Blog tags & Archive

Archive

May 2023 (6)
- Draw near: Praying for hope
- First post in a new series: Spiritual practices and prayer
- Draw near: Praying to listen to our bodies
- Simplicity and prayer
- Hospitality and prayer
- Prayers of releasing/receiving/returning while walking
April 2023 (4)
- Draw near: Praying about friendships and loneliness
- Draw near: Praying about friendship and freedom
- Draw Near: Praying to love our limits
- Draw near: Praying to act like a friend
March 2023 (4)
- Draw near: Praying to be present when people change
- Draw near: Asking God for maps
- Draw near: Praying for the ability to listen to unexpected voices
- Draw near: Praying to accept pain as a source of growth
February 2023 (4)
- Draw near: Praying to recognize the good
- Draw near: Names for God in prayer
- Draw near: praying about being as relationship
- Draw near: Praying about starting, stopping, and finishing
January 2023 (4)
- Draw near: Praying to be like water
- Draw near: Praying about ambition
- Draw near: Praying about what we are looking for
- Draw near: Praying from a liminal space
December 2022 (5)
- Draw near: Praying in Advent
- Draw near: Praying for joy
- Draw near: Praying without words
- Draw near: Looking back, looking forward, in prayer
- Draw near: Loosening our grip
November 2022 (1)
- Bonus post: Dave Baab’s philosophy of watercolor sketching
October 2022 (5)
- Draw near: Fragrance
- Draw near: Prayer for workers
- Draw near: Contrasts
- Draw Near: Praying for trust and prayer as trust
- Draw near: Desire
September 2022 (5)
- Draw near: To whom do we pray?
- Draw near: Praying to Jesus for perseverance
- Draw near: Praying to Jesus, our priceless treasure
- Draw near: Praying to the Holy Spirit
- Draw near: Praying to the gracious, tender, truthful Spirit
August 2022 (6)
- Draw near: Confessing sin without wallowing
- Draw near: A favorite prayer about peace, freedom, and much more
- Drawing near with Desmond Tutu: God’s love is the foundation for prayer
- Draw near: Worshipping God with Desmond Tutu
- Draw near: Yearning, beseeching and beholding with Desmond Tutu
- Draw near: Praising God with Desmond Tutu
July 2022 (2)
- Draw near: Tune our hearts
- Draw near: Feeling unworthy as an obstacle to prayer
June 2022 (6)
- Draw near: Be the Gardener of my soul
- Draw near: Praying for power
- Draw near: Simple prayers for friends and family members
- Draw near: Praying with Others
- Draw near: O Antiphons
- Draw near: Learning from Celtic Christian thankfulness
May 2022 (5)
- Receptivity and offering: Tears
- Receptivity and offering: And-ness
- A potpourri of quotations about receptivity and offering
- Receptivity and offering: Our hearts
- First post in a new series: Draw near
April 2022 (6)
- Receptivity and offering: Hands
- Receptivity and offering: Dependence
- Receptivity and offering: The journey
- Receptivity and offering: My presence
- Receptivity and offering: Moments
- Receptivity and offering: Our attention
March 2022 (5)
- Receptivity and offering: Reframing regrets by separating thoughts from feelings
- Receptivity and offering: Sharing regrets with others
- Receptivity and offering: Extract a lesson from regrets
- Receptivity and offering: Posture/stance
- Receptivity and offering: Fatigue
February 2022 (4)
- Receptivity and offering: Another world walking beside ours
- Receptivity and offering: Regret
- Receptivity and offering: Reframing regrets
- Receptivity and offering: Some options for reframing regrets
January 2022 (3)
- Receptivity and Offering: The good versus the perfect
- Receptivity plus offering my (messy) song to God
- Receptivity and offering: Reasonable hope
December 2021 (5)
- Grief and gratitude in Advent
- Can we feel sad when we have something we longed for?
