280 days ago I put pen to paper and wrote Day 1 on the top of my journal. It wasn’t the first page in the notebook but it was the first page of counting. Counting the days that gathered us in and closed us off. 280 days of counting and I am still not done. Yet, this is something I will walk away from this time, we have both – always both – here on this dirty ground. We have the good and the bad. We have heaven and hell. We have them both – because here we can live them both. Our humanity is born from the breath of God and breathed into the dirt of this ground. It holds us here in both kingdoms and here we must learn to love one more than the other.

Perfection will never happen but surrender always will. We choose to whom we surrender.

2020 has been a year of fear – fear of a virus, fear of scarcity, fear of others, fear of police, and fear of politicians. Fear causes us to capitulate or it becomes the root of resistance. Fear induces us to relinquish or it provokes us to seize hold.  Surrender will only come when fear is confronted – not the person, the place or the thing – but the fear we hold within us.