Sunday, August 21, 2011

It is very early when I am woken up by God.  Many times He has awakened me in the past at odd hours of the night or wee hours of the morning.  This morning is one of those times.  I look at the clock, its glowing numbers piercing the darkness of my bedroom, 2:27.  “I don’t know what it is you need to talk with me about at this hour God, but I’ll get up.”

Two hours passes quickly and I decide to make a pot of coffee rather than return to bed.  As the coffee brews I lift the blind and peer out the window into the darkness…no lightening of the sky just yet.  I wait for the coffee to be close enough to fully brewed to snag a cup and go outside.  I hadn’t planned to stay very long, just kind of testing the day as it were.  It is a bit chilly but not so cold, quite dark out still with just a hint of brightness to the eastern horizon.  The moon overhead appears to me to be crazy bright while the stars are losing their glow to the seeping in of the day.  I become engrossed in the moments and sit to watch as night and day collide before me.

As I wait, I begin to see fog slowly creep along the soccer field basin.  Subtle changes begin to take place.  Read more »

Margie Donaldson, Innkeeper of Moore Cottage and the Director of Campus Hospitality, has been living at the C.S. Lewis College in Northfield, Massachusetts for the past year and has kept a journal of her reflections.  In addition to posting these entries on our friend Holly Ordway’s blog Hieropraxis, we asked Margie to include them on our new College blog.

Here is the description that she posted on Dr. Ordway’s blog:

Margie Donaldson enjoys nature and loves the way God communicates with her intimately and uniquely through His beautiful creation.  She began journaling about these intimate encounters with God shortly after moving to begin a new work as the Innkeeper at Moore Cottage, the Inn located on the campus of the future C.S. Lewis College.

Margie and Eric, her husband of nearly 20 years, along with their two teenaged boys, Zachary and Cody, devote their days in service to Christ in Northfield, MA.

We will now be posting these reflections on Northfield on our blog as she writes them. For your immediate pleasure, we’ve included several of Margie’s entries from throughout last winter.  We hope you enjoy!

Knocking and Seeking

March 1, 2011

The sky this morning is a bright, clear blue and the air has a bite to it, the ground still very much snow covered and frozen.  The streets are very icy and each noisy step I take towards the Cottage announces my presence.  I am noticing signs of spring on this the first day of March despite being in the midst of a very cold and snowy winter.  There have been robin sightings, the buds on the trees are slowly starting to swell, and the sugar maples have been tapped and the buckets hung!  Along the roadside, coming from a tree with many dead branches I hear a loud rapping sound.  It is the pileated woodpecker! No, it was not his eerie call that drew my attention to him this day but rather his persistent knocking on that tree hunting for food.   As I drew near to him, attempting to grab his photo, he flew off swooping through the air down the street to land on another tree further down the lane.  I continued along on my journey once again drawing near to him, this time minding my business and not attempting a photo shoot, once again he flew off to land several trees away.  It was as if he were showing me the way to the Cottage.  We played this game for a short time until he apparently found a tree to good to leave!  What a find!  This reminds me of myself somewhat.  The past year has been one spent with much time focused on knocking and seeking from one “tree” to the next.  God has lead me along to this place where I find myself walking to “work” as the innkeeper of Moore Cottage on the site of the future C.S. Lewis College!  Alas, my tree that is too good to leave!! Read more »