- First post in a new series: Receptivity and offering
- Receptivity and Offering: Preparing for Christmas
- Receptivity and Offering: Welcoming God's transformation in 2022
November 2021 (4)
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Overview of the series
- Grief and gratitude in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Gerard Manley Hopkins
- Grief and thankfulness at the same time or back and forth?
- The pivot between grief and gratitude
October 2021 (5)
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Learning from Jesus about anger
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Other people’s decisions belong to them
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Give less advice
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Care not cure
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Sin as vandalism of shalom
September 2021 (4)
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Unexpected friends
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Detachment with love
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Seeing people through the lens of Jesus’ cross
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Free to be a little weird
August 2021 (4)
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Confess and admit
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Choosing disruption through spiritual practices
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Closed doors/stop
- Holy Spirit disruptions: “There was another in the fire”
July 2021 (4)
- Holy Spirit disruptions: What if something being hard shows we’re doing it right?
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Go/Wait
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Wait
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Ignite holy fire
June 2021 (4)
- First post in a new series: Holy Spirit disruptions
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Embodiment
- Holy Spirit disruptions: Pride and ego
- Holy Spirit disruptions: We are God’s beloved
May 2021 (4)
- Quotations I love: John Stott on pruning
- Quotations I love: Try softer
- Quotations I love: A primary task of listening
- Quotations I love: Knowing how to “tune in” and “tune out” of conversations
April 2021 (5)
- Quotations I love: Disenfranchised grief
- Quotations I love: Listen to the sermon preached to you by the flowers
- Quotations I love: Memory
- Quotations I love: God’s image in us when we speak
- Quotations I love: Make it beautiful
March 2021 (4)
- Quotations I love: sojourners and homemakers on a journey
- Quotations I love: Thomas Merton on the present moment
- Quotations I love: The answer is in a story
- Quotations I love: No matter what happens . . .
February 2021 (4)
- Quotations I love: the consolation of imaginary things
- Quotations I love: Eugene Peterson on anything goes in prayer
- Quotations I love: Become what you already are
- Quotations I love: P. D. James on pain and love
January 2021 (4)
- Living free from covid while people I love suffer
- Quotations I love: Action plus character
- Quotations I love: Bruce Springsteen on limits and possibilities
- Quotations I love: G. K. Chesterton on doing things badly
December 2020 (5)
- Lament after Thanksgiving
- Advent and Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere: The Light
- Advent and Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere: Our bodies
- Christmas food in the Southern Hemisphere
- Intentionality and space at Christmas in the Southern hemisphere
November 2020 (3)
- Partners in experiencing God’s grace
- Three passages on God’s new things
- A conversation with Jesus about bread
October 2020 (5)
- Matthew 14: God’s peace in turbulent seas and heavy winds
- Matthew 22: Whose image do you bear?
- Matthew 27: The question of Judas
- Psalm 96: A call to prayer for the nations
- God's grace in Ephesians 2
September 2020 (4)
- Reflections on six months of sheltering in place
- Psalm 84: The sweetness
- Psalm 84 and Deuteronomy 32: Water
- Psalm 84: Doorkeeper, sun and shield
August 2020 (4)
- Creativity, imagination, Jesus, and prayer for people we love
- Creativity, imagination and Jesus’ relationships
- Creativity in C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra
- Creativity: Exaggeration and a few closing thoughts
July 2020 (5)
- Creativity and the body
- Creativity and imagination
- Creativity and Imagination: One author’s perspective
- Creativity, imagination and Jesus
- Creativity, imagination and empathy
June 2020 (4)
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: Acceptance
- First post in a new series on creativity: Feeling creativity-impaired
- Creativity: One key prayer
- Creativity though hidden art
May 2020 (4)
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of separating thoughts from feelings
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of welcoming prayer
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: a kite string as a lifeline
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of God’s distant future
April 2020 (7)
- Spiritual diary of self-isolation: the lifeline of God’s constancy
