Where are your safe, relax and be-at-peace places?  Have you created them for yourself and others?  Are others creating for you?

Community is the junction of communication within a particular space;

 meaningful, loving words in a secure place.  

These sacred expanses, no matter the size, feed our souls and fill us,

expanding us to go out 

and be who we are called to be. 

Stay and create...

and go and find.

Both will bring you life. 

A decade and a life

It's been a decade, ten years, yesterday and a lifetime ago....my children lost their father, I lost my spouse/life partner/ husband; I became a widow.

I can say the word without flinching; the memories are comforting, not painful; and I'm grateful beyond words I wasn't born into a culture that expected widows to throw themselves on the flames of a husband's funeral pyre and go up in smoke.

I'm in Seattle this week and I've seen my youngest for some sweet bits and snatches of time- he and I survived his tumultuous teen years which were, in several ways, defined by death and loss.  He's becoming a fine young man and looking with logic and wisdom at his future.

He rides a motorcycle around Seattle and I'm not afraid.


His oldest brother finished his terminal degree and got a real job in real academia- against some odds. Not an easy career market. He and his brilliant wife are blessed with children and a warm, inviting home and I chose to see their blessings as the fruit of their choices early in their marriage. Instead of returning directly to grad school, they came home to nurse Bill and hold me up during the last three months of his life and the three months after.

I see God's hand providing for them and I'm thankful.


Another son is finishing up seminary and I was blessed to hear him preach this summer. He's good but the pulpit isn't his goal.  He has goals of collaboration and supporting pastors to transform the church's view of work. He's a good writer and uses words well.

He's using his quick mind to be a part of a cultural change and I'm proud of him.


My one baby girl is no longer a baby. She saw her beloved at the end of the church aisle and gained the courage to overcome her unbidden tears and her heart ache for her dad on her wedding day.  She's been marching forward ever since, loving her life as a military wife and a mother.  Bill would have loved our grandchildren and my heart ached the first time I held a new babe with our DNA.

I see her and her husband doing the hard work of loving well and I'm confident of their future.



I didn't know any of these things a decade ago, let alone forty years ago. I have no pictures of us on this computer- a photo project for the next decade. But this one photo made its way over to Mac world from the old PC. I love that this picture doesn't even hint at the years to come.

It was the era of ginormous glasses and polyester double knit plaid jackets- trust me, it looks way better in black and white.  He was being commissioned into the USMC (with uniforms to follow), we had been married almost six months and life was a piece of cake.

It has been cake- complete with life expectations being shredded- like the carrots in a favorite spice cake, and the shells of hard times to crack your teeth or your protective hard layer. There was a thick coating of sticky stuff we had to cut through to get to the essence of marriage and life.  We had surprises, sorrows and unmet expectations.  And in the end, there was death.

And I do it all over again.

These past ten years have stretched me and changed me more than almost any other.  But perhaps all those previous one—the decades of young marriage, and then parenting, of hormones and struggles, of lean times and hard won abundance,  all prepared him for heaven and me for my current life.

I'm missing you today, Bill Cleveland.

But I'm not afraid....of the future. I'm choosing to be thankful...for the blessings of the present.  

I'm proud... of the hard work the children and I have done. 

I'm confident...that he who began a good work in us with see it to completion. 

In a blink of an eye,
Love, me

A decade and a life

It's been a decade, ten years, yesterday and a lifetime ago....my children lost their father, I lost my spouse/life partner/ husband; I became a widow.

I can say the word without flinching; the memories are comforting, not painful; and I'm grateful beyond words I wasn't born into a culture that expected widows to throw themselves on the flames of a husband's funeral pyre and go up in smoke.

I'm in Seattle this week and I've seen my youngest for some sweet bits and snatches of time- he and I survived his tumultuous teen years which were, in several ways, defined by death and loss.  He's becoming a fine young man and looking with logic and wisdom at his future.

He rides a motorcycle around Seattle and I'm not afraid.


His oldest brother finished his terminal degree and got a real job in real academia- against some odds. Not an easy career market. He and his brilliant wife are blessed with children and a warm, inviting home and I chose to see their blessings as the fruit of their choices early in their marriage. Instead of returning directly to grad school, they came home to nurse Bill and hold me up during the last three months of his life and the three months after.

I see God's hand providing for them and I'm thankful.


Another son is finishing up seminary and I was blessed to hear him preach this summer. He's good but the pulpit isn't his goal.  He has goals of collaboration and supporting pastors to transform the church's view of work. He's a good writer and uses words well.

He's using his quick mind to be a part of a cultural change and I'm proud of him.


