Kaleidoscope:
Combined from three Greek words:
kalos (καλός), meaning “beautiful,”
eidos (εἶδος), meaning “shape,”
and skopos (σκοπός), meaning either “watcher” or “thing looked at.”
Kaleidoscope: beautiful shapes to look at,
observer of beautiful forms.
Kaleidoscope:constantly changing pattern,
medley, mixture.
Kaleidoscope living.
An observer of beauty. Paying attention to details. Noticing shapes and nuances. Giving gratitude for aesthetics and texture.
Our lives are stories.
Our stories are a constantly changing pattern made up of a mixture of excitement and pain, new and old, adjustments and routines.
A medley of music and beauty and creativity and inspiration runs along as the soundtrack.

April Kaleidoscope, but in May. Which is, actually, an improvement over March Kaleidoscope……..because it, unfortunately, didn’t happen AT ALL.
March and April have flown by on wings around here. There are parts of this I like and appreciate and parts of it I fight against.
I find many of my “normal” rhythms and practices have……………….gone. They left well before March and April. I’ve been aware. I’ve been pondering it. Yet, I hadn’t named the narrative of it. In March and April, I did name it.
Things have changed. I’m in a season of transition.
It is ok. I am ok.
I will one day, {hopefully soon????} look up and recognize new rhythms emerging.
This is the nature of life and growth and learning, I believe.
It happens for a variety of reasons…..and seasons.
But, I needed to name it and perhaps, you need someone to help you name it for yourself as well.
NOW, here’s what the kaleidoscope of April looked like…………………
In the Drought
And while I’m over here with books to share, a bit buried in graphics and words, my good farmer man is over there living out Habakkuk 3:17 & 18.
The wind howls, dust billows, and all the farmers in our county work to protect the greater part of the baby wheat…..
Loss lays us open.
Often, letting go is lined with lament.
We dismantle before we redo.
Deconstruct before reconstruct.
The air hangs gritty.
Horizon gray.
Gusts puff grime.
The windchime tolls a wild song, echoes it up and down the porch eaves.
Sometimes the greater good calls for loss.
Demands from us that which we are reluctant to release.
Detours bring delay.
Possible countless miles out of the way.
Sharp curves we never expected.
Blind turns, bumps, bounces.
My eyes find and follow the curved furrows traced by the tractor and ripper.
Move dirt to prevent dirt from moving.
Plough up wheat for the preservation of other acres growing tiny, brave blades.
A farmer’s frustration. An aggravation. Part devastation.
Bounty feels so much better.
Less blow, more snow through a Kansas winter.
I’d be a wealthy woman if I had coinage for every time I’ve heard the words fall from the farmer. “Sure hope we won’t have ground blowing.”
Life in a metaphor.
Worry, a nag.
For every bit of our schedules, our seasons, we believe we control, weather patterns act as a constant reminder of all that lies beyond our control.
This is life.
Forever and always.
Ups. Downs.
Wind howls. Earth shakes.
Jesus never forsakes.
Life unravels; we weave again.
Dirt blows, still we sow.
God promises the seasons and a harvest to reap.
They will not cease as long as the earth makes revolutions around the sun.
His goodness is everlasting.
His mercies, new every day.
Weigh anchor in His peace as we navigate our pain.
Fill our fingers with tiny mustard seeds the size of faith. Hidden inside is exponential growth.
Come rain or wind or shine.
Reading List
- The Donkey Principle by Rachel Anne Ridge
- A Little More Beautiful by Sarah Mackenzie
- Do Story by Bobette Buster
- On Getting Out of Bed by Alan Noble

The Donkey Principle and Mentorship
“Mentoring can take place in coffee shops, on factory floors, and in conference rooms and living rooms. Establish a relationship with someone {that is, on their terms} who is further ahead of you in experience. Their wealth of knowledge and confidence will be assets as you move forward in your journey.
Find people who are doing the kind of good work you want to do in this world, and study their leadership style.
Your heroes determine the trajectory of your story.”
~ Rachel Anne Ridge, TDP Chapter 6: Assemble
⭐️⭐️⭐️
DIG DEEPER:
“Why not identify one or more individuals you admire, and write down the qualities they inspire in you?”