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of accepting my place as a clay jar
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: the lifeline of memories
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: the lifeline of “Good” in “Good Friday”
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of “easier does not mean easy”
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: The lifeline of nature
- Spiritual diary of sheltering in place: the lifeline of God’s voice through the Bible
March 2020 (7)
- Important anniversaries in 2020: The first Earth Day in 1970
- Important anniversaries in 2020: Florence Nightingale was born in 1820
- Spiritual diary of self-isolation: Weeks 1 and 2
- Spiritual diary of self-isolation: God's grace as a lifeline
- Spiritual diary of self-isolation: The lifeline of limits on thoughts
- Spiritual diary of self-isolation: Wrestling with God for a blessing
- Spiritual diary of self-isolation: responding to terror by listening to Jesus voice
February 2020 (4)
- Grief AND thankfulness: A story and some new words
- Grief AND thankfulness: What I learned from writing this series
- Important anniversaries in 2020: Prohibition
- Important anniversaries in 2020: Women got the vote 100 years ago
January 2020 (5)
- Grief AND thankfulness in my conversion story
- Grief AND thankfulness: The role of lament
- Grief AND thankfulness compared with consolation and desolation
- Grief AND thankfulness: How to pray for people we love
- Grief AND thankfulness: How to listen
December 2019 (4)
- Grief AND thankfulness in the Apostle Paul’s prayers
- Grief AND thankfulness in the Christmas story
- Grief AND thankfulness at Christmas 2019
- Grief AND thankfulness: a beautiful poem for the New Year and New Decade
November 2019 (4)
- Grief AND thankfulness: The weaned child
- Grief AND thankfulness: Feeling responsible
- Grief AND thankfulness: Wow, I just found grief in my favorite passage on thankfulness
- Grief AND thankfulness in the story of the ten lepers
October 2019 (5)
- Fasting and our bodies
- Fasting from words
- Fasting matters in 2019
- How I changed my perspective about autumn
- First post in a new series: Grief AND thankfulness
September 2019 (4)
- An unplanned fast from reading
- Ending a fast
- The surprise of fasting
- When we intentionally put away our phones, is it a fast or a sabbath?
August 2019 (5)
- Creative prayer nurtures stopping
- Creative prayer: Walking and memorizing psalms
- Creative prayer: The Psalms and music
- Creative prayer with colors
- Creative Prayer: The basic practice of the kingdom of God
July 2019 (4)
- Creative prayer: Learning from mindfulness meditation
- Creative prayer: apples and wings
- Creative prayer: trees
- Creative prayer as remembering truth
June 2019 (4)
- Creative prayer: Pressing pause
- Creative prayer: Prayer cards
- Creative Prayer: Relinquishing and welcoming
- Creative prayer: Returning prayer
May 2019 (5)
- Creative prayer in a foreign language
- Creative prayer without co-dependency
- Creative prayer: Seasons
- Creative prayer: Submitting AND entreating
- Creative prayer with Jeremiah
April 2019 (4)
- Creative prayer in a hospitable spirit
- Creative prayer: Joy spot sightings
- Creative prayer using the imagination
- Creative prayer while walking
March 2019 (4)
- Creative prayer for creation care
- Creative prayer: Prompts for prayer
- Creative prayer: More prayer prompts
- Creative prayer using our hands
February 2019 (4)
- Chinese New Year: A Case Study for Shifts in Christian Caring
- What I learned from Bishop Aiden of Lindisfarne
- First post in a new series: Creative prayer
- Creative prayer: Art as symbol and metaphor
January 2019 (5)
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Jesus as Friend
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Friendship with Christ and friendship with others
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Who is my neighbor?
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Friendship as action
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Hymns that describe friendship with God
December 2018 (3)
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Changing definitions of friendship
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Confidence about friendship
- Nurturing Friendships in a Cellphone World: Friendship with God
November 2018 (5)
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: Sensory prayer in Revelation
- First post in a new series: Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Strong opinions and responses
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: My conversation partners about friendship
- Nurturing friendships in a cellphone world: Two views about communication technologies
October 2018 (4)
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: Two prayers in Ephesians
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: The prayer in Philippians
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: Paul’s thankfulness
- Connections between the Bible and Prayer: the instructions in James
September 2018 (4)
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: Who is God?
