Good morning, friends, and much gentleness and love to each of you this morning…

I’ve always thought of myself as an autumn person, but in recent years, spring has become a favorite. Maybe it’s because I’ve needed, in a very tangible way, reminders of new life, possibility, growth, and change. There’s a sense of fresh energy, and with the sounds of birds, the sight of buds, the fragrance of flowers, we physically experience the earth enlivening around us.

With all this new life and movement, spring is a natural time to think about what I want to change in myself and in my life — more-so than in the cold and quiet slumbers of January. It could also be because this is my birthday month, and that’s always a reflective time.

I believe we all long for change in some respect. I shared quite a bit from John O’Donohue a couple posts ago, and he has wise words in naming this. “To change,” he writes, “is one of the great dreams of every heart — to change the limitations, the sameness, the banality, or the pain.”*

We want to step out of patterns no longer serving us. To become and be who we long to be. Who we know we really are, deep within.

Then why does it often feel so difficult to change?

I had a complete aha! moment about this while listening to Chen Li on his Life Wisdom podcast episode called “Effortless Discipline” (we wonder if those two words can go together, don’t we?).**

Li profoundly reflects on how we struggle to change because of the customary way we approach it. When we make “resolutions,” or sometimes even intentions, we often view change like a battle we must win. We feel we must fight, use force, and “conquer” the old pattern or behavior. There is a clear line between succeeding and failing. But the thing is, this battle is against ourselves. We become exhausted, and eventually abandon the efforts to change not out of weakness, but basic self-preservation.

“Our resolutions,” Li says, “become weapons turned against our own being, instruments of guilt and judgment rather than pathways of transformation.” In essence, this way toward change is founded in violence. Sadly, it’s the metaphor we are culturally very accustomed to, not only in this realm.

What Li offers instead — here is my great aha! — is to approach change like a river.

We know water to be incredibly flexible, adaptable, and strong, yet its power comes from gentleness and unrelenting patience. A river flows gently, but persistently. Think of the Grand Canyon. It was not created from an explosion, but rather, the soft, patient coursing of water over millions of years.

This is such a different framework than that of the battle — one rooted in violence, and at some level, self-hatred. True and lasting change can’t be born here. It must come from love and respect. In fact, I’ve always thought change came down to self-control. It is a Fruit of the Spirit after all!*** But it was in listening to Li’s words that I realized change happens not through self-control, but out of self-care.

We make different choices because we love ourselves and trust we are sanctuaries of the Spirit, not because we are disgusted with ourselves.

To approach change like a river is to believe small (seemingly effortless!) acts we return to again and again (not perfectly!) will bring us the direction we want to go. And herein lies one of the big keys. It’s been engrained in us along the way that change has to be painful or hard or sacrificial in order for it to be effective. Speaking for myself, I’ve often been skeptical of what seems easy.

But if we imagine ourselves like the river, we will choose the smallest steps that are oriented more by direction than destination. We might ask ourselves, what is a baby step I can take, and repeat, over time? And then to think of these choices not as rules for yourself, but as rituals. Rules can be broken. Rituals are anchors. You return to them again and again, because change happens not through perfection, but through a persistent and gentle return to alignment.

It might be taking three deep breaths before a meal to remember all who brought it to you, rather than demanding you have a 30 minute meditation practice. Or drinking a large glass of water in the morning before your coffee. Or choosing at least one food each time you sit down to eat that feels truly nourishing, rather than holding expectations about dramatic ways your body should change.

Obstacles are a part of it and to be expected. So are reversions to old patterns and behavior. But here is another way the river teaches us. When a river encounters rocks or a dam or something blocking it, it patiently builds, then finds a way to flow around the rock. It adapts, and finds a path forward, always eventually flowing where it needs to go. And the water doesn’t judge itself when it comes against a rock that stops it. Or the fact that there is another rock when it just went around a rock before.

There will be many, many rocks. But that also creates part of the beauty.

I think this is why I’ve sometimes wrestled with these dramatic conversion stories in the Gospels where there seems to be such a clear before and after. Was it really that clean? Did people immediately follow Jesus and never look back? Maybe it’s also why I’ve always found a lot of kinship with Simon Peter — a two steps forward, one step back kind of guy. He really lived in the messiness of what a transformative journey actually looks like. And even when he screwed up at a time when it mattered most, Jesus showed him the way forward.

As I’ve continued to reflect on this whole new and liberating framework about change Li provides, I realized drinking water during the day can even be a ritual and helper for us in this. That each time we pause to drink from our water bottle or sip a cup, we can remember two things — 

That we, like the river, can gently change and create change.

and

That we drink from the Living Water, the Life Source for that change. (John 7:37-39)

I keep this piece of iron art that used to belong to my grandfather hung in our home office — the verse from Zechariah 4:6 — “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord…”

The Spirit is life, breath, power, and living water to you, friends. I invite you to think about the small steps you can take, and repeat over time, which will be anchoring rituals for you in helping you live as you truly want to live. And to embody spring’s energy, which is fresh and new, but also slow and gentle.

As you take your steps, encounter obstacles, and find your path forward, remember that you flow like the river, and this kind of flowing energy is one that never runs out. As Li says, “brute force exhausts itself. Persevering gentleness renews, and is a more refined, more enduring, more effective form of strength.”

Be the river, and flow…

***

*"To Bless the Space Between Us,” by John O’Donohue, p. 48

** “Effortless Discipline” episode by Chen Li from the “Life Wisdom” podcast on January 25, 2026. Listen here.

***Galatians 5:22-23 shares the Fruit of the Spirit

A Prayer

This prayer from my book, Ash and Starlight, is one that speaks to the journey of transformation, and that it is a winding one. May it bring you hope and encouragement as you live into the freedom that belongs to you, because of Jesus.

When I’m breaking free

Spirit of grace and grit,

You are the Giver of freedom.

I’ve been asking for it.

For years.

For that strength, courage,

and discipline to break free.

But, I’m now realizing

that while freedom

sometimes comes in

one, glorious breakthrough

where I burst through the

bramble into a fresh clearing,

never to turn back or tread the old path,

ready to leave the darkness

of the forest behind me…

Well, that’s just not been my experience.

More often, freedom comes

through a muddy trail run where I’m

weaving and winding,

not always moving forward,

but continually progressing.

The dirt sticking to the crevices of my shoes,

the roots I knead with the soles of my feet,

the pine needles collecting in my hair,

teach me what I so wanted to leave behind

actually becomes my story.

And, how, with you,

there are no dead ends or pointless loops.

They are part of the journey…the story….

And, I need them.

When I can take in

what dim light I find

within the trees and

keep making each step

on the uneven trail,

I learn to trust.

To trust I am not lost,

but burrowed in a womb

of life-giving mystery.

And, you say,

“You are already free.

Now live into that truth.”

Amen.

Psalm 118:5 * John 8:32 * 2 Corinthians 3:17

“[Jesus said,]… ‘[Y]ou will know the truth, and the truth will

make you free.’” —John 8:32

Something that nourished me recently…

*It was a beautiful Easter Sunday last week. We are “Easter people in a Good Friday world,” friends, as Anne Lamott reminds us. This is what our faith is all about, and what I cling to, especially in these times. Thanks be to God.

*We traveled over spring break to visit family in Chattanooga and Atlanta and got out for some hiking. Being in this landscape with loved ones was manna for the soul.

*I know I’ve shared quotes from Insight Timer before, but this one last week was just perfect for our theme today. Thank you, Sharon Salzburg.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ My Etsy shop will be turning a year old later this week!! I’ll be sending paid Monday Manna subscribers a discount to use on prints in the store at some point, so stay tuned for that. I’m working to prep some things to launch this spring! In the meantime, I have cards, prints, clothes, blankets, and pillows all for sale in my Etsy shop which you can view here . I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

One more good word from Chen Li, friends, as we flow into this week… “Perhaps one day, looking back at the path we have travelled, we will discover that we have changed, not in spite of our gentleness, but because of it.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and peace and love to you in this new week ~

I’ve been in the midst of some more travel and spring break with our kids, and so today is going to be another “A&P” day, which I’m naming them — “Art and Prayer” (which are the same thing in many ways…). Here’s a briefer post to give you a little nourishment, with more to come next week.

Spring is coming, even if slowly….we just gathered our first daffodils from the yard upon returning home a couple days ago. As we live into spring’s unfolding, let’s claim the power of blooming and newness and hope. Here is my prayer for that from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life.

For Springtime

Loving, Creator God,

Spring reminds me it’s

never too late to start over.

That there’s been quiet growth

over these long months

of winter when I saw nothing.

When I was called to believe

there was growth happening

beneath hard, cold soil.

And now? Glory!

I celebrate the loveliness

of all you’ve made.

The newness, Lord,

the freshness—

it inspires my soul!

Tulips in the front yard,

buds on the trees,

the voices of birds,

the cleansing of rain,

the comfort of sunshine…

Each gift renews me,

speaking of the promise within

all those months of dormancy

and preparation.

As spring awakens my physical senses,

I ask, God, for you to awaken my inner senses.

May my mind open and blossom

to the longings you’ve placed within me...

to the steps and path that will

satisfy the desires of my heart...

to the hopes and passions

you’ve planted in every

one of your children…

May I seek what will truly fulfill them.

May I journey toward their Source.

May I be guided by your gentle and wise Spirit.

It is never too late to be

what you call me to be.

Even as it takes greatest courage

and deepest humility.

With your help, I will open myself to

what I never expected before,

never experienced before,

and never thought possible.

Amen.

Psalm 16:11 * Psalm 104:24–30 * Isaiah 55:8–9

“You show me the path of life.

In your presence there is fullness of joy…”

—Psalm 16:11a

***

Bloom this week, friends. And as always, feel my hug.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Thank you so much, my friend, for subscribing to Monday Manna. I’m so glad and humbled you are here. My prayer with this little pause on Monday mornings is to offer some nourishment (“manna”) for you — via my reflection, prayer, and painting — as you are nourishing the world around you. Together, we are watching for the ways God is with us and for us as we take one day at a time…

Good morning, my friends, and blessings to you in this Holy week…

Thank you all so very, very much for your prayers and support in these last couple of weeks. I had to take a short pause from Monday Manna while my brother and I were moving my mom with Alzheimer’s across states from a Memory Care in South Dakota to a different place near my brother in Minnesota. It was an epic adventure…beyond what any of could have anticipated.

On Sunday, the night before my mom’s move and our planned drive, major snow and ice storms swept through the plains, resulting in complete closures of all highways and interstates on our route. My heroic brother found an alternate route for us to take, heading toward North Dakota instead, and after a lot of prayer and deliberating, we decided to go for it. We scrapped the U-haul we’d planned to bring — too dangerous with the road conditions—and fit everything we could in the back of my brother’s van.

“This is such a clown car,” he said, as we shoved the last boxes in the back and shut the trunk with hopes it would seal. My mom sat up front alongside my brother and I tucked myself in next to suitcases, a handful of bluestem we’d picked on the last visit to my mom’s childhood farm, puffy winter coats, and a lampshade.

By God’s complete grace and a miracle, we made it to Duluth, carried every mile of the way by the tangible prayers of many (alongside a lot of 1970s music and bars of chocolate).

There is so much I want to say and share from this experience — and I trust I will in due time — but for today, I want to reflect on the power and calling of thresholds.

Our lives are filled with thresholds — these moments of potent change, when we are invited to cross into something new. Some thresholds are chosen, but there many thrust upon us, sometimes very unwelcome — a diagnosis, a loss, a sudden change in plans. Life can completely and irreversibly change in a singular moment.

I was thinking a lot about thresholds as we approached this momentous change with my mom. The day before the move, we held a small gathering in her memory care wing with family and staff.

I began by talking about one of my parents’ favorite Scripture passages from Ecclesiastes 3. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven,” I said. “Later on, the passage promises, ‘God has made everything beautiful in its time.’* We are welcomed into this time of remembering and reflecting on one season as we also bless and prepare for a new one.”

My voice disappeared as tears filled my eyes. In the pause, my mom, with a perplexed expression on her face said, “Well, I’m not going to the grave!!!” A miraculous moment of levity and laughter, lifting all of us as we held the hope of what’s to come and the sadness of goodbyes in tandem.

My brother then read this beloved passage on thresholds from Irish poet John O’Donohue in his book, To Bless the Space Between Us. He says,

At any time, you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? What am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it?…A threshold is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At a threshold, a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise…to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross…”**

In the center of the room was a small table holding a tray of stones, each of them with the word “grateful.” There is ancient belief that stones are living things, and I found it meaningful to choose them as a way to embody the way love is alive, not bound by time or distance. We’d gathered to mark the crossing of this threshold, with each person in the circle sharing one word they thought of when they think of my mom. After sharing, they gave my mom a hug, and picked up their stone.