My one baby girl is no longer a baby. She saw her beloved at the end of the church aisle and gained the courage to overcome her unbidden tears and her heart ache for her dad on her wedding day.  She's been marching forward ever since, loving her life as a military wife and a mother.  Bill would have loved our grandchildren and my heart ached the first time I held a new babe with our DNA.

I see her and her husband doing the hard work of loving well and I'm confident of their future.



I didn't know any of these things a decade ago, let alone forty years ago. I have no pictures of us on this computer- a photo project for the next decade. But this one photo made its way over to Mac world from the old PC. I love that this picture doesn't even hint at the years to come.

It was the era of ginormous glasses and polyester double knit plaid jackets- trust me, it looks way better in black and white.  He was being commissioned into the USMC (with uniforms to follow), we had been married almost six months and life was a piece of cake.

It has been cake- complete with life expectations being shredded- like the carrots in a favorite spice cake, and the shells of hard times to crack your teeth or your protective hard layer. There was a thick coating of sticky stuff we had to cut through to get to the essence of marriage and life.  We had surprises, sorrows and unmet expectations.  And in the end, there was death.

And I do it all over again.

These past ten years have stretched me and changed me more than almost any other.  But perhaps all those previous one—the decades of young marriage, and then parenting, of hormones and struggles, of lean times and hard won abundance,  all prepared him for heaven and me for my current life.

I'm missing you today, Bill Cleveland.

But I'm not afraid....of the future. I'm choosing to be thankful...for the blessings of the present.  

I'm proud... of the hard work the children and I have done. 

I'm confident...that he who began a good work in us with see it to completion. 

In a blink of an eye,
Love, me

A decade and a life

It's been a decade, ten years, yesterday and a lifetime ago....my children lost their father, I lost my spouse/life partner/ husband; I became a widow.

I can say the word without flinching; the memories are comforting, not painful; and I'm grateful beyond words I wasn't born into a culture that expected widows to throw themselves on the flames of a husband's funeral pyre and go up in smoke.

I'm in Seattle this week and I've seen my youngest for some sweet bits and snatches of time- he and I survived his tumultuous teen years which were, in several ways, defined by death and loss.  He's becoming a fine young man and looking with logic and wisdom at his future.

He rides a motorcycle around Seattle and I'm not afraid.


His oldest brother finished his terminal degree and got a real job in real academia- against some odds. Not an easy career market. He and his brilliant wife are blessed with children and a warm, inviting home and I chose to see their blessings as the fruit of their choices early in their marriage. Instead of returning directly to grad school, they came home to nurse Bill and hold me up during the last three months of his life and the three months after.

I see God's hand providing for them and I'm thankful.


Another son is finishing up seminary and I was blessed to hear him preach this summer. He's good but the pulpit isn't his goal.  He has goals of collaboration and supporting pastors to transform the church's view of work. He's a good writer and uses words well.

He's using his quick mind to be a part of a cultural change and I'm proud of him.


My one baby girl is no longer a baby. She saw her beloved at the end of the church aisle and gained the courage to overcome her unbidden tears and her heart ache for her dad on her wedding day.  She's been marching forward ever since, loving her life as a military wife and a mother.  Bill would have loved our grandchildren and my heart ached the first time I held a new babe with our DNA.

I see her and her husband doing the hard work of loving well and I'm confident of their future.



I didn't know any of these things a decade ago, let alone forty years ago. I have no pictures of us on this computer- a photo project for the next decade. But this one photo made its way over to Mac world from the old PC. I love that this picture doesn't even hint at the years to come.

It was the era of ginormous glasses and polyester double knit plaid jackets- trust me, it looks way better in black and white.  He was being commissioned into the USMC (with uniforms to follow), we had been married almost six months and life was a piece of cake.

It has been cake- complete with life expectations being shredded- like the carrots in a favorite spice cake, and the shells of hard times to crack your teeth or your protective hard layer. There was a thick coating of sticky stuff we had to cut through to get to the essence of marriage and life.  We had surprises, sorrows and unmet expectations.  And in the end, there was death.

And I do it all over again.

These past ten years have stretched me and changed me more than almost any other.  But perhaps all those previous one—the decades of young marriage, and then parenting, of hormones and struggles, of lean times and hard won abundance,  all prepared him for heaven and me for my current life.

I'm missing you today, Bill Cleveland.

But I'm not afraid....of the future. I'm choosing to be thankful...for the blessings of the present.  

I'm proud... of the hard work the children and I have done. 

I'm confident...that he who began a good work in us with see it to completion. 

In a blink of an eye,
Love, me