Dear Kaleid Women,
Happy New Year to you! We hope that your time as hostesses, mothers, wrappers, vacationers, wives, workers, daughters, and manger-gazers held moments of peace along with the inevitable moments of busy. We hope you find yourself well-at-heart, even if you’re tired-in-body on this first Friday of 2019.
Are you one of the word-people? Those who decide on a word for the new year and desire to frame your interactions, perspectives, and experiences around that word? Words like “present,” “simplify,” “stretch,” and “enough” are ones we’ve heard discussed in our circles over the last few days. In truth, we are all word people.
You’ve no doubt stopped to ponder the dual (mind blowing and mysterious) reality that the Word held enough creative force to speak the world into being and that the same powerfully creative Word moved into human flesh and learned to talk. Perhaps there is nothing more powerful, more life altering than a word spoken in due time.
Proverbs 25:11 “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”
As Kaleid women, we are women shaped by words. Three of our favorites are: story, lens, and kaleidoscope.
Story
Kaleid women understand that we live at the intersection of stories. The big God-story is one of redemption and restoration: “on earth as it is in heaven.” The Atlanta story is one of brokenness and beauty, and it has powerfully shaped our current places and spaces. Our own stories are ones crafted by the Storyteller and highlighted by His grace. When we are aware of these stories and when we intersect with someone else’s developing story, we recognize that every moment matters because each moment is one in the grand storyline.
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
-Maya Angelou (20th century American author)
Lens
Kaleid women desire to see ourselves, those around us, and our particular place through well-informed, gracious lenses. We seek to hone our paradigms and our understanding so that we can be wise women of peace in our communities. Lenses can make things more blurry or more clear. In the Kaleid community, we seek clarity by engaging various perspectives and by understanding our own.
“Be sure to take the lens cap off before photographing.”
- Elliott Erwitt (20th century French photographer)
Kaleidoscope
Kaleid women are better together. As the colors of our stories and the curves of our perspectives come together in community, we shed the light of Christ’s love more beautifully on the places and spaces we inhabit. Our families, our work, our faith communities, and our friendships are better when we intentionally collaborate, celebrating one another’s strengths and carrying one another’s questions.
“Our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place in the contents. New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. Nothing ever happens twice alike. The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to surrounding objects. The most tranquil house, with the most serene inhabitants, living upon the utmost regularity of system, is yet exemplifying infinite diversities.”
Henry Ward Beecher (19th century American preacher and abolitionist)
Won’t you come with us in 2019, entering into story, peering through new lenses, and celebrating the kaleidoscope of community?
Blessings!