The stories and words shared varied, creating such a rich tapestry displaying the beautiful spirit of my mom. The all-accepting way she made anyone and everyone feel included. The answer to prayer she was for another resident who was her best friend in memory care (a mutual answer to prayer, to be sure). The way she’d used her law degree to serve and help the board of a residential re-entry home helping those recently released from prison.

She is not going to the grave (as she made very clear!), and yet it was a kind of “living eulogy” time in which people who loved her could bless the crossing. It reminded me that when we must summon the courage to cross a threshold, God never leaves us to do it alone. We always have companions who will hold our hands as we do.

Like the season of spring, which is just coming to life around us, these threshold moments can also be silently and secretly fermenting below the surface. This was our family’s experience for a long while before we realized this move needed to happen. Like O’Donohue said, we have to be listening, because in time, we will know…the time has come to cross.

And as we also learned through this experience, sometimes the crossing takes place in a way much different than you ever imagined it would. After we’d made the harrowing drive, I told my brother I found it both profound and symbolic we had to devise a completely new and uncharted route to get my mom to her new home. "Well, that’s one way to put a spin on it!” he said.

Perhaps you are in the midst of crossing a threshold right now. Or maybe you have your ear to the ground, and are sensing the faintest stirrings of the voice which will soon call you forward…Collectively, this Holy Week is a powerful threshold time. We mark and remember the depth of suffering Jesus faced in crossing a threshold that would bring new life to all and change everything. So for these thresholds we face, I want to leave you with these pieces of encouragement.

Remember who you are. Take stock of the countless beautiful qualities comprising the spirit within you. Maybe you invite others, like with my mom, to mirror them back to you. God has made you to be able to do this.

See the people whose love holds you. When you enter this next leg of the journey, there may be some new companions, alongside the love of those who have walked with you thus far. You are never alone. They are God in the flesh.

Trust God is making all things beautiful in their time. This is an opportunity to see with the eyes of faith, and know that while much remains unknown, and perhaps even painful, God never wastes an opportunity to create something beyond our imagining.

O’Donohue closes his section on ‘thresholds’ with these words, which can be our parting promise…

“No threshold need be a threat, but rather than invitation and a promise. Whatever comes, the great sacrament of life will remain faithful to us, blessing us always with visible signs of invisible grace. We merely need to trust.” ***

*Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

*To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O’Donohue, p. 49

*Ibid., p. 50

A Prayer

When I was writing my book, Ash and Starlight, and dividing the prayers into sections, I originally had one titled, “For Thresholds.” I ended up changing it to “For Guidance and Transition,” but it all feels the same. Here is a prayer from Ash and Starlight for “When I need to breathe and live into something new.”

When I need to breathe and live into something new

Spirit of Life,

Teach me to breathe…

to gulp with desperate surrender

your life-giving energy,

not out of fear,

but because I am listening

to my primal hungers

and rejoicing in them.

The breath you give me in

this moment is a messenger,

telling me how right now

I am reborn.

I am cared for.

I am called…

Charged with the call

to channel my breath,

your life-force,

toward a gasping world.

Your breath is eternal—

never stopping,

never returning empty.

It continuously flows to

spread life and promise

if I will be a river rather than a dam.

If I listen, I will learn.

I will ride the wind of

your breath now filling me,

letting it carry me away from

my middle anchor to the

edges where I’ll grow and glimpse

the purpose you have

for ever-evolving me.

Amen.

Genesis 2:7 * 2 Corinthians 5:17 * Philippians 1:6

“[I]f anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:… see, every-

thing has become new!” —2 Corinthians 5:17

Something that nourished me recently…

*Setting up my mom’s new room…we made some peony curtains and pillows from a my watercolor painting.

*Dawn over Lake Superior the morning we were settling my mom into her new place.

*Coming home to these roses….

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ I’m working to prep some things to launch this spring! In the meantime, I have cards, prints, clothes, blankets, and pillows all for sale in my Etsy shop which you can view here . I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Remember, friends, thresholds are invitations, and as O’Donohue reminds us, there will be visible signs of invisible grace along the way. “We merely need to trust.”

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and a big hug to each of you as we start a new week…

As this post launches, I am in the midst of moving my precious mama from one state to another. As her Alzheimer’s disease has progressed, our family’s been prayerfully discerning next steps. As we know with any journey like this, there is no map, no blueprint…just “stepping into the next spot of light” as Anne Lamott reminds us, or “taking the next step when we don’t see the whole staircase” as Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged. The Spirit’s guidance led us to move my mom to Minnesota to be near my brother’s family, so that is what I am doing today and this week. If you think of it, I would absolutely cherish your prayers.

With all of this happening, I needed to take a short pause on Monday Manna for a couple weeks, so it was the perfect time to do something I’ve been wanting to do — share some powerful wisdom and reflections from another friend!

My friend and fellow “Llama Mama,” the Rev. , is coming out with one heck of a book next month friends. You’ve heard me mention and quote Maryann before, including references to another of her books, Hope: A User’s Manual.

As an endorser for her new book, I had the privilege of receiving an early digital copy. Friends, how we need this book right now. It’s called Better Than Normal: Virtues for an Off-Script Life.

The premise is something we all inherently know — “Normal is a myth — and recognizing that truth can free us all.” And from the synopsis — “In a world obsessed with fitting in, Better Than Normal dares to ask a revolutionary question: What if the problem isn’t people who don’t conform, but the idea of “normal” itself?”

You can pre-order and check out the book here. But in the meantime, I did a mini Q&A with MaryAnn, sending her some questions and receiving her answers, so you can get the gist of the heart behind it all. So, here is MaryAnn…

***

You thoughtfully challenge the idea of “normal” as something harmful rather than helpful. Can you share when you first began to suspect that “normal” was the problem—and what experiences confirmed that for you?

After parenting three kids through a childhood in which they all largely thrived, I had the experience of seeing them all hit a wall in middle school, which caused each of them to struggle with anxiety and depression. There are many complicated reasons for that, and each of their stories is unique. And there were also societal things going on that challenged many folks, such as covid and its aftermath.

But one of the throughlines was the way many of us educate our children, and especially the way education looks where I live: huge high school, a full day of intense learning at the highest level of rigor you can withstand, followed by several hours of homework and extracurriculars which aren’t so “extra” if you want to get into a “good college” and have a “successful life.” That model was terribly burdensome for our particular kids. They are all bright, creative, and want to contribute meaningfully to the world, but those default systems and assumptions were just killing them.

We often treat mental illness as a personal issue—get yourself some therapy and medication and then go back to the world as it is. Therapy and medication were essential for us, but what our kids also needed was a world with way more pathways to thrive than the one right path you either pursue at any cost, or diverge from, only to receive judgment or stigma for not being able to handle it.

And if that was true for our kids, who have many advantages and privileges, it had to be true for people with all kinds of differences, whether race, immigration, class, gender identity, illness and disability, etc. The line attributed to Jiddu Krishnamurti was a touchstone for me: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick system.” It will take tremendous faith, will, and work to make our world a place that’s built for broad human flourishing, but as a pastor, part of my job is to help people imagine it’s possible. The book seeks to do that.

You write so beautifully and authentically from the intersection of parenting, pastoring, and lived experience with mental health challenges, sharing so vulnerably from your own family’s experience. How did writing this book change you—as a mother, a pastor, or a person?

Going against the “norm” is a lonely place, whether it’s caring for loved ones who are struggling or carrying any sort of difference yourself. It’s easy to sink into despair and shame: why is this so hard? And yet the more I told our story, the more I encountered people who were going through similar struggles; we just weren’t talking about it publicly enough. It’s been encouraging to meet others who recognize rigid normativity as the burden that it is. But I’m excited at the idea of creating more generous mindsets and systems that can better serve us all. It feels overwhelming at times—there’s a lot of inertia to maintain the status quo. But it feels like awareness is growing that the way things are just isn’t working.

Also, I’m the only one in our family of five who doesn’t have an official diagnosis of some kind of neurodivergence. I like to say I’m the most neurotypical in our family, which isn’t the same as saying I’m neurotypical, because honestly, who knows! Over the years, our kids have learned to trust their inner wisdom, advocate for what they need, and find ways of functioning and even thriving that take their unique quirks and strengths into account. But that’s something we can all do, regardless of our brain chemistry or identity. So walking this journey with my kids has given me permission to listen to my self more and honor my own limits and needs.

I loved your six shifts you offer which move us from scarcity to abundance - embracing curiosity over certainty, courage over comfort, presence over productivity, authenticity over artifice, beauty over blandness, and community over competition.Was there a shift you found to be the hardest for you personally to embrace, and why? How do these shifts work together? Is there one that tends to unlock the others?

I was very intentional in the ordering of the six shifts. Certainty felt like the first thing that had to go, giving way to curiosity. Curiosity feels like the foundation for the rest—simply asking why things are the way they are, and whether things could be different, unlocks a lot of the work for us. Author Daniel Pink lamented years ago that most people will choose false certainty over a genuine ambiguity. I think in this time of dehumanization and violence, as institutions fail and many of the “former things” pass away (to quote one of our biblical prophets), we can be open to consider what’s next.

I also discovered in the process of writing that the first half of the book (curiosity over certainty, courage over comfort, presence over productivity) was pretty individually focused, while the second half (authenticity over artifice, beauty over blandness, and community over competition) covered more communal virtues. This seemed important as well. We do this work first in our own hearts, then in our immediate circles of influence, and hopefully the work radiates outward.

Someone asked me recently my hope for the book. In a moment of raw honesty I blurted out “to change the world.” It feels vulnerable to put it so bluntly. Then again, the Talmud teaches that to save one life is to save the whole world. So maybe with this book I can change the world for one person, and perhaps more than that.

For all the church folk reading Monday Manna...many churches want to be inclusive but struggle to move beyond good intentions. What’s one concrete change that signals a real shift away from “normalcy” thinking?

I really value the work of Amy-Julia Becker around issues of belonging. As a parent, she’s seen the various ways communities have welcomed her daughter Penny, who has Down syndrome, and also the ways even well-intentioned people put up barriers without realizing it. She talks about a continuum ranging from exclusion (we don’t want you here), to tolerance (you can join us or not), to inclusion (you can join us, but don’t expect us to change the way we do things), to belonging (we’re not “us” without you, and we’ll do the work to make that real). I think a lot of churches get stuck in inclusion.

The first place to start is to simply understand “who’s here?” and to get curious about what feels good and what feels hard about people’s participation in your community. I’m a Presbyterian, and our worship is a lot of sitting quietly and listening. Yet I knew we had a lot of kids with ADHD in our congregation. We have a basket of fidgets available as people walk into worship, and for some, having something to play with has been hugely affirming of the way their brains work. And it hasn’t only been kids who’ve used them! Though one kid told her mom that she’s actually excited to come to worship now because we have them available. That’s just one small way we’ve tried to lean into belonging.

Many readers may recognize themselves in the pressure to conform, even if they don’t identify as “outside the margins.” What do you hope those readers take away from this book?

One of my guides in this work is Alok Vaid-Menon, a trans and non-binary artist and activist. Alok often gets asked how straight and cisgender folks can help LGBTQ and especially genderqueer folks. Alok likes to reframe the question from “how can I help you?” to “how can I get free?”: free from the strictures of maleness and femaleness, or whatever collective expectations we’ve all lived under for so long that we accept them without question.

So if you’re someone for whom the world kinda works just fine, yes, we have resources to offer to the work of setting people free. But let’s also consider the possibility that in doing this work, we ourselves will be liberated from the burden of “normal” in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

***
Thank you, MaryAnn! Again, here is the link to pre-order…

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ I’m working to prep some new prints, cards, and products to launch this spring! In the meantime, I have cards, prints, clothes, blankets, and pillows all for sale in my Etsy shop which you can view here . I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

I, for one, think MaryAnn’s book will change the world. And it will do that holy work as each of us embrace these tenets: curiosity, courage, presence, authenticity, beauty, community.

I plan to be back in a couple of weeks, friends. In the meantime, choose the path that’s better than “normal.”

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and deep peace and joy to you today ~ (we need some joy, friends!!)

I was paging through an old journal the other day and found this quote from United Nations secretary general Dag Hammarskjold…

“If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer.”

They were words he’d penned in his diary, discovered years later. This simple life intention toward humility, maturity, and spiritual growth, and inner peace clicked something into place for me. It was a moment of ahhhh, yes. This is part of my compass…

You’ve probably heard, or talked yourself, about “decision fatigue.” How many of us feel a silent eruption of celebration when the friend we are going to meet is completely decisive in saying where we should meet and what we should do? Or do you also sit to plan a week’s worth of dinners and wonder if you’ve ever planned meals before in your life because you can’t think of a single thing to make?

