Do you ever feel stuck? I was recently struck by how stuck I am, this overwhelming sense of not living in the joy and resurrection power of the Lord Jesus. I was actually listening to an audiobook, about the fictional and unflappable Mrs. Pollifax. In the first of this novel series, the widowed, aging Mrs. Pollifax, questions her worth and what she is doing with her life. Her solution is to go and do something she has always been interested in. Join the CIA! 😂 I was struck to the quick about my wallowing, woe-is-me attitudes. Where is the resurrection power being lived out in me? Why am I hiding? Why am I cowering? Worrying? Trying to control my circumstances?

His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3, CSB

These verses in 2 Peter and Wendell Berry’s poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, challenges me to live fully and wholly. To live like there is something beyond myself and my woes. 🪴🪴🪴

So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love somebody who does not deserve it.

-Wendell Berry 🌿

I don’t want to be worry-driven, short-fused, and impatient. I want to ‘dwell in possibility’, living simply, patiently with others, myself, and the Lord. I want to rest in my daily ‘round and find my delight again in listening, learning, deeply loving. No need for fretting, guilty-thought trains, or shoulda-woulda-coulda junk. Pay attention. Walk and work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Live with an ‘expectant attention’ (mishmash from Charlotte Mason, Amy Carmichael, and Scripture) and practice living resurrection.

A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

John 10:10 CSB 🌷

Ask questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

~Wendell Berry ☕️

Laughter is immeasurable.Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

~Wendell Berry 🪺

I’m determined in my heart 💜 to choose again (and again and again) Jesus’ joy and resurrection power. Just making conscious choices that I know help me pay attention and relax into the Lord. Prioritizing my quiet time. Going outside. Holding online things very lightly, getting dressed in comfortable clothing I love, doing a little summer mom learning project with a IRL friend, taking good care of myself and my family, finishing little projects I love, and doing small, short trips. Not giving into overconsumption in any area of my life – frantic reading, buying random stuff, food, media, but a soaking in the Life-Giving Abundance of Jesus!

You reveal the path of life to me;
in your presence is abundant joy;
at your right hand are eternal pleasures.

Psalm 16:11 CSB

•heart, resurrect•

not hard, just

a deep death, rise again

chip corroded life-rust

if not now, when?

broken, now bloody birth

owner determines worth

who’s are you?

name, not what you do

down you lie

heart, flat you die

rise soul, into air

barn-swallowed by His care

A.M. Pine 🌲♥️