Courage & Renewal North Texas Blog

March Image of Renewal

 

 What quiet rhythms do you see rippling through your life and work?

 
 
 
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Photo Mandala © Donna Bearden
 
These images and words are a monthly offering from Courage & Renewal - North Texas. It is our hope that they will provide a moment of refreshment, of reflection, of renewal - and will enable you to live and work more wholeheartedly.
 
 
"Reconnecting Who You Are With What You Do."
   

February Words of Courage

 
Falling Silent
 
 
Let yourself fall
 
towards silence.
 
The work will wait.
 
The people will live.
 
 
Life’s traffic will swim
 
its strokes without you.
 
This is your time to rest
 
on the kind rest of silence.
 
 
Sit awhile in the quilted corner
 
of the one life that needs you.
 
The silence loves your
 
company.
 
 
Love her.
 
 
Breathe the song of your
 
sweet breath.
 
Hear the air sway,
 
the hammock swing.
 
 
The sea’s torso swells like yours
 
rises with the moon tides.
 
Ride this current of quiet.
 
This is your time to rest.
 
 
Erie Chapman, The Caregiver Meditations: Reflections of Loving Presence, Baptist Healing Trust, 2008.
 
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What gifts might "falling into silence" bring to the "one life that needs you"?
 
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To share your comment about this poem and question click on "write a comment" below.
 
This is our monthly offering of Words of Courage. It is our hope that the words that you read and the questions you consider will en-courage you to engage fully in your work in the world.
 
These "Words of Courage" contributed by Chick Deegan, a long time friend and facilitator for CRNT.
   

February Images of Renewal

 

 
 What patterns and paths can you see in your life and work?
 
  
 
Photo Mandala © Donna Bearden
 
These images and words are a monthly offering from Courage & Renewal - North Texas. It is our hope that they will provide a moment of refreshment, of reflection, of renewal - and will enable you to live and work more wholeheartedly.
 
 
"Reconnecting Who You Are With What You Do."
 

   

January Image of Renewal

 

 What seeds sre lying dormant for you in your life and work?

 

 
These images and words are a monthly offering from Courage & Renewal - North Texas. It is our hope that they will provide a moment of refreshment, of reflection, of renewal - and will enable you to live and work more wholeheartedly. 

 Photo Mandala © Donna Bearden 

   

December Words of Courage

According to “the Internet” a seven-year-old named Bobby defined love in the following way:  “It’s what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”

 

What might you perceive if you stopped to listen?

 

To share your comment about this poem and question click on "write a comment" below.

 

This is our monthly offering of Words of Courage. It is our hope that the words that you read and the questions you consider will en-courage you to engage fully in your work in the world.
These "Words of Courage" contributed by Ann Faulkner, a long time friend and facilitator for CRNT.

   

December Image of Renewal

What holiday tradition are you looking forward to celebrating with your family & friends?

  
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Photo Mandala © Donna Bearden
 
These images and words are a monthly offering from Courage & Renewal - North Texas. It is our hope that they will provide a moment of refreshment, of reflection, of renewal - and will enable you to live and work more wholeheartedly.
 
 
"Reconnecting Who You Are With What You Do."
   

November Words of Courage

Thanks For Those Things That Are Yet Possible                                            
 
At the beginning of this new year
we give thanks for our time
and for those things that are yet possible
            and precious in it:
                   daybreak and beginning again,
                          midnight and the reassurance of routine,
                                  the taming of demons in the dance of dreams;
 
a word of forgiveness
             and sometimes a song,
For our breathing….and our lives.
 
We give thanks
for the honesty that marks friends
             and makes laughter;
for fierce gentleness
            that dares to speak the truth in love
                         and tugs us to join the long march toward peace:
for the sudden gust of grace
              that rise unexpectedly in our wending from dawn to dawn:
for children unabashed,
           wind rippling a rain puddle,
                    a mockingbird in the darkness,
                            a colleague and a cup of coffee:
for music and silence,
             for wrens and Orion,
                     for everything that moves us to tears,
                                   to touching
                                              to dreams
                                                   to prayers.
 
We give thanks for work
             that engages us in an internal debate
                         between reward and responsibility;
for our longings,
our callings,
our lives.
 
Poem from Guerrillas of Grace by T. Loder
 
 
 
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What do you give thanks for at this time?
 
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To share your comment about this poem and question click on "write a comment" below.
 
This is our monthly offering of Words of Courage. It is our hope that the words that you read and the questions you consider will en-courage you to engage fully in your work in the world.
 
These "Words of Courage" contributed by Elaine Sullivan, a long time friend and facilitator for CRNT.
 
   

November Image of Renewal

 

 

 

 

 What threads do you follow?