It’s partly due to the number of choices we have. More options lead to harder decisions.

Now, there are ways people minimize decisions for the future on some of these practical things. Barack Obama was an advocate for wearing the same blue or gray suit every day because he knew he needed every ounce of energy he had going toward more important decisions. Or maybe you eat some of the same things every day — when I’m home, I almost always drink the same smoothie each morning. It’s one less thing.

Back to the quote…In the same stream as decision fatigue, there’s a lot of messaging on decluttering and minimalism when it comes to our physical space or our time-management. But what this quote from Dag Hammerskjold opened up for me was how we can apply this minimizing of decisions and simplification to our values and how we want to live. Decision-making becomes easier when I’m clear on what my values are, and hold the decision up to that.

For example, if one of your values is truth, then you never need to be conflicted about lying again. You’ll decide to always be honest.

Or maybe it’s to be generous. Or patient. Or calm. Or kind.

Maybe one of your values is to grow and be expansive, and so you look at the decision before you and ask what would lead to a bigger heart and view of the world. What will help me to grow?

For me, I love this list from Hammarskjold — what will make me firmer, simpler, quieter, and warmer?

And then, the foundational value beneath all of this, of course, comes from Jesus himself. And that is Love. I’ve written here before about a question spiritual teacher James Finley often quotes — “All things considered, what is the most loving thing I can do right now?” (and I would add that “loving” pertains in a crucial way to loving yourself!)

There was once a rich ruler who asked Jesus to tell him the most important commandment. The one piece of guidance that would make his decisions clear. Jesus spelled it out directly — to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matthew 22).

Living by the value of love loosens the internal conflict, and keeps us on the path toward being the person we want to be. So, for today — even if we still aren’t sure what to wear or make for dinner, let’s embrace the most important decisions as already made.

To be firmer…with a strong sense of our own integrity and what we are about.

To be simpler…letting go of the myriad of things our ego whispers.

To be quieter…finding peace and internal stillness amid the noise around us.

To be warmer...deepening our compassion, connection, and openness.

And to love.

A Prayer

Here is a prayer from my book, Ash and Starlight, for the decision fatigue and getting back to the heart of who you are and want to be.

When I need to get back to the basics

Tender One,

How blessed I am, God, to have

your love, your peace, your reassurance—

you give me the comfort I need

to live my hardest days.

How blessed I am, God, to have

your strength, your courage, your self-control—

you give me the grit I need

to make tough decisions and follow through.

How blessed I am, God, to have

your grace, your forgiveness, your promise of new life—

you give me the mercy I need

to say, “I’ll make different choices today,”

and then do so.

You see me, God, as I truly am—

the core that’s been there since

I was a baby and blossomed as a child.

A core buried beneath all of these layers.

A layer of responsibility here and layer of image there…

the layers of expectations others place on me…

the layers of self-doubt and fear.

Please help me shed the layers, God,

and return to the core.

Help me reclaim who I truly am—

the person you’ve created me to be.

May I live boldly,

speak confidently,

love unconditionally,

9forgive readily,

and trust deeply.

Shape my life to match my soul.

With refreshed honesty

about myself and my heart,

I thank you for loving me as I am.

I embrace my true essence

and your work for me today.

Amen.

Psalm 139:13 * Philippians 4:19 * 2 Timothy 1:6

“[R]ekindle the gift of God that is within you…”

—2 Timothy 1:6

Something that nourished me recently…

*Yesterday marked International Women’s Day — a day to honor women’s achievements and advocate for equality. I love that the day’s signature color is purple, my favorite color! Purple signifies justice and dignity. Some ways you can mark the day: support a women-owned business, donate to a women-focused charity, thank a woman who has mentored you or find a young woman to mentor. Or watch Moana.

*I am so grateful for the blessing of this new book a friend gave me. It’s brought beautiful bookends to my days, and the art is so soothing. This is definitely a companion for becoming firmer, simpler, quieter, and warmer.

*Aerial yoga with my daughter…Though I’m going to stick to yoga on a mat from now on.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ I’m working to prep some new prints, cards, and products to launch this spring! In the meantime, I have cards, prints, clothes, blankets, and pillows all for sale in my Etsy shop which you can view here . I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Lighten the load today friends, with our mantra. Firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer…You will be a magnet to those around you if you live this way, showing this kind of life is possible. All grounded in love….

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, my friends, and blessings of grace and hope to you in this new week ~

I’m guessing we are all sad the olympics are over — they are always such a reservoir of inspiration and humanity’s unity (minus the ending we had here in the U.S. over the hockey celebration debacle…)

I wonder if any of you saw this clip of Eileen Gu?

I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw it. If you don’t watch, here’s the gist — we tell and teach ourselves how to think. We can change our thoughts. We can then, change ourselves and change our lives. This is neuroplasticity at its core. In other words — our minds affect everything.

Our minds have so much power. I wrote some months ago about some injuries I’ve been healing from, and how my friend and practitioner told me he thought my mind’s framework about the whole thing was actually contributing to my pain. “The body follows the mind,” he told me, and I’ve experienced this to be true.

You’ve probably heard how our bodies and sensory systems do not distinguish between reality and what our minds are thinking. Maybe you’ve had the experience as well where as you are dreaming about something, or rehashing a resentment, you feel it. You are living it.

I think this is why Scripture talks so much about the power of our minds and how imperative it is that we ground and care for them intentionally. One of my favorite passages is in Romans 12, a chapter calling us to place our entire lives before God…

“Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so you can figure out what God’s will is — what is good and pleasing and mature.”

Or this other beautiful verse in Philippians 2, drawing us to think like Jesus…

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…”

A mind that is humble, holy, set on God, full of love and generosity and service. A mind that saw possibility in what others deemed impossible.

I’ve long loved Kelly Corrigan, and the theme of the mind is one she references regularly. For Kelly, our minds are our most precious real estate, and she’s not about to give that precious space as free rent to just anything or anyone. She says,

“You live in your head — so make it nice in there.”

And the reality is, we can. We are not victims to our thoughts, we are the creators of them. We feel how we act, rather than act how we feel. Think about that for a moment.

Along these lines, there is another phrase I have found myself coming back to, and that is, “it doesn’t have to be a problem.” What if that was the response we took more often? So often, I view things as a problem to be solved, as though there is something continually “wrong.” But what if it actually doesn’t have to be a problem? What we think about it as a thing that will ask for some energy and time, but probably yield greater strength and wisdom and courage in the end?

This is not about toxic positivity, friends, or lying to ourselves. This is about allowing the Holy Spirit to shape and bless one of the most powerful tools we have.

So for this week, let’s make it nice in there.

A Prayer

I once heard someone say, “sometimes, the hardest word to hear God say isn’t repent but RELAX.”

Mondays can come with all kinds of pressure and expectations, and as we talked about earlier, this is an opportunity to change the lens in our minds. Let’s approach this week with a posture of slower.

Normally I share a prayer from my book, Ash and Starlight, but I have an extra treat for you this week. has a beautiful blessing she gracious shared with me— one included in her forthcoming book, Small Steps: Blessings to Lift Your Soul on the Pilgrimage of Life (see preorders here). Thank you, Kim!!

A Blessing for Slowing Down

If you’re feeling overwhelmed

if your mind is moving

in a thousand different directions

and you’re unable to concentrate,

this blessing is for you.

If your body can’t keep up with your mind

if your head aches and the days blend together

if you fail to take a break, even when you want to,

this blessing is for you.

If your mind wonders

and worries and frets

if your body is tense and tight

if your heart is tired of breaking,

this blessing is for you.

Be still.

Remember.

God is with you.

With every worry

hear God’s voice

seeing you as treasured,

offering you a moment to exhale

to loosen your shoulders

hold your head high

not needing to prove anything

because you already are loved.

With every overscheduled moment

hear God’s voice:

Come to me and rest.

Look up.

Breathe deep.

Be still.

Remember.

God is with you.

This blessing is with you

in the hustle and bustle.

This blessing embraces you

in the hurry

and holds you tight.

This blessing wants you to know

you, precious Child of God,

are enough

just as you are,

so rest

and be still

and remember,

God is with you.

Something that nourished me recently…

*I turned my watercolor I shared at the beginning of this post into a large canvas to go above our bed. Her words ground me every day. (Will be turning this into prints and soon!)

*Thanks to Erin Gleeson for inspiring me to paint a few little snow drops…a reminder that spring comes in what feels like full force of winter, and that new life comes forth in harsh conditions.

*I was reminded of this book in light of Kim’s blessing, but also, the theme of transforming our thinking. I read “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” some years ago, and while I significantly differ theologically from the author, there were countless practical steps I’ve sought to incorporate in my life, many of which yield great shifts in mindset.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

*GRIEF PRAYER ~ I shared this last December, but it was just published this month in the Presbyterian Outlook issue on grief. A prayer for all the grief we hold…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ I have cards, prints, clothes, blankets, and pillows all for sale in my Etsy shop which you can view here . I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

I’ll leave you with this quote from Henry Miller — “One’s destination is never a place, but rather, a new way of looking at things.” May your lens be rubbed and cleared gently by the Holy Spirit, friends, as you let your minds — and therefore, yourselves — be transformed this week. Let’s make it nice in there.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and deep love to you as we enter into this first week of Lent…

Let’s talk about temptation…

There’s a very dramatic story in the Bible we read every year the first week of Lent. It’s the account from Matthew 4 where Jesus, before beginning his public ministry, goes into the wilderness/desert for forty days to fast and pray. During this stretching and strenuous time, the devil, or the “tempter,” appears, challenging Jesus with three very specific temptations.

With each temptation, the devil is challenging Jesus to prove he is the Son of God….

If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread…

If you are the Son of God, jump off (the highest point of the Temple) for the angels will protect you…

And then lastly, after bringing Jesus to the peak of a very high mountain and showing him all glittering kingdoms of the world, the devil says,

I will give it all to you if you will kneel down and worship me.

We may remember that to each and every one of these temptations, Jesus uses not his own words, but the ancient words of Scripture…

The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God…

The Scriptures say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God’…

The Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him…

In each and every temptation, Jesus remembers who he loves and who he is. Each and every response is founded in a love of God and a claiming of identity.

Last week, I listened to a beautiful devotion from Lectio365* on this story which I have returned to throughout the week. It compelled me to pull out my dad’s old copy of Dutch priest Henri Nouwen’s book, In the Name of Jesus, based on this story of Jesus’ time of testing.

In his book, Nouwen contemporizes these temptations Jesus faces in a way I find to be both profound and resonant:

• The temptation to be relevant (bread is exactly what Jesus needed when he was famished)

• The temptation to be spectacular (angels swooping in to deliver him would be just the thing to dazzle a crowd)

• The temptation to wield power (imagine how it would feel to rule all the kingdoms of the world and their glory…)

When we frame these temptations in this way — to be relevant, spectacular (or maybe more helpful to say “popular”), and powerful, I can immediately locate my own self and heart here. These are all things we are culturally taught not only to want, but serve as signposts of a “successful” and meaningful life.

The devotion I listened to pointed me to Nouwen’s three very tangible and practical ways to counter these temptations.

• In response to relevance, he offers contemplative prayer (what could seem more irrelevant to a world on fire than someone sitting by themselves praying and “just” enjoying the loving presence of God?)

• Eeek, this one is hard — as an antidote to being popular/spectacular, Nouwen calls us to a confession of sin (being completely honest about any shame we’re carrying in the presence of someone else has such power to return our ego to rightful size).

• And then lastly, for the siren song of power, Nouwen invites us to personal study (devotional and theological reading can help realign our priorities with those of God rather than the culture around us and give us a different lens for seeing our lives and the world).

I wonder if any of these temptations — relevance, popularity, and power — as well as any of these antidotes — contemplative prayer, confession of sin, and personal study — especially tap on your heart’s door this week?

Along those lines, I want to invite you to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Jesus called on the promises and truths of ancient words many before him had read and prayed, and we can do the same. We are never facing anything alone. And facing these temptations is not about girding up our own power, but calling on the deeper power of God that lives within us. This last week, I have been coming back to the CEB translation of Romans 8:37…

“But in all these things, we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us.”

This verse has also helped reframe how I view fasting, a common practice many engage with during Lent. Fasting is not just about going without something so we can focus more on God and our need for God, it is also a form of defiance. Saying no to that thing — often one we are convinced we should have, rightly so — is an act of defiance against the incessant temptations of the “principalities and powers” (Romans 8). We are claiming that God’s power within us is more powerful, and channeling that.

God is doing a good and beautiful work in you, friends, and I pray this Lenten journey will be a time when you experience and embrace that at an even deeper, richer level. If nothing else, just come back to the loving presence of Jesus who is with you and for you, every step of the way.

*See the Lectio365 app here, and the devotional I reference is the one for Feb. 16

*Henri Nowen, “In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership,” Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989.