.
Dear Rachel ~
I’ll answer the question above that you ask your reader in Chapter 6 of The Donkey Principle…
It’s not hard to identify one individual whom I deeply admire and appreciate.
She’s you, of course, dear friend.
Your bravery in narrating the audiobook for The Donkey Principle, even though it made your palms clammy, in spite of your anxiety. It will be all the better for it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
The way you create good art and beautiful work in between mucking out donkey stalls, helping neighbors, and loving on your grandbabies.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Your quiet spirit of confidence and warmth and kindness.
The ability you carry to cause people to feel seen and heard and known.
The way you show up and share the messy parts of life and make us breathe a deep sigh of relief and resonance.
You are a championer of art, a crusader for creativity, and a life-coach for living true and standing tall in our very donkey-selves.
Thank you, friend.
No one does it better.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Congratulations on this lovely new book! I could not be more excited and delighted for you and for every reader who opens the cover of The Donkey Principle.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
Kaleidoscope of Incidentals
Inky Collective
a beautiful journaling community
What I’m Learning From Ted Lasso
great lessons
Kenmore sweeper
I bought this sweeper in February and I really like it
Tabletop Concrete Firepit
I reviewed this little fireburner for my Amazon Vine and it’s so much fun!
Travel Teaset
A fun idea and great gift item
Digital art download from Katy Rose
Florence, Italy
Love the beautiful and warm artwork by my friend Katy Rose
Hosanna Holiness in the Dailiness of the Dailys

🌿 Hosanna! 🌿
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
The palm leaf brushes my palms. I pull the fronds between my fingers, look at my hands through the green spray.
Our voices mingle in the words and notes of ‘Amazing Grace.’
“The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures,”
There’s beauty in holding space for the holy.
Holiness highlights the holistic sphere in which we live and move and have our being.
The holy is found in all that is beautiful.
All our daily details. All that we delight in.
There’s no separating our lives into compartments. Our physical intertwines with our spiritual, our souls intersect with the tangible.
We raise our voices. Wave our palms. Feel the splendor in our souls.
.
A Savior, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings. He enters in the most unlikely spaces, in the most unlikely way. He rides a donkey. Holiness intercepts humbleness. Caution woven with the common.
The crowds celebrate. Cries reverberate. They hail holiness, though they do not fully recognize Who resides on this donkey steed.
I run the smooth green back and forth, back and forth. Slender leaves slide smooth along my grasp.
🌿
I exhale and ask.
Do I declare victory loud today? Do I become swept up in the crowd? Do I wave these branches with vigor?
Yet come Thursday and Friday, where will they find me?
Where will holiness find me in my daily?
Will I still proclaim? Still believe? Still clutch with faith-filled fingers?
Or is that me? Right over there?
Smack-dab in the middle of the incited crowd. Is that my voice? Who only days ago sang victory and now today vies vehemently for bloodshed?
Truth proclaimed needs also be Truth soul-claimed.
The sway of palm branches needs also become the open upturn of surrendered palms.
The adoration of an advent needs also translate to hesed hosanna holiness.
In the dailiness of my dailys, in the holiness they hold, I find this truth,
“Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come
‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home.”

GREEN
Green comes on hushed tiptoes.
Pulls paintbrush out, begins to tip the branches,
“hello,” Green whispers to tulip bulbs, tips budding in the bed by the breakfast nook,
Green urges grass to awaken, flits among the pointed blade tips applauding loudly the new growth around the garden bench,
Green runs along the land, showers vibrant color as earth springs to life,
Green begs to tell the story, tip everything with glory,
Opens wide the window of hope, creeps, tippy-toe across the veranda, in exultation of the bright expanse of meadow popping anew with wildflower array,
Parades with gallant step up and down the village green,
Watercolors the soft mounds of moss heaped on either side of the warbling creek bed,
Flips through shade after shade, hue after hue, applies one here, overlays one there,
Life buds again. Laughter frolics. Love flourishes.
Happiness is found in Green.
Grace Alive
Ah, GRACE, indeed,
oh, GRACE, so grand,
a GRACE that spills redemption’s plan,
and GRACE explodes in glory light,
GRACE leaves the tomb door open wide,
GRACE greets the dawn with radiance on,
GRACE beckons to the weeping one,
GRACE walks right up and calls her name,
By GRACE she’ll never be the same,
And recognition lights her eyes, Her heart explodes, the tears won’t dry,
The grace of GRACE! “RABBI,” she cries,
GRACE floods the story far and wide.
“What gift of grace is Jesus my Redeemer”

An Occurrence
And it occurs to me that a love so lavish as to lay down one’s very life erupts from a desire to daily sit down with one in whom he dwells and delights and relish in the relationship because you are beautiful beyond measure to Him every moment you heart beats.
And it occurs to me, He breathed his last, His heartbeat died away, His body broken because he could see beyond the grave and He waited in anticipation for his pulse to spring forth again, his lungs gulp oxygen, his arms reach to embrace every anxious mind, every hurting heart, every striving soul, every fearful follower, every stumbling sinner and proclaim “It is finished! My redeemed child! I love you!”
