{"id":4362,"date":"2021-02-24T15:25:33","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T22:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/?p=4362"},"modified":"2023-08-11T14:13:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T21:13:39","slug":"where-is-god-breathing-new-life-in-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/?p=4362","title":{"rendered":"Where is God breathing new life in mine?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"whereIfindTheSpirit\"<\/a><\/div>\n
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I am trying to learn Dutch. Honestly, between you and me, it is not really going that well. Come to find out, it is an extremely hard language to grasp and I\u2019m finding that not many of the words are sinking into my pandemic-induced, fuzzy brain.<\/div>\n
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I stumble across the Dutch word\u00a0lente, which is\u00a0<\/i>so close to the Italian word,\u00a0lento<\/i>!\u00a0Lento\u00a0<\/i>(I somehow remember from piano lessons long ago) means\u00a0slow<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0slowly,<\/i>\u00a0surely in Dutch it means something similar? But, no. The Dutch word lente<\/i>\u00a0in English means\u00a0Spring<\/b><\/em>,\u00a0not really even close to the word\u00a0slow<\/i><\/b>…or is it?<\/div>\n
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Growing up in Michigan, I remember celebrating – literally shedding my mittens the minute the tiniest, green tip of a crocus would pop through the snow. Then we would wait\u2026and wait…as the\u00a0rest of Spring would slowly catch up. Many times we would disappointedly wear a winter coat over our new Easter dresses and leave our shiny, white sandals at home in order to dodge melting piles of snow on our way to church.\u00a0Yet, I\u2019m finding that sometimes here in California, where most days are sunny and warm and each day is more of the same, it is easy to overlook the signs of Spring. And even more so, it is easy to take nature and our God-created Mother Earth for granted.<\/div>\n
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Still, I am drawn back to this correlation of words \u2014 \u00a0Lente. Lento. Lent. Spring. Slow.<\/div>\n
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And I think the spirit is trying to move me, inspire me to perhaps\u00a0slow down <\/i>and\u00a0<\/i>truly take\u00a0in the miracle of rebirth…of\u00a0Spring<\/i><\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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Each day during Lent I have committed to take one photo and document God\u2019s creation. Whether it is the sunrise at the dawn of a new day, or a sprout reaching out of the earth towards the sky \u2014 there is so much natural beauty right outside our doorstep. We simply must\u00a0slow<\/i><\/strong>\u00a0down long enough to see it.<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe need to find ways of being reminded that our religious sanctuaries are, at best, side chapels in the the great cathedral of creation. Otherwise the impression is given, as it has been historically, again and again, that God is somehow more present within the four walls than in every other place and that the meeting within the four walls of our religious sanctuaries is somehow more sacred than all other moments and that the pope within the four walls are somehow more holy than all other people.\u201d \u00a0– J. Philip Newell<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am trying to learn Dutch. Honestly, between you and me, it is not really going that well. Come to find out, it is an extremely hard language to grasp and I\u2019m finding that not many of the words are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/psMOS-18m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4362"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4397,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4362\/revisions\/4397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}