A Prayer

For our Lenten journey, here is my prayer “For Lent,” from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

For Lent

Redeeming One,

You came, Jesus, to show me the

best way to live and walk this path.

You let yourself feel the depth

of need surrounding you.

You kept a purity of focus.

You always, always chose love.

All with bravery and trust.

I need you, Jesus, to walk

beside me now,

helping me reflect,

confess, prepare…

This Lenten path puts before me

the questions and realizations

I so often stuff away.

With each step, I’m recognizing

barriers built through my

rote habits and unrealized prejudices,

my baseline grudges and routine neglects…

I must acknowledge compromises

that drew me further away

from my own soul and your calling.

But, I’m coming back home.

Hone my desires to that

pure focus you held.

Help me fast from self-absorption,

finding my sustenance in the

rich profundity of suffering-love.

Draw my heart and feet forward

on this path that’s both total mystery

and innate to who I am in you.

A minor melody marks our cadence,

yet you tune my ears for more than that.

Resurrection is always the final number.

Help me walk, Savior Lord,

with hope amid heaviness,

ears to the ground.

I will welcome my mortality

and the potential in ashes and dust.

Amen.

Psalm 51:17 * Isaiah 53:4–6 * Luke 9:23–24

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny them-

selves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

—Luke 9:23

Something that nourished me recently…

*Most days, I have David Tolk piano music on in the background, and this Lent playlist has a lot of him in it. I’ve really been enjoying it. Good for the HSP (Highly Sensitive Person)…

*Just this last week, the amaryllis a sweet friend passed on to me bloomed. It’s beauty and hope are a tangible sign I am returning to right now…the promise there is always, always, always resurrection.

*Receiving ashes from my partner in life and all things…thanks, Mark, for capturing the moment.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ I have cards, prints, clothes, blankets, and pillows all for sale in my Etsy shop which you can view here . I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Remember, friends…“But in all these things, we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us.” Jesus is with you this week…

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends — love and steadiness to you as we begin this new week…

Before we get into today’s reflection, I want to both express my gratitude as well as share my prayers. As someone who barely reads email herself, I do not take for granted what a privilege it is that you not only allow me into your inbox, but give of your precious time, attention, and financial support to make Monday Manna even exist. Thank you. I want you to know that as I sit down to write — and at other moments throughout the day and week — I pray for you. I ask for God’s Spirit to meet each and every one of my Monday Manna readers in their own lives, with their own needs. And I always feel so amazed that though there are many of you I have not had the gift of meeting, we are connected in such a meaningful way — because of you, and because of the Spirit’s work. So again, thank you…This just felt especially important for me to say today.

On to today’s nugget….

I remember (an author I have followed for many years) saying one time she is a classic “over-stayer.” Whether it be relationships, friendships, jobs, circumstances, or habits, she was notorious for staying in them too long. And oh, how I can relate…

Maybe it is my fear of loss, my bracing against grief, or my self-made allergy to the unknown, but I will hang on (and on and on) to what no longer works for me because it feels familiar. To let ourselves be changed and transformed is the ultimate act of trust, because we have to somehow believe what’s in that mystery of what we don’t see is something good.

It always confounds me how I will continue to live with something I know is over (or in other circumstances, actively harmful or holding me back) just because “this is what I’ve *always* had/done/been/etc.” It feels safer to just keep the pattern, keep the person, keep the thing, even when God’s Spirit is saying, “We are on to new things, dear! Will you give me some breathing room here?!”

This blessing from “On Change” really summed it up for me…

***

“Blessed are we, mid-change,

clutching our old selves like they’re security blankets.

May we release them gently (or with a dramatic scream)

and make peace with the fact that

growth feels a lot like grief wrapped in a bad cardigan.”

****

Growth feels a lot like grief….YES. Change and transformation require a shedding and a stripping away. It requires a lot of release (something we talked quite a bit about in my posts for the new year when we reflected on releasing small stories and the fear of being our true selves).

This week is a turning…tomorrow is the Chinese Lunar New Year, and Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. Both of these are invitations to live into the growth and transformation God’s been nudging us toward.

My friend, , reminded me that last year was the year of the snake. And before we move on to this year — the year of the horse — there might be some more shedding of skin we need to do.

What in you — in your life — has served its purpose and is now complete? What no longer works (even if it was a very good thing at one time)? What is holding you back? What patterns or habits are you really ready to slither out of that you might live with a whole new spirit of freedom?

I will speak for myself that with all the injuries I’ve had in the last couple of years, I’m really having to do some challenging release work around my body. And while it has, at so many moments, felt like grief, I do hear the whisper that this growth and transformation is taking me where I actually want to go, and that looks a lot like freedom.

Speaking of freedom, that is exactly what the image and aura of the horse is. Chinese tradition says the year of the horse represents energy, freedom, and independence. What a beautiful and hope-filled image to embrace as we let go of the things we need to let go of, and some we didn’t think we ever could let go of.

As Kate blessed us with, may we let go of them gently (or with a dramatic scream!). May we shed our snake skin. May we embody the strength and vitality of the charging horse. And may we we find, in this stripped down state, the surprising and beautiful growth God will do in us as we enter this Lenten season.

A Prayer

This prayer I wrote, “When I’m in the messy middle,” speaks to the trust and the hope for these times when we are being changed, and it’s uncomfortable. From my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

When I’m in the messy middle

of something

Slow and steady God,

Things have changed,

and I know they’re not done changing.

I’m here on your potter’s wheel

where you’re shaping my essence into

something new with

guiding, loving hands.

But this messy middle time…

it’s painful, and scary, and hard.

The wheel spins and my world swirls

and all I want is to see the end result.

Becoming the broken-down

lump of clay was a

hard stage too, I might add.

Help me, God,

commit to the process,

not the outcome.

Help me embrace this messy middle time

when I must make space

for shifts and questions.

Change my mantras from

clarity to exciting ambiguity,

definition to open-endedness,

certainty to awe-filled surprises,

timeline to trust.

Help me believe, Lord,

that even what seems

to be negative change

makes room in me and around me

for something fresh (and good).

You hum a tune of possibility

and potential as you work.

With each move of your hand,

you mutter,

“Beautiful.”

“Beautiful.”

“Beautiful.”

And, you smile.

Amen.

Isaiah 29:16 * Isaiah 64:8 * Jeremiah 18:1–6

“‘Can I not do with you…just as this potter has done?’ says

the Lord. ‘Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in

my hand…’” —Jeremiah 18:6

Something that nourished me recently…

*I know I’ve shared A Beautiful Chorus’ music here before, but this one from their Wheels of Light album is a favorite. Find a place to sit or lie down with palms open, and allow it to become your mantra….

*Our family had the joy of some skiing time this weekend — first trip to the slopes this year. It was fun to get out in the snow with hearts full of inspiration from the winter olympics…not quite the same caliber. 🤣 Also, I don’t think I’ve ever skied in 55 degree temperatures.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Thanks to you, I send portions of sales in my Etsy shop to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief, and last week, I got an update that they marked a new milestone of now serving one million hot meals every day in Gaza. That means close to half the population is receiving a reliable meal each day. You can view the etsy shop here for cards, prints, pillows, clothes, and blankets!

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

With you, friends, as we embrace the messy middle time, and the invitation to grow God sings over us. Let’s shed the old, and prepare for the beauty ahead.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and deep peace to you this week…

We are in a time when the storms around us are absolutely raging. There is a lot of talk right now about a longing for “peace,” but what kind of “peace” do we mean?

We may think of peace as an absence of violence, praying for peace in Gaza or Venezuela or Ukraine or the streets of Minnesota.

We can talk about peace in our relational contexts—good and harmonious relationships with our families, neighbors, and community.

We talk of peace in our organizations. I’m guessing many of you serve on boards or work with agencies where you are facilitating agreements, or you work in HR, in a law firm, or as a school counselor where you search for a peaceable, fair outcome.

Peace is something for which we hope in making decisions. “I feel a peace about it,” we might say when we are assured of our direction.

We speak peace as a blessing. “Rest in peace,” one says when a loved one dies.

Or I think of every Sunday morning at church when we wish one another the “peace of Christ.”

Peace can also be a kind of disposition. We all know people who have this calm, resolute steadiness about them, who never seem to get cranked about much of anything.

But then, there is the peace that I’ve been searching for right now, and maybe you are too. The peace that is a state of soul.

I know I’m not the only one who’s been wracked by grief and loss, worry and anger, who’s wondered if there is peace for my heart. It’s been months of terrible violence in our world, and yet it’s also been a stretch of time when many I personally know and love have experienced the floor completely dropping out from beneath them.

There was a friend’s brother who completed suicide. A loved one in prison. Countless friends who have had a family member diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Families newly cracked by divorce or the agreement finalized. I had multiple friends who had a parent die this year, and others who passed that pivotal one-year-anniversary. I’ve known people who had to leave the house they loved because their job relocated or the money wasn’t there anymore. There was the uncovering of shocking revelations with many wondering what to do or who to trust. And just in this last week, a dear friend whose mom was in a horrific car accident and another friend whose brother-in-law unexpectedly died.

It’s been a time where our greatest fears have actualized before our very eyes. Groans and tears have become a new language. And the landscape of life is forever changed. When a tidal wave of loss comes, we’re never ready. I think of when my dad was sick years ago, and though he moved between relapse and remission with his cancer for eleven years, the reality of death before us that whole time, we were left gasping by how quickly it came when it actually did.

And so the peace for which I long, and maybe you do too, is the peace the holds us in wholeness when we’re in grief, or heartache, or chaos. When what’s most precious to us was swept away in one, swift wave, or the world’s teeming with so much noise and busy-ness we can’t hear ourselves think. We are longing for the peace that passes understanding—that stands defiantly stronger than the pain or confusion.

A magnet I love describes this peace…Peace does not mean, it says, to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. This is how I understand the peace of God. It is a peace that settles into your bones, into the bedrock of your soul.

Many years ago, during a time of much upheaval and pain in my own life, I first read Arthur Tappan Pierson’s description of a remarkable scientific reality. There is within the ocean a layer known as the “cushion of the sea.”

This layer lies so far beneath the ocean’s surface that, no matter how agitated or churned the surface is by storms and wind, the “cushion” is never stirred. In fact, Pierson writes, “when parts of these deep places from the ocean floor are dredged of remaining plant or animal life, that layer reveals evidence of having remained completely undisturbed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”

He goes on, “the peace of God is an eternal calm like the cushion of the sea. It lies so deeply within the human heart that no external difficulty or disturbance can reach it.”*

I’ve returned to this image time and time again throughout the years, but I will say, it feels like there could be no time it’s felt more crucial than right now. Now is the time we must sink down…not as an act of escape, but as one of deepest grounding. There is a place of deep, undisturbed stillness within you — the shalom and wholeness of God, whose Spirit makes a home in your heart.

And that cushion is always within you. We need to pause (frequently!) to remember it is. But it is there to sustain you, and nothing, nothing, nothing will be able to separate you from that bedrock of love.

*Arthur Tappan Pierson as quoted in Streams in the Desert, p. 395-396.

A Prayer

We just began the journey toward spring last week in passing Feb. 2…spring is coming and is happening, even as all around us still looks like winter….even when it feels like our lives themselves are very much in winter. Here is a prayer for the winters of our lives, and finding God’s solace within them. From my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

When I’m in life’s winter

Enveloping God,

You gather me in when

the wind of anxiety and fear whips,

when I feel my face, my heart,

tighten against the cold’s force.

With wide, warm arms,

you bring me into your heart

where my angst melts by

the fire of your love.

And, it is there, as I rest and thaw,

that you remind me…

Remind me of the

unbelievable power in perseverance,

the choice to open my eyes

each morning and say,

Yes, I will keep going.

I will find grace here.

I will live from courage

instead of fear.

I will dwell in the One

Who dwells in me.

As my fears melt, dripping to my feet,

you let my real self come through…

A self you love so much…

My path toward reclamation

comes through acceptance,

through affirming I will be

gentle and forgiving toward myself

because that’s how you are with me.

I will lean with all my weight

into your warmth…

My solace and strength

in life’s winter.

Amen.

Psalm 91:1–2 * Isaiah 25:4 * 1 Peter 5:7

“For you have been a refuge to the poor,

a refuge to the needy in their distress,

a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from

the heat.

When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm…”

—Isaiah 25:4

Something that nourished me recently…

*Continuing with this theme of water, here is a glimpse of the magical Lake Michigan, shouldered by enormous ice mounds and churning with water beneath the heaviness of snow blocks. Watching the water soothed my soul this week, as did seeing my middle guy climb the mounds like an explorer. Winter is beautiful.