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: the context of the Lord’s Prayer
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: Instructions from the Apostle Paul
- Connections between the Bible and prayer: Paul’s prayer in Colossians
August 2018 (5)
- Providing Christian Care in Our Time
- Providing Christian care in our time: Seven trends in pastoral care today
- Providing Christian Care in Our Time: Skills for Pastoral Care
- Providing Christian care: The importance of spiritual practices
- First post in a new series: Connections between the Bible and prayer
July 2018 (4)
- The friendship skills of asking, giving and thanking: We belong together
- Friendship skills: Obstacles to thankfulness
- Friendship skills of asking, giving, and thanking: A biblical example and some questions for reflection
- My new book on Christian caring: How I came to write it
June 2018 (4)
- Contrasts: Guests and hosts
- Contrasts: Engaging in spiritual practices because of grace or guilt
- First post in a new series: The friendship skills of asking, giving and thanking
- Friendship skills: Giving, asking, noticing and thanking
May 2018 (5)
- Nature speaks about God: The Bible and nature
- An AHA moment on Mother’s Day
- On Pentecost, let's ponder the Holy Spirit
- First post in a series on contrasts: shalom and peace
- Contrasts: Thankfulness and optimism
April 2018 (4)
- Nature speaks about God: the feeling of God’s absence
- Nature speaks about God: familiar and unfamiliar landscapes
- Nature speaks about God: The miracle of trees
- Nature speaks about God: Patterns in God’s speech
March 2018 (5)
- First post in a new series: Nature speaks about God
- Nature speaks about God: Mountains and clouds on Easter
- Nature speaks about God: Algae and stars
- Nature speaks about God: Tropical fish in the Red Sea
- Nature speaks about God: Jesus in a boat on Greenlake
February 2018 (4)
- Listening to God in Prayer: Praying the Psalms
- Listening to God in Prayer: Ben's story
- Listening to God in Prayer: Availability
- Listening to God in Prayer: Some helpful quotations
January 2018 (4)
- Listening to God in Prayer: A New Approach to the Bible
- Prayer as Listening to God: Key Questions
- Prayer as Listening to God: A pattern for letting God speak through scripture
- Listening to God in Prayer: Imagining yourself in a Bible story
December 2017 (5)
- Listening to God in prayer: Alone or with others
- Listening to God in prayer: Breath prayer
- Prayer as Listening to God: Distractions in silent prayer
- Listening to God in Prayer: Noticing God’s Presence
- Prayer as listening to God: Looking back at last year
November 2017 (4)
- Stories I ponder: What I learned in Sweden
- Stories I ponder: My dad the pilot
- First post in a new series: Listening to God in prayer
- Listening to God in prayer: My journey
October 2017 (4)
- Stories I ponder: How I changed my mind about women in ministry
- Stories I ponder: Dave’s sister’s end of life
- Stories I ponder: The high cost of pretending to be someone we’re not
- Stories I ponder: How I learned about introversion and extraversion, and why it matters
September 2017 (5)
- Stories I ponder: Aunt Lynn
- Stories I ponder: A tale of two grandmothers
- Stories I ponder: My father-in-law and money
- Stories I ponder: My mother and her sister
- Stories I ponder: We are necessary and superfluous
August 2017 (4)
- Initiative in friendships: A gift given to me by initiative
- Initiative in friendship: Practice!
