adriennehope

thoughts from a city in November

This time last year, I was in Chicago, staying downtown in a hotel on the waterfront with a friend who was attending a conference, then doing a reverse commute out to the suburbs every day to spend time with my brother and sister-in-law. It was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel to theContinue reading “thoughts from a city in November”

dying beautifully

Yesterday morning it was cold. I walked the gravel path, hands tucked up into my sleeves to stay warm, hood up and framing my face against the late fall morning. I walked because I could – because I was in a place where, slipping out early enough, I would see no one else and hearContinue reading “dying beautifully”

to two little men

You won’t always run and throw your arms around me. Especially not outside the school door, with all your classmates around. “When I grow up,” you said, “I will make a law so they can’t cut down so many trees.” Solving problems will not always be so simple. Hand knit sweaters will not always be cool. YouContinue reading “to two little men”

worthwhile

Early morning found me driving out of the city, the mist seeming to rise from my heart as surely as the sun was burning it from the land around me. I left the highway for a curvy small-town road, and then one without lines or shoulders or rails, and followed it between empty hills, theContinue reading “worthwhile”

my Father’s Word

I sit on my bed, sunlight and summer warmth streaming through the blinds, the world fully awake outside my windows, but I don’t have to enter it yet. Only the intangible and unwritten calls for my time and attention today. That which is most important and too often first overlooked. I reach for and openContinue reading “my Father’s Word”

a psalm

A few weeks ago I sat on a concrete roof in the early Sunday morning Peruvian sun and turned to the psalms. The ten of us in that circle were halfway through a three week trip and my co-leader and I wanted to lead the students somewhere intentional, somewhere that would help them think throughContinue reading “a psalm”

wonder

“The practice of paying attention is the rarest of gifts because it depends upon the harshest of disciplines. So uncommon is it for us to grasp the beauty and mystery of ordinary things that, when we finally do so, it often brings us to the verge of tears. Appalled by our own poverty, we awakeContinue reading “wonder”

attentiveness (a Holy Week prayer)

It’s Holy Week. I want to pay attention. If all of Lent is a time to enter into the sufferings of Christ, to attempt to understand just the tiniest fraction of what He lost and what He sacrificed and what He carried, then Holy Week takes this entering in to another level, because we knowContinue reading “attentiveness (a Holy Week prayer)”

days of small things

give me eyes for the small things and in them to see Your likeness and Your desire and Your blessings but to need them not for any of these but only for the reason that You have seen fit to call them good for me and for Your glory put my hands to the plowContinue reading “days of small things”

and this is love

Today is Valentine’s Day. My last date on Valentine’s Day was in fifth grade, when my dad took me out for breakfast before school and gave me a heart shaped balloon with a teddy bear and the words “I love you” on it. I still have that balloon. Yes, it’s a made up holiday. Yes, it’sContinue reading “and this is love”