*When my five-year-old sees a prohibition sign out in public, he calls them a “no thank-you.” I don’t know where or how he learned that title for them, but the gentleness of it (coming from a boy who isn’t always very gentle!) always makes me smile. When his sibling kicked him the other day, Noah went to draw a “no thank you” sign for kicking in our house (this, mind you, wasn’t the first response after the kicking happened). But it was a tender thing for my heart to see. Maybe we can all make some no-thank-you-signs in creating the kind of way we will treat each other.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Clothes, prints, cards, pillows, blankets, all in here…I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*A REMINDER — Two beautiful children’s books by two women I love come out tomorrow! Jennifer Grant’s Consider the Lilies and Kathleen Bostrom’s “See What God Made!” Find them here and here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Praying for the “peace that passes understanding” for you, friends, in these coming days, and that when the storms rage, you sink down…find that cushion.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and every blessing to you as we begin this new month (we are ready for one, yes?) ~

Last week, I focused on my Star Word for 2026 of “Story,” and how to release the “small stories” we tell ourselves (P.S. I loved hearing some of your guiding words for 2026! Please do let me know if you’ve chosen or received a word).

I want to continue today with that theme of releasing things. With the heaviness in and around us right now, one way we can more faithfully and gracefully carry the heaviness we can’t avoid is to release the weight of things we can (and must) let go of. So here is the Spirit’s invitation today:

Release the fear of being yourself.

Alignment, authenticity, and truth keep bubbling to the surface for me, and how any form of pain and brokenness— in my body, in my heart, in my relationships, in my sense of the world — are somehow tied to one of these being smushed. I believe living as our most authentic selves is alignment, and while we all claim to want this, many of us also live with the fear of being that authentic self. In fact, sometimes the most challenging place to begin is being honest with our own selves! I know that from experience.

We don’t hold onto this fear for no good reason. We know that in some cases, choosing authenticity will be met with rejection. But then, the model we follow in Jesus knows a bit about that…

We also know, however, that when we are truly ourselves, we feel so at peace and free that the rejection (no matter how large or small) doesn’t really matter.

An important note before we continue…I write all of this knowing the tragic landscape of both history and current reality — for many people, being themselves puts their very lives in danger. Undergirding the creation of such a reality is fear run wild — people so threatened and insecure in their own selves they feel they must erase the selfhood of others. That is a whole topic that must be addressed on its own, so for now, I will say what leads to those systemic and evil forces begins in the quiet of our own hearts, sitting with our own selves, letting the truth of who we are, what we love, and what we fear be seen. God sits with us in that space.

I believe cultivating authenticity and letting go of the fear of showing it begins with making a kind of sanctuary and safe space in your own soul for it to emerge. Let’s pause for a moment with a question for you — what can you bring into the light today that might help you step more and more into your authenticity? What is something you are carrying inside that maybe no one knows — a hope, a fear, a memory, a dream — that you can gently coax into the open?

Find a place where you feel steady examining this. Maybe you want to use a piece of paper to write on which you know you can recycle right away! This can be another step in the journey of coming home to yourself, in flowing toward alignment, in letting your authenticity shine.

This work is crucial to the world around us right now, because as we become authentically who we are, we will serve and heal the world in the ways only we can. And we will do this beautiful work from a place of joyful trust and confidence. I’m reminded of these powerful words from Parker Palmer last year in which he said,

“Much depends on whether what we do is animated by love, or by one of the lesser angels of our nature. If we do our work mindless, in thrall to cultural norms of “success,” false self is in the lead and will deform us. Doing our work form the inside out, with presence, humility, awareness, and love gives true self a chance to take the lead. You are here to serve, not to put on a show. Don’t ask what will make you look good in the eyes of others. Ask what the world needs, then how your birthright gifts might serve the common good.”*

Everything out there, friends, is healed by everything in here. As my husband often tells me when I’m tempted to blame and point fingers, “Arianne, that’s an inside job.”

So for today, release the fear. Let your authentic self emerge (a good test — what would you do in each situation today if you didn’t care at all about other peoples’ reactions?) Do the work that is yours to do. Trust you have all you need right within you.

*From Parker Palmer’s beautiful substack post last November — 

Living the Questions with Parker J. Palmer

Now I Become Myself

[Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025 was a good day for democracy in the U.S.A. For fans of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, the electoral landslides in NYC, NJ, VA, PA, and CA made it feel like Aslan might be coming back to thaw out God’s frozen people and de-ICE our land! If you’ve done anything to help warm things up—e.g., talked to friends and family, spoke…

Read more

5 months ago · 328 likes · 35 comments · Parker J. Palmer

A Prayer

On theme with this release work, here is my prayer for “When I Need to Release and Receive,” from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

When I need to release and receive

Dear Jesus,

Today, I release.

I release my worries.

I release the anxiety that’s gnawed

a tender spot in the bottom of my soul.

I release my fear that the future’s uncertain.

(Because it is, and that’s okay.

You’ll be with me in it.)

I release my simmering bitterness

that’s bubbled on the back burner

for way…too…long.

I release my

unfair expectations

of others—

and myself, too.

I release the frustrations

and shameful secrets I’ve

carried under my arm for years.

I release the story or stories

I no longer want to live.

Jesus, I release.

And, today, Jesus, I receive.

I receive your love promising

I am your child,

that I am good.

I receive your peace reminding me:

“all shall be well, and all manner

of things shall be well.Ӡ

I receive your voice as the

wise whisper I follow.

I receive a new story.

Thank you, God, for receiving me—

and this whole world—

in a giant embrace,

and for receiving this prayer.

You release me to freedom

and receive all to love.

Amen.

Isaiah 43:18–19 * Ephesians 4:31—5:2 * 1 John 3:1

“Do not remember the former things,…

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth…”

—Isaiah 43:18a, 19a

Something that nourished me recently…

*Communal Prayer ~ A lot of my closest friends and family live in Minnesota, and the pain of what’s happening hits at all different levels. One of my best friends there told me about a daily prayer time she and her church are doing, setting alarms on their phones for 8:00, 12:00, and 8:00 p.m. I believe so deeply in prayer, and find that praying with others — even if you are physically by yourself — is incredibly powerful. I was also thinking about how many amazing stories of revelation in the Bible happen at noon (including Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well), and how most of us have some kind of pause (I hope) midway through the day. With all of us being in different time zones, here is my invitation to you — Set an alarm on your phone for noon central time. At that time, take a moment to pray — for Minnesota, for the healing of our nation, for our leaders, for God’s kin(g)dom to come to earth. It doesn’t need to be long. You don’t need to even form words in your head. Just imagine directing all of the love and light of the Spirit toward the pain. And know that as you do, countless other people are doing this at the very same time. Where two or three are gathered….

*My friend gave me a Qi tea set for Christmas that I am in love with… “QI” (Chi — pronounced chee) means Life Energy or Life Force. Flowers contain the most Qi, and each tea packet is a whole intact flower. Qi Tea partners directly with small family farms across Asia to collect their flowers. Putting the flower in a small glass tea pot and watching it bloom has been soothing for my soul.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

*28 DAYS OF BLACK HISTORY ~ I share this every February, but here is your reminder to make sure you are signed up for the 28 Days of Black History daily email. Each day, you will learn about people and historical moments honoring the Black American experience. It is deeply inspiring.

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Packs of Valentine Cards, pillows, and a sweet kids’ shirt that are perfect for the holiday, along with other prints, clothes, and cards! I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

*A SPECIAL OFFER FROM GARRETT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FOR YOU ~ If you missed it in last week’s post, here’s the reminder that Garrett Theological Seminary is offering a discounted option for Monday Manna Readers in their new course, Made Flesh : Returning to the Wisdom of Our Own Incarnation for $100. Use Promo Code: MANNA100, and the offer good through Feb 21, 2026.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite John O’Donohue blessings — this one is “To Come Home To Yourself.”

May all that is unforgiven in you be released.

May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

I wrote this post before the latest unconscionable violence in Minnesota last Saturday (more on this below). As hard to trust as it is amid this darkness, I keep coming back to this mantra…

Good morning, friends, and deep warmth and peace to you at the start of this new week…

I wrote last week about “star words” — this tradition of receiving a guiding word for the year on Epiphany Sunday (akin to the Magi following the guidance of the star to find Jesus). Last week, I shared a bit about my 2025 word of “lightly,” with promises that today, I’d share what I received as my 2026 word.

The kids in our church walked around the pews carrying small woven baskets of star words. And I will say, I felt a little nervous picking my word! It reminded me of how too often, I turn what is supposed to be a “gift” into some kind of project. As a wise friend later reminded me, star words are not “homework.” If you get the word, “patience,” for example, it doesn’t mean, “God must really think I need to work on this!” Rather, these words are meant to be gifts — invitations and blessings from the Spirit with what you might need the most this year (that was so very true for me last year with “lightly”).

So I was a bit surprised, and felt very intrigued, when I drew my word for 2026…STORY.

Now that I’ve held this word in my heart and spirit for a couple of weeks, I’ve already found a number of layers and gifts embedded in it. I was reminded right away of an Alan Watts talk I recently listened to (I highly recommend — you can listen here). In this particular talk, Watts shares about the things we must release in order to raise our vibration. If this sounds very “woo” to you, it’s actually very tangible. Your vibration is basically the energy you embody and put out into the world. We all know this is the most palpable thing we experience, right? You could be in someone’s presence who isn’t saying anything bad, or doing anything harmful, but you just find yourself drained or taxed or uneasy. You feel their energy. And of course, the flip of this is true.

But back to Watts, one of the primary things he says we must release is that of “small stories.” Our lives themselves are stories, but we are telling ourselves stories all the time. Stories about ourselves. Stories about others. Stories about our lives. And what Watts’ reflection made me realize is that a lot of times, these stories are confining — in some cases, down right mean.

I am a disappointment.

Things just don’t work out for me.

I can’t change.

I’m on my own.

It took me a little bit of time before I recognized how many “small stories” I tell myself — and how sneaky they can even be, because I’ve told myself them for so long. These stories hold us back, they press us down, they lower our vibration, and they limit the possibilities our minds are open to.

Because as Watts says, our stories are not facts — they’re choices. And our stories can change instantly when we allow them to. We can live a different story! Your story is not over. And stories are what transform the world (I think about how when Jesus wanted to teach, he told a story).

There is so much more to unpack and reflect upon, here, and I hope to do more of that this year with my gift-word of “story,” but for now, I want to invite you to listen for the small stories you are telling yourself. What are they? What would it look like to release them?

And then, I wonder if we, as a community, can think about the stories we are telling about our nation right now. The stories we are telling about each other. What if, in the midst of all that is happening, we make our home in the story that everything is going somewhere good? And that we are intrinsic to making that happen?

The Spirit has an expansive, beautiful story She is writing in and through your life. And you are part of a much bigger story. Hold on this week to these these words from Brian Doyle…

“We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace sums up the great story.”

A Prayer

I am thinking especially of the landscape in Minnesota and our friends and colleagues who gathered, witnessed, and marched this past weekend (amid unbelievable temps). I first wrote this prayer after the attack at the White House on January 6, 2021, and have shared it here before. I now offer it again as our calling today. From my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

When I must take a stand

Refugee King,

You linked your only life’s arms

with those who were fleeing

and those who were forgotten,

with those who were abused

and those laid bare to brutality.

From the manger to the cross,

and all the broken places in between,

you bore a truth

the world tried to bury.

You made your home in vulnerable spaces

and I need you to free me from this

prison of privilege so I can

make my home there too.

What I saw and heard and know…

make it burrow into my bones,

becoming the very frame

of a convicted, confessional life.

I sometimes think I must be careful

about taking a stand,

but that never benefits

your suffering ones…

Silence is its own form of speaking….

You say people sharing

what they believe

from a place of humble love

is where things really start turning.

“Be nice,” wasn’t one of your commandments.

Love was.

Is.

Repentance plus courage has

always been the only way forward.

It is what I do now that reveals my

heart’s true treasure.

Will I be an extremist for love,

an agitator for justice,

a holy troublemaker?**

Will I lean in toward those

I don’t even desire to understand,

setting aside evaluation so my

hands can freely embrace curiosity?

Help me transcend my outrage,

instilling in my soul’s eye

the kin-dom whose basic foundation

seems swallowed by those

lost to even themselves.

“What is truth?” a fearful man

with a trembling, hiding heart

asked you.

As your answer, you gave your life.

Please, God of mercy, take mine.

Amen.

Proverbs 31:8–9 * John 18:37–38 * 1 John 3:16

“Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all

the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights

of the poor and needy.” — Proverbs 31:8–9

Something that nourished me recently…

*The solidarity and witness of so many friends and colleagues in MN last weekend is something I am really holding on to right now. With the horrific images we have taken in, here is a tender one of light my clergy friends sent me…

*I am so blessed to know many incredible writers who are putting beautiful STORIES out in the world, two of whom are launching lovely children’s books in the coming weeks. Both ’s newest children’s book, Consider the Lilies and Kathleen Bostrom’s, See What God Made: A Creation Story come out February 10th (P.S. These would be lovely Valentine’s Day presents for a child in your life, along with ‘s sweet Snuggle Time Love book).