 

 

How do they help you in these times of
uncertainty and challenge?

 

 

 

***** 

 

Please visit our blog to share your comments on

today's Image of Renewal and questions.

 

***** 

Photo Mandala © Donna Bearden

 

These images and words are a monthly offering from Courage & Renewal - North Texas. It is our hope that they will provide a moment of refreshment, of reflection, of renewal - and will enable you to live and work more wholeheartedly.

   

Thinking About Community

 

 

Thinking About Community

Last Thursday,  October 15th, 25 individuals gathered for Dinner & Dialogue to share and discuss in the hopes of learning more about themselves each other and our richly diverse community. On that night, Cindy shared a story about community written by Wendell Berry.  I would like to share that  story and the following questions with you now.

 

 

 What Are People For

 

I was walking one Sunday afternoon several years ago with an older friend. We went by the ruining log house that had belonged to his grandparents and great-grandparents. The house stirred my friend's memory, and he told how the old-time people used to visit each other in the evenings, especially in the long evenings of winter. There used to be a sort of institution in our part of the country known as "sitting till bedtime." After supper, when they weren't too tired, neighbors would walk across the field to visit each other. They popped corn, my friend said, and ate apples and talked. They told each other stories. They told stories about each other, about themselves, living again in their own memories and thus keeping their memories alive. Among the hearers of these stories were always the children. When bedtime came, the visitors lit their lanterns and went home. My friend talked about this, and thought about it, and then he said, "They had everything but money."

    They were poor, as country people have often been, but they had each other, they had their local economy in which they helped each other, they had each other's comfort when they needed it, and they had their stories, their history together in that place.

 

- Wendell Berry 

 

  1. Think of a specific experience that you have or had where there is/was a real sense of community.  What did it look like, feel like, sound like?  What made it "real community"?  What was your role?

  2. Based on those experiences, think about the following questions: 
       a.  What helps you to participate in community?
       b.  What keeps you from participating in community?
       c.  What do these reflections suggest as you are involved in
             community in the days ahead?

 

This is our monthly offering of Words of Courage. It is our hope the words  you read and the questions you consider will en-courage you to engage fully in your work in the world.

 

These Words of Courage contributed by Nate' Hearne, Cindy Johnson and Melissa Smart, a friend and intern of CRNT.

Dinner & Dialogue was a collaboration between CRNT and 3 great organizitions focused on helping individulas in the community.  Click on each organizations logo to learn more about what they do:

 

 

        

 

   

October Image of Renewal

 

 

 

 

On October 3, CRNT showcased the work of 3 North Texas artist as a part of Goggle Night (see photos), an event that promotes the art, music and local businesses in the Near Southside community.   One artist asked to participate was our very own, Donna Bearden, whose beautiful Mandalas (like the one above)and photography were on display!

 

To learn more about Donna and her wonderful work, please visit her webpage on the City of Addison's website.

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Please share your comments.

 

  

Photo Mandala © Donna Bearden

 

These images and words are a monthly offering from Courage & Renewal - North Texas. It is our hope that they will provide a moment of refreshment, of reflection, of renewal - and will enable you to live and work more whole heartedly.

 

www.CourageNorthTexas.org

 

"Reconnecting Who You Are With What You Do."

 


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How to be an Educator

How to be an Educator

by Catherine Wehlburg

 

Listen carefully and don’t assume.

Students and teachers all need to

Learn and we often teach what we need to learn most.

 

Be humble. You do not know all the answers

You don’t even know all the questions.

But, together “we” might.

 

Be open to idea. The sky isn’t always blue

And the leaves aren’t always green.

Knowing and learning are both part of a process that never ends.

 

Search continuously.
There is always another way, another thought, another concept.

We are all students, we are all teachers.

We are all in this together.

 

 

How to be an Educator was written and "gifted" to us by Catherine Wehlburg, a member of our Board and great friend.

 

We invite you to share your comments . Thank you!

 

   

September Words of Courage

Stubborn Ounces

(To One Who Doubts the Worth of

Doing Anything If You Can’t Do Everything)

By Bonaro W. Overstreet

 

You say the Little efforts that I make

will do no good: they never will prevail

to tip the hovering scale

where Justice hangs in balance.

 

I don’t think

I ever thought they would.

But I am prejudiced beyond debate

in favor of my right to choose which side

shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.

 

Where are you currently placing your “stubborn ounces?”

 

 

Share your comments about this poem.

 

This is our monthly offering of Words of Courage. It is our hope that the words that you read and the questions you consider will en-courage you to engage fully in your work in the world.

 

These "Words of Courage" contributed by David Grebel, a long time friend and supporter of CRNT.

   

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