- First post in a new series - Stories I ponder: The tulip
- Stories I ponder: The noisy washing machine
July 2017 (4)
- Initiative in friendships: Obstacles
- Initiative in friendships: Overcoming fear
- Initiative in friendships: Different ways of initiating
- Initiative in friendships: Some options, including vulnerability
June 2017 (4)
- My new spiritual practice: A Christian perspective on thoughts
- Two common questions about the Sabbath
- New series of blog posts: Initiative in friendships
- Initiative in friendships: What Mary might have missed
May 2017 (5)
- My new spiritual practice: Separating thoughts from feelings
- My new spiritual practice: Feeling the feelings
- My new spiritual practice: Coping with feelings that want to dominate
- My new spiritual practice: Dealing with “demonic” thoughts
- My new spiritual practice: Is self-compassion really appropriate for Christians?
April 2017 (4)
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: Dave's story
- Three Psalms for Holy Week
- Spiritual practices for the Easter season
- Support for Earth Day from hundreds and thousands of years ago
March 2017 (5)
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: Facing the Inner Darkness
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: Tears
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: All will be well
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: Longing for heaven
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: What do you want?
February 2017 (4)
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: God Woos Us
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: A journey with the Psalms
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: Praying the Psalms
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: God’s presence through the Holy Spirit
January 2017 (4)
- Jesus' model of hearing God's guidance
- Four kinds of home
- My latest creative project: Short stories about self-discovery and spiritual growth
- Drawing Near to God with the Heart: first post of a series
December 2016 (5)
- Quotations I love: Bishop Desmond Tutu on hope
- Quotations I love: secrets and compassion
- Quotations I love: Richard Halverson on being sent
- Some Christmas thoughts from the Southern Hemisphere
- Quotations I love: Five quotations about thankfulness
November 2016 (4)
- Quotations I love: A. W. Tozer on worship that illuminates work
- Quotations I love: Arnold Glasow on feeling at home with people
- Quotations I love: Breton Fisherman's Prayer
- Quotations I love: Four quotations about attention
October 2016 (4)
- Quotations I love: Thomas Merton on our transparent world
- Quotations I love: Paul Tournier on building good out of evil
- Quotations I love: Thomas Aquinas on loving people we disagree with
- Quotations I love: The Jerusalem Talmud on enjoying good things
September 2016 (5)
- Quotations I love: Henri Nouwen on being beloved
- Quotations I love: Rick Warren on love and disagreement
- Quotations I love: regret and fear are thieves
- Quotations I love: Eugene Peterson on paying attention
- Quotations I love: moving from intending to pray to actually praying
August 2016 (4)
- Worshipping God the Creator: Co-Creators with God
- Worshipping God the Creator: two quite diverse stories
- Worshipping God the Creator: A powerful quotation, some scriptures and a hymn
- Worshipping God the Creator: Creation speaks and Creation helps us give thanks
July 2016 (4)
- Worshipping God the Creator: Creation care
- Worshipping God the Creator: voluntary simplicity
- Worshipping God the Creator: voluntary simplicity in action
- Worshipping God the Creator: Bill’s Story
June 2016 (4)
- Worshipping God the Creator: the Creation invites us to join in praise
- Worshipping God the Creator: The Bible and Creation
- Worshipping God the Creator: some thoughts from midlife interviews
- Worshipping God the Creator: The good creation
May 2016 (5)
- Sabbath Keeping a decade later: relationships
- Sabbath Keeping a decade later: What I do on the Sabbath
- Thoughts for Pentecost: the significance of the Holy Spirit today
- Praise to the Trinity in four movements
- Worshipping God the Creator: the first post of a series
April 2016 (4)
- Spiritual practices for the Easter season
- Sabbath Keeping a decade later: the first post of a series
- Sabbath Keeping a decade later: gardening
- Sabbath Keeping a decade later: Stopping
March 2016 (5)
- Benedictine spirituality: hospitality, service and work
- Benedictine spirituality: balance and paradox
- Benedictine Spirituality: Maureen’s story
- Hungry for more of God? Try fasting
- Jesus frees us from bondage at Easter
February 2016 (4)
- Benedictine spirituality: monastic living in ordinary life
- Benedictine spirituality: the first vow, stability
- Benedictine spirituality: the second vow, conversion of life
- Benedictine spirituality: the third vow, obedience
January 2016 (4)
- Two postures for entering into the New Year
- Benedictine spirituality: the first post of a series
- Benedictine spirituality: John’s story
- Benedictine spirituality: Who was Benedict?