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

*A SPECIAL OFFER FROM GARRETT THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY FOR YOU ~ I had the privilege and joy of writing some for the Garrett Collective, which just launched last week. In celebration of the launch of the Garrett Collective, subscribers of Monday Manna can enroll in Made Flesh : Returning to the Wisdom of Our Own Incarnation for $100. (A big thanks to for this generous offer)

More about the course:

Are you struggling to find grounding amidst the pressures and demands of life? We find ourselves in unprecedented times facing rapidly changing climate on our earth, deeply divisive political climate, and an onslaught of media cycles. All on top of our day-to-day lives, work commitments, and relationships. It can lead to waves of overwhelm and numbing.

Christianity is at its core an embodied story. Tragically, many expressions of Christianity have (for many people) demanded that we become dis-embodied. in the same way, the conditions of the world in which we live separate us from our bodies; trauma, colonialism, and white-supremacy all separate us from our own body and the collective “body.” We miss out on the wisdom that lives in our own flesh.

To be incarnate is to more fully inhabit that wisdom.

This 6-part self-paced series invites participants into embodied practice (somatics) that support returning to the wisdom of our body for the sake of our own healing and the healing of the world.

What does the body have to say? Come and see.

Led by Rev. Lucy A. Waechter Webb (she/her) is a somatics coach, politicized spiritual leader, mom, land-tender, ritualist, writer and organizer.

enroll here: https://enroll.garrettcollective.org/courses/made-flesh-returning-to-the-wisdom-of-our-own-incarnation

use Promo Code: MANNA100

offer good through Feb 21, 2026.

* VALENTINE’S DAY PRODUCTS IN MY ETSY SHOP ~ Packs of Valentine Cards, pillows, and a sweet kids’ shirt that are perfect for the holiday! Order now to get in time for Valentine’s Day. I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

In these horrifying days of violence, friends, know that I am holding you in light and love, and carrying prayers of solidarity, lament, and hope. Let’s continue to do the healing work that is ours to do, including releasing the stories that imprison and hold us back.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning friends, and a blessed New Year to each and every one of you ~

Here we are at the start of a new year (I consider all of January the new year beginning!). I’ve stopped putting pressure on myself to reflect and vision by January 1, because the reality is, we are often still very much in holiday mode with kids home, travel, and unpatterned days.

So today’s reflection is going to focus on that end of year/new year reflecting we want to do, because if you haven’t yet, it’s not too late — actually, there are very few things in life where it is ever too late. Remember that.

Amid all the heartache and shock this year has already held for our nation and communities, there is a beautiful invitation this year gives us, and the promise God is doing a new thing (see Isaiah 43 ). On this Martin Luther King Jr. day, I am especially thinking about the power of vision — of holding fast and staying grounded in our dreams and integrity, even when the opposing current is so strong we might wonder if we’re moving forward at all.

There’s always a lot of focus in the new year on a fresh start, which I love, and yet, I also believe God uses and builds upon where we have been, and who we have been before. I think there is often too much regret or self-judgment riddled in there otherwise, and the truth is, you are here today because of who you were before. That matters. So let’s do what Father Richard Rohr so wisely names all the time — include and transcend. It’s all part of it. And this, too, brings a softer and gentler posture to these changes we may feel stirred to make in our lives. It’s not one mis-step and then everything’s over (as much as my all-or-nothing thinking leads me to believe). Forward and backward and forward again. It’s a cha-cha.

Along those lines, I am someone who does love end of year reflection as part of the new year visioning because I feel like we make more whole-hearted choices when we intentionally gaze at the ones we’ve made before. We need to pause and trace the loving presence of God which has accompanied us through the life landscape of this past year—doing so often deepens our trust and hones our vision for the landscape to come.

So for today — I’m offering a bit of 2025 reflecting as well as a few little lists for moving into 2026…

One of the things I especially like to look at on the year’s closing is the note on my phone where I keep notes about my “star word.” This is the guiding word I carry through the year. Some years, I’ve chosen my own, and others, I’ve received a word at church on our Star Gift Sunday (I’ve written about that here).

My 2025 word last year was LIGHTLY, and as I hold that word up to the kind of year we had in 2025, it almost feels laughable. And yet, that is exactly the grace of this word-gift from the Spirit. There was so much in the world that was heavy and hard, but the call and guidance from God to live “lightly” felt like a preserver holding me up in the water. There were some big things for me personally this year — turning forty, launching my Etsy site, and having my first art show — and yet all of those things were lessons for me in the call to hold things lightly. This is the opposite of control (which is most often what I try to do). I came back many times to this quote from Ram Dass…

Next week, I’m going to share my 2026 star word which I received on Epiphany Sunday at our church, because the other thing I want to focus on today is the chance for you to dream a little bit. We are now officially in the church season of Epiphany — literally meaning revelation and new discoveries (sometimes about things that have been there all along). I wonder what God will reveal to you this year…how God might surprise you. What might be uncovered or what might be birthed in you this year? And as part of this prayerful wondering, I want to invite you to take yourself lightly and to make a fun, little list…

Many of you read and love ‘s work, as I do, and in her new year’s post about “Making Five Lists,” one of the lists she makes each year is “My Most Hare-Brained Ideas.” I have now done this a couple of years, and it is so refreshing. It gets me out of my boxy, sensible, realistic, self-protective head lock into one that helps my head and heart take a 360. We live in a glorious world of possibility. And if there was ever a time in human history when we need imagination, when we need to dream the seemingly impossible, it is now.

So please take some time this week to settle in, reflect a bit on last year, and make your own hair-brained ideas list. It needn’t be long. The ideas don’t have to be grandiose, but they certainly can be. And they definitely shouldn’t be self-edited. Go to culinary school. Travel to Japan. Get your pilot’s license. Give up the thing you never thought you could give up. Take over the White House.

And as you dream, remember a beautiful man who never stopped dreaming, and kept the dream alive for a world we are still working toward today. See how the Spirit prompts you…the ideas may (read: should) feel completely unrealistic, and that’s a large part of the point. Hold it all lightly. Smile as you write. Maybe even have fun making your list.

God carried us through 2025, and God will this year, too. So dream, my friends…we are held in the Shepherd’s arms and held close to Her heart.

A Prayer

One of the most crucial lessons the Spirit sent me last year and which I am carrying into this new year is the need to let go. And so I find myself turning again to the yearnings in my prayer, “For A New Year,” from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

For the New Year

Gracious One,

I thank you for holding my

hand in this fresh, new year…

Against my inclination

and with your help,

I let go of my desire for

more control over my life.

My hunger to know what’s coming

and to be ready for it.

My expectations to be in charge.

Have you not taught me again and again

how the joy is in the flexibility?

How all the unexpected,

the unwanted, the unexplained

things coalesce to carve me into

the person I really want to be?

Even the changes I asked for,

the changes I wanted,

can cause anxiety.

Treading on this shifting soil

calls for a steadiness

beyond my own capabilities.

So I trust your hand to hold mine,

carrying me into this new land –

good but different.

You are my Birthing Mother,

always re-creating, always open to change.

You keep showing me

while change is eternally constant,

so is your presence.

You engrain in me

how hope is born through struggle

and the fresh start brought through

change is an invitation to grow.

Whenever something leaves,

something new comes.

Please give me the

wisdom of soul, Loving One,

to look for it.

For a soft heart open to newness,

sensitive to others’ pain,

resilient with hope,

trusting in darkness….

this is the heart for

which I pray this year.

Amen.

Jeremiah 29:11 * Ezekiel 11:9 * 1 Corinthians 2:9

“No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the

human heart conceived, what God has

prepared for those who love God…”

– 1 Corinthians 2:9

Something that nourished me recently…

*Let the list-fun continue! :) One of our family practices throughout the year (thank you !!) is to keep a long, paper gratitude list on our kitchen wall. When one fills up, we put up a new one, and then we read the lists together on New Year’s Eve at the end of the year (or as close to it as we can). We did the same thing with the family vision board we made last year, looking at it and realizing a lot of the things on our board ended up being a part of our year. I encourage you to try it this year! You can use some paper, a white board, even post-it notes on a wall where people in your home (or it can be a solo practice) write gratitudes throughout the year. We know that gratitude changes everything, especially us.

*It brought me so much joy to see people wearing ABL art Etsy clothes this Christmas! I’m continuing to experiment with new products and designs, including this plush velvet/soft-fleece-lined blanket I made for my son this Christmas.

*One last “list” thing, but another one that really helped me. I did some writing on what I want MORE of this year, and what I want LESS of. As my little gift to you, I made a simple watercolor download you can print out and use as your own list. (Thank you for the great idea).

More:less List

4.11MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* VALENTINE’S DAY PRODUCTS IN MY ETSY SHOP ~ More on this next week, but I have some NEW things on the Etsy site, including the blanket I pictured above, as well as some things for VALENTINE’S DAY. There are pillows, packs of Valentine Cards, and a kids’ shirt that are all perfect for the holiday. I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Reflect, dream, and feel yourself carried this week, friends. It takes everything we’ve got — and more — to remain people of vision in these times. I’ll be back next week with my 2026 word. And to each of you…

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, my friends, and all the gifts of Advent to you this morning — hope, peace, joy, and love…

These are the final days before Christmas, and so today is going to be another short post…an A & S & P day — Art and Song and Prayer. I know your days are full, and yet taking just a few minutes to breathe, pause, pray….it can be enough to reground the hearts and eyes of our souls right where they need to be. To scoop all the stress, the sadness of recent current events, the longing for a new year filled with break through and blossoming, and place it in the lap of the Lord.

First of all, this song — “Your Peace Will Make Us One.” Deepest thanks to my friend, , for sharing it with me this last week. I was so profoundly moved by it, getting goose bumps as soon as it began (and definitely crying during the part about God mothering during the night). As Traci said, the meaning was profound with the beautiful subversive lyrics superimposed over a familiar tune that originally had very different lyrics. This is my prayer as we end the year and begin a new one. How we ache for it…

And then I share this prayer each year, and while it’s a “Parent’s Advent” prayer, I feel it extends to all of us who are feeling the pressure to fulfill expectations in this season. So receive this moment as a time to breathe in fully, sense your heartbeat, and feel Emmanuel with you.

A parent’s Advent prayer from Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

Dear God,

I now stop what I’m doing,

what I’m thinking,

what I’m scrambling to plan

and hustling to finish

so that I can

be here.

Be here in the safety and warmth of your love.

This love that holds me fast and keeps me centered.

What I want to be a season of joy for my children

so quickly becomes a season of

increased expectations for me—

not because they expect things,

but because I do.

It’s the pressure I put on myself to

make things perfect,

and memorable,

and happy,

and “special.”

But, you came to me amidst darkness and stars—

reminding me how darkness and light

are most beautiful together.

And, in that holy, mysterious and messy night,

you redefined perfection,

promising me that leaning into the mystery

and laying down in loving awe

compose the most faithful response.

You tell me the best gift I can give

my children this Christmas is

to look with love into their eyes.

To pause throughout the day

to pray over them.

To envelop them with arms

of fierce grace when I feel

most angry or annoyed.

To sit in wonder for a moment (or many)

and marvel at all that shaped

our family this year.

To give thanks

and allow tears to fall

and dreams to rise.

To take my pilgrim band

by their hands and walk together,

deep into the heart of Bethlehem

shining bright within our souls.

This will be more than enough,

because you’ve made a manger

in which my heart will rest and find

your heartbeat becoming mine.

Amen.

Matthew 2:10–11 * Matthew 6:31 * Luke 2:15–20

“Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has

taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

—Luke 2:15b

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Clothes, art prints, cards, personalized prints, and originals! I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

I will be taking a break from Monday Manna, over the next several weeks as we enter into holiday break with our kids and travel to see family. It’s also a time for me to reflect and prepare for the new year. I cannot thank you enough for all the support and companionship you have offered this year as we’ve journeyed together, and I anticipate with joy what we will share in 2026. In the meantime, I am sending you resilience and love, dear ones.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and much warmth (internally and externally!) to each of you as we begin this third week of Advent ~

I’ve written here before about how my mom developed Alzheimer’s-type dementia in her sixties, and the rapid progression the disease has taken. She’s been in memory care for over a couple years now, and during this journey, I’ve learned a great deal about how meaningful connection can take many forms.

Whenever I travel, I often slip in my pouch with a tiny travel-sized watercolor paint set. Many times, there aren’t moments to pull them out, but I want to be ready if and when the opportunity arises. On this last visit to my mom back in South Dakota, there was an afternoon I was so glad I had them.

