Hello, friends.

I promise that I haven't forgotten you or abandoned this online space. Life has been happening, and so has growth, and there is quite a lot to share. But for now, I need to stay quiet in this space for the next little while.

Put most simply, I need to attend to the mending of my heart. It's finally on the mend after a long season of darkness, and I am thankful to be glimpsing the light in my days once more. Right now, I'm realizing it is best to direct a majority of my energy to staying present to that light.

One way that I am going to be able to stay present to that light is through the relaunch of my original blog, Lilies Have Dreams. This was my first and long-time online haven where I reflected regularly on my daily life, faith, and growth, and I've decided it will be the perfect environment for staying present to where I am, especially in the dailiness of my days. It has always been a sacred and often playful home for my soul, and I know spending time there again will provide rich nurture for me.

I anticipate returning to a regular pace of posting here in the next couple months, and I look forward to when that time comes. After all, we still have much journeying to do here together! (Feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed so you can be kept in the loop when regular posting begins again.)

But during this quiet time, as I encounter stories and links worth sharing, I'll still pop in and share them with you.

For instance, here are two beautiful stories I discovered recently that encourage me to keep living from a place of love and understanding in this world, whether I'm encountering events that are world-changing in their magnitude or happen inside the course of a normal routine:

A look back at 9/11 from the perspective of a punk rock singer as he experienced the event in 2001.
One man's loving -- and ultimately impactful -- response to a mugger at the end of his hour-long commute to the Bronx one night.

Thank you for your patience and understanding through this.

And know that in this in-between time, you are always welcome to join me over at the Lilies blog!

[Image credit: Sara Alfred.]

Hello there, friends. I feel the need to begin this entry with a confession:

I haven't been very kind to myself of late.

Nope.

Haven't been kind to myself at all.

Instead of grace, I've spooned out judgment.

Instead of compassion, I've unleashed litanies of self-criticism.

I've pointed out to myself with regularity all the ways I've fallen short.

And not measured up.

And let people down.

And really, just failed to hold up the world with perfect precision.

Isn't that crazy?

But there it is:

Being an imperfect human feels quite intolerable these days.

It's such a strange place to be.

I spent years on an long, inward journey that led me to embrace grace.

To hold tenderly the broken places inside myself.

To offer those vulnerable places to God.

And to receive unconditional love and acceptance in return.

It was such a beautiful journey.

I came to know know, deep down, that our humanness delights the heart of God.

And I came to fight fiercely for this truth on behalf of others.

But these days?

That's not where I've been living at all.

These days, all I hear is the cacophony of merciless self-judgment.

These days, I barely even remember grace exists.

I'll be honest.

All of this has made me near-blind and near-deaf to the nonviolent journey.

Because, really:

How can we walk the nonviolent path if we're battering our own hearts and souls with fierce, heavy weapons each day?

The truth is, we can't.

There are long lists in my notebook of ideas worth writing about here.

There are so many things I want to say and ask and explore about the nonviolent journey with you.

And we will get to those things, I promise.

But today, what I most need to say is this:

Nonviolence is as much a disposition toward ourselves as it is toward others.

And right now, I'm relearning that truth.

It's humbling to be relearning, to be a beginner on a path of grace I had once come to know so well.

But there you go.

That's my truth today.

What about you?

Do you struggle with self-kindness?

What helps you find room for self-kindness these days?

A Time of Rest to Mend the Soul

On Being Kind to Ourselves