calling

Today’s Word: Tempo

Steve · June 4, 2017 · 4 Comments

Slowing down enough to see this. SJG photo.

On this lazy Sunday morning, Sue and I are sitting on the porch doing “nothing,” although that’s never really true, is it? We are reading and writing. We are listening to the birds and staring at the stems of all our flowers that have been eaten by the deer and the rabbits (argh!) We are enjoying a cup of coffee and some fresh fruit. We are being present to one another even when we don’t speak. We are praying and being present to God. Is all that nothing or something? I think it’s something important.

So caught up in the business and busy-ness of our work and lives, we can all sometimes feel guilty about doing “nothing.” But, of course, it is exactly this nothingness that we need. We need time to unplug, time to refuel, time to remove ourselves from the rest of life so that we can be, in fact, better for the rest of life, better for those who need us, better for the work that needs to be done.

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The Creative Spirit: “I’m busy…”

Steve · October 15, 2016 · 3 Comments

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” – Galileo Galilei

I was up before dawn today and sitting on the screen porch as the world went from dark to light once again. It does this every day, or so I’m told, although I’m not always there to watch it. Or perhaps I’m up and about but not present enough to notice. This morning, I had scripture across my knee, a pen in my hand and a journal nearby, my favorite posture and attitude for taking in the world around me — silent words, quiet thoughts and the prayer of solitude.

I just finished one of the busiest few weeks of my professional life, orchestrating the logistics and planning behind the second presidential debate of this electoral season, a massive event at my university that attracted thousands of journalists of every ilk and angle and an estimated television viewership of some 60 million. I’m both exhausted and invigorated, honored to have been a part of it all (despite the content and tenor of the candidates, which I have no desire to get into here…) and glad that it’s in my rearview window.

The Creative Spirit: An Open, Aware Heart

Steve · June 11, 2016 · 9 Comments

“Life is your art. An open, aware heart is your camera. A oneness with your world is your film.” – Ansel Adams

What the great nature photographer Ansel Adams knew and showed us in his haunting, elegant black and white photographs is that there is so much to be seen and experienced in the world if we only slow down and pay attention — not only to the image in front of us but to the light and shadows that surround, encompass and overlay what we see. Adams would hike miles, laden with his heavy equipment and supplies, to get to the perfect place at the perfect time of day. Then it became his job, to paraphrase the renowned words of the poet Mary Oliver, to “stand still and learn to be astonished.”

There’s lesson in that for us somewhere, surely.

Living Extraordinary Lives Begins with Gratitude

Steve · May 1, 2016 · 15 Comments

It’s an ordinary time on an ordinary day,
It’s the simple things we do that take our breath away.
And the more we pay attention to every day that fills our eyes
The more we live extraordinary lives.

– “Extraordinary Lives,” by Steve Givens and Phil Cooper

sunrise — Day's Beginning: Surprise me. SJG photo.

Gratitude, it seems to me, is the starting point for our lives of prayer, creativity and living well among others. But gratitude is easy to say and harder to live by because it’s hard work. Saying “thank you” to God and to others around us is the simplest thing to do and, yet, we so often forget to do it. Or don’t make time to do it. Or don’t make it a part of our daily experience.

Today I offer a short reflection, a brief, two-pronged approach to a life of gratitude, followed by a new song called “Extraordinary Lives,” composed with my friend and co-creator Phil Cooper. [The song will be on the forthcoming CD by the Mo Bottom Project, scheduled for release this summer. If you’d like to reserve a copy shoot me an email!]

Today’s Word: Here

Steve · March 6, 2016 · 7 Comments

merci — Merci, at Marianist Retreat Center. SJG photo.

Well, I haven’t posted one of these for a while…Don’t be shocked! I think it’s the warming spring weather…

Yesterday I took my first real walk of this early spring, a leisurely three-mile stroll around Mallard Lake at Creve Coeur Park near my house. I had my earbuds in, listening to Yo-Yo Ma’s recording of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B Minor (which quickened my pace right away with its triumphant beginning), but as I rounded the first corner of the loop nearing the footbridge, the music in my ears was overwhelmed by the music of thousands of frogs in a wetlands area. Let’s just say they were having a good time and were none too quiet about it. I stopped and considered how quickly life and its fecundity pick up when the weather starts to heat up. And I thought where I was standing. It was no place special with no particular beauty — just a bog of sorts — but certainly holy ground at that moment. Here.

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