We were in the “main room,” which is used for, well, everything — meals, hymn sings, ice cream breaks, and strength classes. I saw on the table under the TV some watercolor painting books. On each page, was a black outline of an animal, with the inside and surrounding area completely blank. A staff member said to me, “Oh, your mom loves those! She just dips her paint brush in the water cup and the water makes the picture appear. She could just keep going and going because areas dry while she’s painting other ones, so then she returns to where she painted before.”

I cannot recall ever painting with my mom before, including childhood. But that afternoon, we did. She sat and worked on her bunny, while I painted flower after flower, sitting next to her. It was such a profound experience for me of how grief and joy hold hands — the “joyful sorrow” I’ve heard it named. There is pain to be honored while there is also a profound gift to be appreciated. My heart aches for and over my mom, and yet I found myself overcome with the sweetness and joy of what we were sharing…much of it seeming impermanent, and yet a layer of lasting built beneath it.

As I watched my mom’s painting disappear, I thought about its parallel to my mom’s mind, and even her memory of this painting time we were sharing together. We try and hold on to both our joy and our pain, for different reasons, and to attempt to somehow control them, but like the watercolor bunny, we can’t….we just appreciate and feel it all as it’s happening, letting it fully pass through us, and trusting that — in some way — what’s most beautiful and true from this experience lives on. The love shared will echo. And the joy and the sorrow are both beautiful in their own way.

It’s like this line I recently read from Martin Prechtel’s book, The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise, in which he writes about “grief’s poetry of survival through beauty.”

We are now in the third week of Advent, known as the “joy” week. It might seem strange, then, that I focus on grief and sorrow. But I believe for many of us, we cannot access any joy if we do not also honor our grief this time of year. This isn’t about making joy override grief — it’s allowing them to live and breathe, side by side. We cannot exclusively numb — to feel our joy, we must also feel our pain.

This coming Sunday will be the longest night of the year, and many churches — including our own — host a “Blue Christmas” service. These services are meant to create space for our pain—for the losses and hardships people are carrying during “the most wonderful time of the year.” We know the calendar doesn’t really care when it comes to diagnoses and divorce proceedings and death and disasters. And as I’ve been thinking about the sorrow I carry this Advent, I’ve been reminded of this quote I’ve long-loved by James Finley…

“God protects us from nothing and sustains us through everything.”

This is what Advent is all about, and it’s also what makes the joyful sorrow possible — Emmanuel, God is with you. And honestly, that is what keeps me a Christian. The horrible still happens, but God is here with us.

And so I continue to look at this photo of my mom and me from our painting time, and let the joyful sorrow fill me, knowing my greatest joy and deepest grief are close friends. And God is here.

*If you’d like to read the longer piece I wrote this past Mother’s Day about the journey of Alzheimer’s with my mom, here is the link.

A Prayer

I recently wrote this prayer on grief for an upcoming issue of The Presbyterian Outlook. If you are feeling some waves of grief in this holiday season, I hope this prayer might be a place for your heart to land and hold that joyful sorrow…

Holy Spirit, Breath of Life —

You are built into every wall and window,

Every doorway and floorboard of this

home I call my life—

the life I’ve loved,

the life I’ve lost...

I thought I was doing pretty well.

Or did I just tell myself I was?

I made the home of my heart tidy and put together,

placing the pillows, straightening the papers....

And then, a roaring wind rips open the door left ajar,

scattering every single thing I had put in place,

everything I had touched,

every single part of me.

These gusts of grief catch me by surprise,

But why?

How did I think it could be controlled?

That someday, it would be “easier?”

Wind is life, and the cries of grief

are the sound of being alive.

What if this holy wind is sacred Spirit breath,

reminding me not to stop grieving

because grief that has space to move

leaves in its wake healing, peace, and new life?

I brace for it,

I face it,

and find myself held by unshakeable grace.

Brace, face, grace...

You make your home right in the deepest parts

of my grief and my love, showing me

they are actually the same thing,

And you are in them.

Because while the person, the dream, the life I knew itself

now feels lost to me, it is forever held in your hands.

And so am I.

So with your help, I will let go of my hanging on

that I might feel myself held.

You will bless the grieving of what I loved and lost,

making more life with the beauty of my grief expressed.

And what I actually most want, God,

is for you to keep blowing open the doors and windows of my heart,

lest I think I can control this grieving journey.

While it is the path of my loss

it is also the road reminding me I am alive,

and have loved much.

The sound of my crying

sings me back to greater life every time.

I will keep the door wide open now,

coming to its threshold and closing my eyes...

As the wind touches every part of me.

I will breathe all the way in.

I have loved and lost and am alive.

Brace, face, grace...

Amen.

Something that nourished me recently…

*On the subject of Blue Christmas, I am profoundly grateful to my dear friend (thank you, Chelsea!) who sent me this Advent devotional a couple weeks ago — Unhappy Holidays: Blessings for a Blue Christmas. I have been so deeply blessed by this devotional that delves into ways for noticing how God shows up in daily life amid our heartache, grief, and loss. I highly recommend. And the book also includes resources for small groups and use in worship settings as well as home.

*Because we need some levity in this post, how about this ornament my husband bought for our tree this year? It needs no explanation.

*We do a children’s Christmas pageant every year, and every year, it brings me so much joy. I’ve lost count now on how many times I’ve been a shepherd because I have always had at least one child as a sheep.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Clothes, art prints, cards, personalized prints, and originals! I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ I can send personalized book stickers if you’d like to give this as a gift to someone this Christmas! Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Remember to brace, face, and lean into grace, friends. And hold onto Emmanuel…God is with you.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and deep blessings to you in this week of Advent peace ~

I don’t often repost things I’ve written before, but I’m going to this week not only because there are a *few* things going on, but because when I read what I wrote last year at this time, it was exactly what my heart most needed right now (and I wonder if that is a sign maybe you need it too). Plus, it connects well with what I wrote last week about finding drishti and focus as we prepare for Christmas. It was December 2024 when I came across these words from Father Richard Rohr which reframed everything for me in general, but especially in Advent…

“Jesus invites us to withdraw our allegiance from a world of bigness, clarity, immediacy, looking good, and security, and to see life instead as smallness, patience, humility, inner wisdom, and risk-taking.”

Father Richard’s wisdom encapsulates for me what the invitation in Advent is all about, but also, why it is so hard to embrace amid the “Christmas culture” around us. We live in a world of ‘going big,’ constant improvement, and quick results, and I have found myself so convicted in my own sense of pull toward that. It takes a solid pause of reflection for me in my paralysis over presents to recognize I actually don’t need another gift guide in my inbox. The most treasured gifts this Christmas will not be quantifiable things at all.

This second week of Advent is known as the “peace” week (week one is hope, two is peace, three is joy, four is love), and Rohr’s words feel, to me, like a pretty tangible path for us to get there — in our own hearts, but also in our world. Father Richard’s list, though, are a lot of the things (I’ll speak for myself) which I often avoid.

I really believe peace and patience are the guardrails we hold here, and that patience is in the bedrock of Advent — after all, Advent begins with a promise, and embedded in a promise is some sort of delay, right? We must wait for what we most desire…

All holy desires, wrote St. Gregory hundreds of years ago, heighten in intensity with the delay of fulfillment, and a desire which fades with delay was never a holy desire at all.

What would it look like to make our desires this week that alternative list? The list we avoid? Maybe you want to pick one of them and write it on a sticky note you can place over the planner page where you’re writing everything you think you *must* do today, or place it on the mirror as a touchstone while you’re changing and getting ready, or somewhere on your car dashboard for time shuttling around…

I desire smallness instead of bigness…

I trust the strength of patience more than immediacy…

I choose humility rather than clarity…

I want inner-wisdom more than looking good…

I embrace risk-taking instead of clutching security…

Any step you take which honors one of these desires will bring peace. And remember that to live with ‘what is,’ is to be peaceful. You can live a counter-testimony today with that, showing those around you there is another way…

A Prayer

This prayer from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition, lifts a prayer for peace in all ways….

When I’m longing for peace, within and without

Beautiful Spirit of Peace,

I am longing for peace within

and peace around….

For peace in families,

peace in neighborhoods,

peace between nations,

peace for mother earth,

peace in the quiet depths

of my own soul.

Peace for people ripped open

by painful divides on

streets and in conversations…

Peace for friends facing

suicide and prison….

Peace for loved ones living through

divorce and death and hard anniversaries….

Peace for people leaving home

because their job relocated

or the money wasn’t there anymore…

Peace for those who uncovered a shocking

revelation about someone they loved,

and they aren’t sure what to do or whom to trust.

Peace for all whose

greatest fears actualized

before their eyes,

and sighs and tears

became a daily language.

Peace that holds all of

us in wholeness

when we’re carrying

grief or heartache,

chaos or tumultuous questions.

When what’s most precious to us

was swept away in one, swift wave,

or the world’s teeming with so much noise

and busyness we can’t hear ourselves think.

I ask you, Spirit of peace and hope,

to blow a breath of balm upon the wounds,

and lead us toward bone-deep belief.

Even in this challenging landscape,

may your presence bring peace

passing all understanding as it

strengthens bodies,

renews minds,

and heals this land.

I thank you that peace is not a dream,

but a promise.

And you are the Giver of Peace.

Amen.

Matthew 5:9 * Luke 1:28-32 * John 14:27

“Jesus said, ‘Peace I leave with you;

my peace I give to you. Do not let

your hearts be troubled, and do not

let them be afraid.’” – John 14:27

Something that nourished me recently…

*On the theme of an alternative path and choosing smallness and presence, I have found myself so deeply nourished by this beautiful book of poetry my friend gave to me — “Tiny Universe,” by Rachel Beachy (which, even the title seems like a gorgeous paradox, doesn’t it?). Most of her poetry centers around themes and experiences of early motherhood, and yet, the richness of what she writes brings resonance and relevance far beyond parenthood. I have felt my heart expand with each poem.

*And speaking of poetry, this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye…wow, did it resonate.

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ Clothes, art prints, cards, personalized prints, and originals! The next few days are probably the deadline for getting things in time for Christmas, especially clothes! I send a portion of each sale to World Central Kitchen which provides hunger relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ I can send personalized book stickers if you’d like to give this as a gift to someone this Christmas! Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

Blessings to you, friends, as we embrace the alternative list…smallness, patience, humility, inner wisdom, and risk-taking. One step at a time, and with each step, more peace.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, friends, and deep blessings to you as we begin Advent this week ~

Yesterday marked the start of Advent, today is World AIDS day (despite the Trump administration saying they are “cancelling” it), and our Advent theme for the week is HOPE. The four weeks of Advent (this special season in the church leading up to Christmas) are marked by four candles, each one representing a theme: week one is hope, two is peace, three is joy, and four is love.

As we start what has become my favorite liturgical season, I am finding it extra meaningful this year that the Advent themes begin with hope. We need to have this foundation before we can even begin our journey toward Christmas. Everything we dream of and wait for is predicated on a sturdy, strong hope.

Sometimes, the word “hope” can feel kind of nebulous or squishy — maybe put in the same container as a “wish.” But I like to think of hope as the deepest, oldest, most beautifully worn granite that’s endured millions of years, or the grit and determination of spirit that holds a singularity of focus nothing can dissipate.

I love OnBeing host, Krista Tippett’s, encouragement she once gave to “learn to practice a muscular hope, a resilient orientation to life that looks reality in the face and refuses to accept despair” (emphasis mine). I think that word — practice — is key here. Hope needs continual renewal, as it can so easily be worn thin. I mean, look at the year we’ve had this year, friends.

But I love that image — muscular, resilient….we throw our arms open to embrace the world exactly as it is, while giving every ounce of strength we have and everything we are to make this world more like God’s dream. And isn’t this what we see exemplified in Jesus, who gave everything to become one with the world that it might be transformed from the inside out by love?

This is what the promise, the hope, of Christmas is all about — a changed world is coming, a healed world is happening, because God dwells with us and in us. We believe the place we begin — the place everything began — is and was original goodness. And we’re headed there. And hold it within us.

I’ll leave you with something I just learned last week at my friend’s hot yoga class which I think will help us practice and grow our muscular hope (sweaty poses aside). We were early on in the class when my friend, Cindi, leading said, “each time you enter into your pose, you must find drishti, which is one of the five main foundations.”

In all my years of yoga, I had never heard of drishti…

Drishti is a sanskrit word meaning “vision” or “focus.” And what Cindi went on to say is, “you must find a single focal point for your eyes, whatever pose you are in.” So when we moved into downward dog, Cindi said, “find drishti,” and I focused on the flower insignia on the mat between my feet. Then into upward dog, Cindi said, “find drishti,” and I focused on the butterfly painted on the wall. Then into warrior two, and I found drishti by looking right beyond the end of my middle finger. Whatever pose I was in, I found my focus and stillness. It made me realize how much I am often looking around, scanning, observing, comparing, and how free, grounded, and strong I felt when I had my singular focus.

