Spiritual Formation

About Sarah Jo
Lectio Obscura
Christian Obscurity
Spiritual Formation

A Life Obscured

Living an inconspicuous life while also living fully known to God.

The Gentle Leader

Spiritual Formation

The Gentle Leader

2022-07-06

Information Overload & the 1850 Filter

Spiritual Formation

Information Overload & the 1850 Filter

2022-06-22

Morning (afternoon) pages day six done. And intere

Morning (afternoon) pages day six done. And interestingly enough, my documentation here on Instagram is also spurring on my contemplative photography practice. How about that?! #morningpages #artistsway #contemplativephotography

@zeldathescottie loves the snow!! And I finished A

@zeldathescottie loves the snow!! And I finished Afternoon Pages after our walk today. That’s day five in the bag! #morningpages #artistsway

Morning Pages Day 4 done! Today included a pep tal

Morning Pages Day 4 done! Today included a pep talk: Don’t write plastic. Write natural. Authentic. #morningpages #artistsway #writersofinstagram

Sharona, our Japanese maple, has stubbornly held o

Sharona, our Japanese maple, has stubbornly held on to all her leaves this fall. And now she looks like me when asked to hold dumbbells with outstretched arms in a workout. Hang in there, girl. Snow will melt soon enough!

Morning Pages Day 3 done! Mostly. Had to log into

Morning Pages Day 3 done! Mostly. Had to log into class so only wrote 2.5 pages today. #morningpages #artistsway

Bought “Write for Life” by Julia Cameron this

Bought “Write for Life” by Julia Cameron this weekend. She’s the “Artist’s Way” guru. She prescribes three handwritten pages every single morning. Today is Day Two of my Morning Pages. I won’t show you my pages because the Internet doesn’t need any more neuroticisms, but rest assured they are done. Also, my hand hurts. #morningpages #artistsway

She literally has an internal alarm for “time to $She literally has an internal alarm for “time to snuggle with mom.” And if I am not on the couch with her, she will make herself comfortable on my lap. This is why I get only a fraction of my work done every day. 🙄$

Both in our happy place this afternoon.

Both in our happy place this afternoon.

Student of the Month!! Pretty proud of this kid!!

Student of the Month!! Pretty proud of this kid!!

Introduced E to the neighborhood labyrinth. He lov

Introduced E to the neighborhood labyrinth. He loves the fast walking component. We’ll get to the prayer component eventually! 😂

Who doesn’t love a giant box? And perplexing @ze

Who doesn’t love a giant box? And perplexing @zeldathescottie at the same time? #scottiesofinstagram

Better late than never? I didn’t have time to ge

Better late than never? I didn’t have time to get tulip bulbs in the ground this fall, so I’m planting them on New Year’s Eve. Either they’ll jump on board this accelerated program or they won’t. 🥴🤷‍♀️

The Austins need your help! What do we do with an

The Austins need your help! What do we do with an anonymous, passive-aggressive neighbor who moves our trash bins every week?

We prefer to set our trash bins on the closest thing we have to a curb, up against the railing on the street side of our drainage ditch. We have checked city ordinances and trash hauler’s recommendations and restrictions, and this is the best place. Prior to our street being repaved and restriped last year, the bins were on the outside of the street lane, but now they straddle the stripe. We always pull our bins in within the 24 hour allotment specified by the city.

We are able to leave one bin inside our driveway, which is what all of our other neighbors do. We do this on non-recycling weeks. Due to the narrowness of our driveway, the pickup truck next door that blocks our view of the street, the curves of Sunset a few blocks down both ways, and the general speed of cars, it’s tricky to back out with one bin. I tried backing out with both bins in the driveway, and while it’s technically possible, I was concentrating so hard on not hitting the bins that I couldn’t pay attention to oncoming traffic.

Our neighbor started moving our bin this fall after we left for church on Wednesday evenings. But sometimes they wait until the daytime (like today in broad daylight) to move the bins. We get the message; they don’t like what we are doing with our bins. But we don’t have great alternatives! And also, why do they care so much? What do we do?

For those of you who read my newsletter this week,

For those of you who read my newsletter this week, I did indeed receive the Rae Dunn salt and pepper cellars for Christmas. But in this very specific case, a little bossiness is allowed. I am in no need of other bossy ceramic home goods. 😜

Santa and Carol here to tell you Sarah wrote a lon

Santa and Carol here to tell you Sarah wrote a long overdue newsletter that drops tomorrow morning! That will be right around the time all you Midwesterners will be snuggling under cozy blankets looking for something delightful to read in the middle of the snowstorm. If you’re not subscribed, the link is in Sarah’s bio!!

Third official act of Christmas break, part two. B

Third official act of Christmas break, part two. Baking sugar cookies. (I prepped the dough on Tuesday.) It’s a three-day event to prep these cuties, but the hard work totally pays off.

Second official act of semester break: THE CHRISTM

Second official act of semester break: THE CHRISTMAS PUZZLE. I usually set up our winter puzzle table over Thanksgiving, but I knew I could not handle the temptation of puzzling while writing final papers. Now I can puzzle to my heart’s delight.

First stop after last night’s final paper submis

First stop after last night’s final paper submission: THE LIBRARY for holiday reading! 🥰

What’s saving my life right now? This copycat of

What’s saving my life right now? This copycat of Panera’s green goddess salad. 🥰

Everyone seems to have made candy and baked cookie

Everyone seems to have made candy and baked cookies today. Except me! I’ve been crafting a semi-ok exegesis on Isaiah 58 all day. I seem to have traded Christmas outreach hangovers for marathon paper writing! Two more papers and one presentation and I am done!n

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