Joy of a Good Book
As is my habit when I wake up in the night, I read for a little while. The author eloquently, passionately, and descriptively talked about color. She said, “For my whole life I have seen the world through color. Her description of pink was stunning. She was talking about how pink can be soft and childlike or adult and passionate. She talked extensively about all of the different shades of pink. How it blends in with the blue in the sky sometimes. And then she said that her mother was in despair about how much her daughter liked pink. Her mother wanted her to be hard and corporate, like she was. But the author could not do that because she had the heart of an artist. She talked about eating lunch with a friend and how the light played across his face. She talked about the light blue color of his eyes and what shades of blue and white she would mix the colors to paint them.
Light and Faces
I love that because I am a photographer and I frequently find myself watching how the light shines on someone’s face. I can be having a conversation with someone and thinking about the quality of the indirect window light. I just did that Tuesday when I went out to breakfast with a friend. And I took a picture of him when it was just right! So I get the light thing.
Writing in Bed
Then I wrote in bed for about 30 minutes, using my iPhone and thumbs, what the experience of being a healing minister was like. I get huge joy out of writing. So I enjoy the writing of other people and I really like doing it. I am not sure if I am any good at it, but I deeply enjoy the emotions when I do it.
About 5:00 a.m. I decided to go back to sleep for a while. My wife said, “I am awake. We could just get up now if you want.” I said that I was going to see if I could get back to sleep for a bit. So we snuggled up close to each other and within a few minutes I heard cute little girl sized snores. That is a mighty sweet sound. Then I fell back asleep. Right before I woke up at 6:45 I had a dream. I was with my granddaughters. One of them said, “Just to be clear grampa, your neck does not have a stalk.” That was delightfully cute and funny, just like she is in real life.
I woke up laughing about that.
Coffee
Then we came downstairs and shared some easy conversation while we watched the coffee brew.
Men's Community Group
My wife took a quick glance at her email and saw that the director of community groups at our church, had responded to my request to initiate a grilling BBQ men’s group. Community groups for this semester have already begun. I was way late in bringing this up. However, I did not get the idea until yesterday when I was having a “hypothetical” conversation about doing a men’s BBQ group. My wife responded, “What is keeping you from just doing it!”
I explained that to Jen in my email request. The idea just came to life yesterday. So I wrote her and asked if I could do a men’s community BBQ grilling group.
Then she responded late last night. She and her assistant Meredith had brainstormed ideas of what we COULD do. She was well within her role to say, “Sorry you missed the deadline.” That would have been OK. I was prepared to hear that.
However, she came up with three thoughtful ways that would could make the group happen! All of them were creative, thoughtful, and would work. Holy smoke! She is an impressive lady!
All I could say to her ideas were, “WOW!” I said that about ten times. It was so impressive and said so much about who she is. I felt very heard, celebrated, embraced, and supported. Of course, that interaction added, in a big way, to the goodness of the morning.
Conversation
Sweet baby and I went into the “listening room,” our space that is dedicated to ministry and conversations. If you are my friend, you may have had a good chat with me in that room.
Book
I told her about reading a great new book that is so descriptive. The author was describing someone and said, “There is a twinkle in his eyes like he is about to tell you a secret that is going to make you laugh.” My sweet wife gets a look like that when she is about to do something funny.
Painting
The author’s description of the painting experience made me want to start painting. Then I thought about that some. I said, “Just imagine a colorful oil painting of stick figures.” So I decided simply to dream about becoming a great painter. Sounds romantic and good. I will just dream about putting up my easel with a big canvas and creating something beautiful.
Gratefulness
We had a nice conversation about gratefulness. I was speechless. Tears ran down my cheeks as I experienced gratitude for this whole package. For the experiences that I just described. For getting to do healing ministry as our life calling. For getting to help people find solutions to difficult life situations. For Mike’s Crazy Ideas of the day. For my friends supporting me. One of those ideas was the Listening Gathering where I shared with about a dozen friends some of the big ideas of things that I had learned about listening in the last couple of years. What is significant about this is when I have an idea to do something, like Big Idea Listening Breakfast, BBQ Camp, or the Listening Gathering, my friends come around and do the ideas with me.
To Be a Minister
I am grateful for the question from our friend April about what it was like to be a healing minister and how she could transfer out of the corporate world and shift into a ministry role. That’s what inspired me to write this morning for 30 minutes in bed with my iPhone.
I am grateful that we have a couple coming in 35 minutes to talk about marriage. We spent a week with them and have already had one follow up session where we just talked about marriage. They are a delightful couple.
That’s all I am going to say about that! Gotta get ready for our couple!