I’ve been thinking about how drishti connects with life off of the mat, and especially how hope can be our drishti as we enter Advent. There is so much happening around us causing distraction and dismay, but when we have drishti, we aren’t as easily swayed. We are granite, as well as the strong, flowing river that carved it.

And when you find yourself worn thin, remember we do not create our hope and focus ourselves, but draw it from the reservoir of God’s love.

“Hope does not disappoint us, for the love of God has been poured out into our hearts” (Romans 5:5).

Find drishti, friends.

A Prayer

I can’t talk about the theme of hope without mentioning my friend, ‘s wonderful book on it — “Hope: A User’s Manual.” Talk about practicing a muscular and resilient hope! I had the gift of writing a discussion guide that went with the book, which included this prayer. A word of “drishti” for us as we begin our Advent journey…

Gracious Guide,

I take your hand for the road.

You promise I can trust you on this journey

toward a sturdier hope—

a path I form through one consistent step...

and another...

and another...

With my hand in yours,

my feet can move forward,

even when my feelings have not.

I can live and love my way into a

whole new way of being.

With you as my Companion,

I will choose courage.

As I am remade,

so is your world.

Amen.

*Isaiah 30:20-21* *Romans 8:28* *Psalm 139:10*

“Your eyes shall see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” ~ Isaiah 30:21

Something that nourished me recently…

*Today is World AIDS day, friends, and while the government is inexplicably trying to stop it, we shall not be moved. Please find a way to support and get involved, even if it’s wearing a red ribbon. We belong to each other. Witnessing people standing together in this is manna and hope to my heart. Check out this website here.

*Our family bundled up for a very chilly Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. After much complaining everyone then decided they wanted to do it again next year. 😂 It was fun to test out my new watercolor floral leggings. They are great for running! And we also celebrated my amazing partner turning 44 on Thanksgiving day.

*This Advent Calendar ~ I’ve talked before about some of my favorite Advent traditions, including making these beeswax candles for our Advent Wreath with the kids. But we are also going to be savoring the beautiful list of daily prompts from the amazing who put together a “31 days of Light and Kindness” for the month of December. She is giving it away for FREE! You can download it here. We’ve already got ours up on our fridge. And if you want even more wonderful ideas, check out ’s book, “Faithful Families for Advent and Christmas.”

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ I sent out a post last week with a list of a bunch of things on my shop in time for the holidays, including clothes, a couple of prints for Christmas, as well as an array of other prints. Paid subscribers receive my holiday “Peace of Earth” print as a free download which you can print as many times as you like. ❄️A portion of each sale here goes to World Central Kitchen which provides food relief. You can view the shop here.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

With you, friends, as we practice a muscular hope and find drishti. Blessings to you as we begin Advent together.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

It is with great joy I am launching some new things in my Etsy Shop in time for the holidays, including clothes! Ever since I designed clothes for our family to wear at my art show this summer, I have wanted to keep creating so I could share them with you here. All of the clothing is designed and printed from scans of my original, …

Read more

Good morning, friends, and much gentleness to you and all you hold as we begin a new week ~

I was lying on the therapy/massage table for another session with my “healer,” as I call him. With injury after injury this year in my running, I had come to *D* quite a bit, especially for my sprained ankle in the last month. It wasn’t too long after that, though, when some significant pain in my glute and hamstring developed.

Me: Do you think it’s from my leg weights? (I had decided earlier that week I could do all kinds of squats and lifts after not doing much of these for years).

*D*: (No chance to respond because I just kept rattling things off…)

Me: Or maybe it’s from compensating with my ankle?

*D*: (still not able to get a word in)

Me: Do you think I was moving differently to protect my ankle and that caused this pain in my glute? Which thing do you think it could be???

*D*: (Without missing a beat after I made a pause) “I think it’s from stress.”

Me: Ohhhhhhhh……….*silence* (Here comes the internal cascade of feelings as I thought about my mom, an unexpected health challenge with one of our kids, and *all the things*)

*D*: The body follows the mind.

Me: More silence…thinking….feeling….

*D*: Your body is trying to do you a favor. It’s giving you this pain so you don’t have to think and feel all those things that are distressing you….

Me: 🤯

***

This experience on the healing table was yet another moment in the last month pointing a laser beam on the importance of emotional health. Our bodies will never lie to us, and when we aren’t facing and feeling what we need to, they will find a way to make us face and feel it. What is going on in our minds directly impacts our emotions and our bodies.

I was reading an article the other day that shared as high as 75-90% of sickness and disease somehow starts with the way we manage our emotions and stress. We like to think we don’t have to tend to our emotional health, but it is another area of our overall wellbeing that asks for just as much intentionality as any other part. Our family knows….

I myself was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder pretty early on in life. And a few years ago, my husband went on medical leave from his pastoral role to do a depression recovery outreach program. Emotional health really is life or death.

(Note: While “emotional health” and “mental health” are sometimes used interchangeably, emotional health is more of an aspect of mental health. I do think that our thoughts and feelings, though, get pretty interlaced. We must detach from the thoughts we are having that create a swirl of stress within us. And we must recognize that we don’t have to act on our feelings, we just need to honor them. And feel them.)

I also read this quote the other day:

Everything that you want, dream, desire, achieve, miss, fail, or fumble starts with the stability of your mind. ~ Lawana Gladney

Now, obviously, there is much that happens to us — bodies, minds, and spirits — that is beyond our control. But, I have recently found the Spirit gently calling me back to greater intentionality in how I am caring for my mind and heart. My husband and I have been among the many people in our community saying they’re waking up early with anxiety in the chest. Maybe it’s because ICE was ramping up its efforts even more. Maybe it’s the uncertainty and untenability of our governmental landscape. Maybe it’s something in the air.

We are already in a crucible of a time as a country, but we are now also entering the holiday season, which can be the most intense time of the year for many. Expectations. Travel. Extra commitments. Events. Did I mention expectations?

So, to return to my healer, *D*, and another thing he said near the end of our session. “I think the world is going to heal by everyone taking responsibility for their own minds and inner experiences.”

I think that starts with fixing our eyes and minds on Jesus, taking deep breaths, focusing our energy toward what we can control, and pulling out a pen (in addition to regular therapy, medication, and other supports, all of which have been integral to my experience). I myself have been especially appreciating these “Journal Prompts to Support your Emotional Health” from Onsite Therapy and Wellness Center. I’ll share a handful of them here with hopes you will care for yourself in this way. As one of my favorite Sara Groves songs says, “Let’s feel what we couldn’t feel…know what we cannot know…heal where we couldn’t heal…let’s be a miracle.”

Give yourself ten minutes, ask God to bring light and sit with you, and write out one of these…

*Fill a page with things that make you happy. You can do this as a list or as drawings.

*What does it look like when your emotional wellness is off-kilter? What are common indicators that you are under stress, exhausted, or depressed? What types of things help you when you’re feeling this way?

*Make a list of five difficult things you’ve overcome. Next to each item, identify the characteristic(s) that you developed through this experience.

*What emotion(s) are you feeling right now? Where do you feel that feeling(s)? On a scale of 1-10, how strong is each emotion? What is this emotion telling you about your current circumstances?

*With whom do you feel most like yourself? What is it about those people that make you feel safe and free to show up as you are? What places do you feel most like yourself? What is it about those places that make you feel safe and free to show up as you are?

*What are five things you are grateful for today?

*Describe your 8-year-old self. What did you love? What did you hate? What did you want to become someday?

*Set a timer for 10 minutes and write whatever comes through your head. No editing, no erasing, just let it flow.

*Write about the last time you laughed until you cried.

*What is one toxic thing, habit, or person that you feel the need to let go of?

*What ten words best describe you at your best?

A Prayer

This prayer is perfect for all the emotions we feel and hold, reminding us they all belong. Even what seems like opposite emotions, or a paradox of emotions, seamlessly hold together in the gentle hands of God who holds all those emotions with us. Here is a prayer for “When I’m a Paradox of Feelings,” from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition.

When I’m a paradox of feelings

Sweet Spirit,

How grateful I am for

your companionship

in all I feel and hold.

Sometimes I feel unglued,

going in so many directions

and yearning for centeredness

amid the clamor.

Sometimes I feel bored stiff,

weighed down by the

heavy sameness of

my days and my choices.

Sometimes I feel strong and grateful,

amazed at the sweetness

in this season of life.

Sometimes I feel self-pitying,

sad that another week passed

without a phone call from family

or invitation from a friend.

Sometimes I feel consumed with worry—

people who need help,

people making sad choices,

people I feel responsible for,

people I don’t understand

(or don’t understand me).

You beautifully seam my paradoxes,

grounding both my

flurry and emptiness,

my worry and joy,

in your heart.

Help me give each of

these feelings their place—

to honor them,

accept them,

and with a breath of release,

blow away the ones no longer needed.

I praise you, Loving Spirit,

for the fresh energy and freedom you offer.

Thank you for living within me,

breathing your peace and power

into the bottom of my being.

It is not by my own abilities but by you

that I live out my calling.

I ask for your support to be with me,

for you are my Source of true strength.

You have been and will be with me —

in the variety of unique

circumstances and challenges I face.

I open my arms and eyes

with the acceptance you’re teaching me…

Amen.

Psalm 20:7 * Psalm 41:12 * Zechariah 4:6

“You know me inside and out, you hold me together…”

—Psalm 41:12 (The Message)

Something that nourished me recently…

*I read these quotes from Mister Rogers last month and copied them down into my journal. I returned to them again the other day…Thank you, God, for Mister Rogers.

*Getting this photo from a supporting subscriber of Monday Manna with her holiday downloadable I sent out last week to paid subscribers already printed and framed. Doesn’t it look absolutely perfect with the globe? She has the artistic eye! It’s not too late to get this download if you become a paid subscriber before Christmas. :)

*First snowfall!

Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

* MY ETSY SHOP ~ A separate email will be coming on Wednesday with a list of fun things in my Etsy Shop in time for the holidays, including CLOTHES!! :) Everything meets my criteria of the C’s — Comfy, Cozy, and Colorful! I have a number of sweatshirts, t-shirts, kids’ clothes, yoga leggings, and the dress I wore for my art show! I’ve had a lot of fun wearing them already as I’ve tested out products. A portion of each sale here goes to World Central Kitchen which provides food relief, especially urgent right now with the SNAP defunding. You can view the shop here. Here’s a sneak peek of some of what’s to come, with lots more to see in a couple days. The new listings will go live on Wednesday.

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Monday Manna each week is free! Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

I’ll be sending my holiday Etsy shop update on Wednesday, but won’t have a Monday Manna next week due to some travel and commitments. I’ll be back as we begin Advent! Wishing all of you a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving with room and reverence for all your emotions. I have long loved Isaiah 26:3 — “You keep in perfect peace those whose minds are set on you.” Let’s set our minds and hearts in the right place this week, friends, and keep feeling our feelings.

Love and Light,

Arianne

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.

Good morning, my friends, and peace to you…

Read more

Good morning, friends, and deep hope, peace, love, and joy to you this week ~

I just returned from some travel, so today’s post is going to be different and short. I want to share with you two things, both of which I believe will deeply nourish you — a “kindness” video made by kids at our church, and the incredible photography of my friend, , who set my Autumn Prayer to photography in his Substack last week.

So first, the video on “What is Kindness,” told through the voices and lives of four through eleven-year-olds a few weeks ago. 💛 This was put together by a handful of kids at our church (including mine), directed by our wonderful Lindley Traynor. It is worth the three minutes of your time, my friends. As we think about what the world needs most right now, it is this.

Secondly, I shared in my Monday Manna last week the prayer “For Autumn” from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition. My talented friend, , set the prayer to his photography later in the week. Give yourself another gift by looking at these images and soaking in the beauty. The link is here, and below.

Imago Scriptura

For Autumn - Arianne’s Words and My Photos

Before jumping into the post, just a quick reminder that my calendars are now available! You can find them at the link just below, including screenshots of each of the months. Three options this year - Psalms with Scout (or Pscout), Expansive, and Herons. Each are available in 8x11 ($29.99) or 12x12 ($34.99…

Read more

5 months ago · 11 likes · 4 comments · Edward Goode

Okay, friends, that’s all for now. I will be back next week with more of the usual. And for paid subscribers, be watching your email this week for your early Christmas present of the downloadable “Peace On Earth” watercolor print.

Be kind. Find and create beauty. That alone will do some incredible healing work today.

Love and Light,

Arianne

*My Etsy Site

*Order Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition

*www.ariannebraithwaitelehn.com

I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.