Courage | Curiosity | Creativity
Notes and Musings from Dr Judy Brown and guests writers circling the topics of leadership, stewardship, poetry, creativity, diversity, dialogue and appreciative inquiry and renewal.
The year's end is often a time of reflection coinciding with the gift of a new year-- full of possibility. So, it is a time of both looking back and looking forward. I came by this poem, looking back through my journal. It is in someways a reflection on the circle conversation that many of us have been involved in over the years. It seemed like the right time to share it with you.
Read MoreSometimes songs go through my head. And stay around, circle around, repeating themselves. Sometimes it's just the melody, and I can't even recall the lyrics. I end up having to hum whatever it is to my musically talented husband. And he comes up with the name of the song, and searches out the lyrics.
I've learned over time to pay attention to those lyrics, just as I have learned to pay attention to a line of poetry that circles around in my mind. To take the words seriously. To mull them over. To be curious about what they might have to teach me. Now.
Read MoreThis picture of my rangy blooming cactus servers as a reminder to me that things take time and all natures critters bloom at their own speed. Including you and me.
I can't remember where the cactus came from. Maybe a gift years back. It seems to survive long periods without much water or attention. But it's a gangly thing growing in strange directions with some branches that seem almost broken.
Read MoreAfter worrying about not having enough time for everything our group had planned for our agenda--and finding that the retired Methodist missionary women, who knew nothing about the time bind, had gifted me three packets of Thyme seeds (enough thyme/time, you think?)--I began wondering about gifts.
Where do gifts come from? Can we recognize them for what they are? Does the giver understand the power of the gift? And do we realize what we have been given? Especially when we are stressed, or anxious, or rushing about.
Read MoreJanuary 2, 2012
Dear One and All,
A few days back, my friend Mary Parish and I spent some quiet time together musing about what we might be sensing for ourselves, and for each other, in the year ahead. Not New Year’s resolutions, so much as a dissolving of the constraints of old ways of thinking, old expectations, old demands we place on ourselves.
Read More©Judy Sorum Brown 2012. Website designed by Lisa Brookfield