December 2015 (4)
- Another thankfulness challenge
- Thankfulness and sentness
- What I learned about the incarnation from Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere
- These are a few of my favorite things for the Christmas season
November 2015 (4)
- Do not ride in the car with Lynne . . .
- Why “journey” works so well as a metaphor for faith
- Spiritual practices that help us journey
- A thankfulness challenge
October 2015 (5)
- John Perkins listened
- An amusing story of hearing God’s guidance
- Good listening is not enough to make a good conversation
- Drawing near to God by noticing patterns
- When fear, ego and ambition drive the bus
September 2015 (4)
- Can novels teach? Should novels teach?
- Good listeners are detectives, not tennis players
- A game that nurtures good listening
- Listening to creation as a part of environmental stewardship
August 2015 (4)
- Trust and obey for there's no other way
- Creating alongside God
- The spiral upwards because of knowing God (and how to pray for it)
- Location-specific prayer
July 2015 (4)
- Thinking analytically about ACTS prayer
- ACTS prayer analyzed in the light of the Psalms
- Let's rediscover (or discover) lament
- Let’s get creative with ACTS prayer
June 2015 (4)
- Celtic Christianity: sorrow for sin without self-absorption or self-punishment
- Celtic Christianity: Paradoxes
- Celtic Christianity: Ross’s story about art
- Celtic Christianity: Jan’s story about pilgrimage
May 2015 (4)
- Celtic Christianity: The Trinity
- Celtic Christianity: Community
- Thoughts for Pentecost: The Holy Spirit, God’s empowering presence
- Celtic Christianity: Wholistic Prayer
April 2015 (6)
- Humility and listening, part 2
- Jesus: freeing us from bondage
- Receptivity and listening
- Celtic Christianity: the first post of a series
- Celtic Christianity: pilgrimage and the Celtic sense of place
- Celtic Christianity: the earth and art
March 2015 (4)
- “Holy curiosity” as a way to think about effective listening
- My journey as a listener
- Listening wisely to people’s stories
- Humility and listening
February 2015 (4)
- Odd and peculiar?
- What is hope?
- Of clouds and attentiveness
- Why Do We Listen?
January 2015 (4)
- Journey with Jesus to the cross during Lent
- Money, generosity and transformation into Christ’s image
- Growing in thankfulness
- An option for Lent: focus on growing as a listener
December 2014 (5)
- Five myths about friendship today
- Letting go of agendas as we listen
- Bringing my whole self to the manger
- Upside Down Christmas
- Jesus’ presence in pain
November 2014 (4)
- Of spiders and civility
- Words matter
- Grace gifts versus guilt-inducing obligations
- Imaginary friends
October 2014 (4)
- Hearing God speak communally
- Two options for what to do when the news overwhelms you
- Two little coins: the God of very small things
- What is compassion like when you haven't experienced what the other person is experiencing?
September 2014 (4)
- Consensus Versus Discernment
- Holy Listening
- An amusing story of why listening matters
- Hearing God's voice
August 2014 (5)
- Hospitality and Listening
- Listening Past the Noise
- The Role of Listening in Nurturing Christian Discipleship
- Psalm for 2014
- The spiritual journey at midlife
July 2014 (4)
- The Lord's Prayer and Spiritual Practices
- The Lord's Prayer and Spiritual Practices, part 2
- A Cat with a Noble Character
- Finding Home and Homes
June 2014 (7)
- Breath Prayer
- Freedom from Fear of Death
- Spiritual Practices for Sitting in Front of a Screen
- Open Hands, Open Heart
- A moment beside the Willamette River
- Life in a two-beat rhythm
- Welcome to my website

Lynne Baab

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