Skip to content

Devi Abraham

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Menu

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

devi-cakes

Contact

Feel free to contact me for more information.

Name

Email

Message

Follow @devi

Photo 1: sugar snap peas just sprouting Photo 2:

Photo 1: sugar snap peas just sprouting

Photo 2: sugar snap peas today

Photo 3: compost

Here’s one of my gardening discoveries: Soil quality is a big deal, and the best soil is compost.

We take our vegetable scraps and put it in a proper place outside. Mixed with newspaper, dried leaves, some water, and time, what was waste will turn into something magical.

Dark, rich, porous soil, the kind that will feed the seeds of the future.

Death becomes life.

I think there’s more here. How many of us look at our lives and see the garbage, the kitchen scraps, the events we think belong in a garbage bag. How many of us look at our lives and see only the dead things? Relationships, dreams, people.

We love to carry these dead things around with us. We put it in our bags, drive around with it in the car, and decorate the mantle with it.

But dead things need to go to a proper place.
They need a burial. They need time.

And in the mysterious way of seconds and weeks and seasons, time and a dark place will turn the dead into the soil that will feed the seeds of your future.

Friends, maybe it’s time to take the dead matter out of your house. Is it time for a funeral? Is it time to walk away and trust the work of time?
.
.
.
.
.
#thelifechangingmagicofgrowingup #thebettermetaphorsproject #gardeningaustralia #gardenlife #soulscripts

Alright how tired are the Melbourne people of lock

Alright how tired are the Melbourne people of lockdown?

🙋🏽‍♀️ 🙋🏽‍♀️ 🙋🏽‍♀️ 🙋🏽‍♀️ 🙋🏽‍♀️ 🙋🏽‍♀️

I realized today that I’m desperately in need of a celebration. A break out of the everyday. A reason to party.

Anyone else with me?

It’s even hard to muster the energy for this when it feels like everything else requires energy I don’t have, but I think it’s time for some celebrations.

What could we do to break out of the mundane for an hour? An evening? A weekend? What could we do that will give energy back instead of depleting it?

Privilege tells me it needs to be brunch at a good cafe (I LIVE IN MELBOURNE, PEOPLE) or a weekend away at the beach, but I wonder if mourning the absence of these luxuries keeps us from seeing what we could be doing instead.

Maybe it’s a backyard picnic or candles at the dinner table (with $5 dominos pizza). Kettle corn and a movie night in the middle of the week. Getting excited about Christmas (seriously, this is me right now). A fun playlist played at the same time daily.

I have no idea what’ll work for you. But I know I need to know there’s something worth getting excited about right now.

Because there is. I’m alive. I’m still here. We are surviving an insane year-and-half. There is so much to be grateful for.

Some of us are on the slow road. Five years ago I

Some of us are on the slow road.

Five years ago I flew to Alaska for a writing retreat hosted by @leslie.leyland.fields who is easily one of the best writing teachers I’ve ever had.

Before I went, I told my husband, “I’m afraid that if I go, writing is serious now. I will have to have something to show for it.”

I think about that today and look back over the intervening five years, and I wonder.

Do I have something to show for it?

I don’t have an answer here, but I know I’m not the only one who combs their life looking for evidence of success.

Some of us take the slow road. It’s takes longer. It is hard. And it is a struggle to believe that time is on our side. If that’s you today, I want you to know that you’re not alone.

The slow road life requires a steady diet of hope, and the belief that nothing in our lives in wasted. May you find comfort in that truth today.

#thelifechangingmagicofgrowingup #alaska #amwriting #writinglife #nothingiswasted

This is my sister and my niece in Afghanistan a fe

This is my sister and my niece in Afghanistan a few years ago. These are my sister’s words:

3 years ago I set foot on Afghan soil. It was, and is, the privilege of a lifetime. It's a nation like no other… and it totally won my heart.

Today, this nation has fallen back into the hands of oppressive rulers. Vulnerable people will be killed, women taken as brides, and children die of starvation. Millions are displaced, desperate for hope and a way out.

If you are reading these words, can I ask you to stop and act?

1. If you are a praying person - PRAY. Gather your friends & family and cry out to our good and gracious Father who defends the defenceless and upholds the cause of the weak. We will one day hear the untold stories of his answers.

2. Call your Afghan friends and listen to their pain. They are suffering unbelievable anxiety and stress as they watch these events unfold. Mourn with them and share their suffering. A friend shared recently how their suffering eased as we simply “shared” it with her, listening and weeping along with her.
.....

3. Write your local government authorities. If you’re in Australia, write your local MP. Tell them that they need to act urgently to save Afghan lives. Shabnam Safa and others have created a template you can use: https://saveafghanistannow.good.do/contact/mp/
.....

4. Give your money to help in this crisis. We all have the capacity to give something. This will take you to a compilation of Afghan-led organisations that are helping people on the ground right now. https://linktr.ee/AfghanistanNeedsYou

To give to UNHCR: https://www.unrefugees.org.au/campaigns/afghanistan-crisis/

To give to Shelter Now International, an organisation we have seen first-hand. 98.5% of your donation will go directly to field work: https://www.shelternow.org.au/donate

Afghanistan. Land of beauty and mystery. You are not a pawn in someone else's chess game. You are a nation dearly loved. Your ground is hallowed, your people - a treasure. Your suffering is our suffering. We will not look away.

(Links in this post will be in the link in my bio)

I have to tell you that reading Unclean by Profess

I have to tell you that reading Unclean by Professor Richard Beck was one of those come to Jesus moments for me. The short story is please listen to this week's @wheredowegopod episode, but for a slightly longer story, read on.

One of the central ideas in Beck's book is this one: Metaphors are not created equal. The metaphors we listen to, inhabit, yes even embody are shaping our lives. This is the ache of a generation of young people who were taught about sex and relationships from the perspective of you're a chewed up piece of gum once you've had sex, you're a rose with petals plucked off, a piece of cake and each slice is a part of you given away to people.

There's a reason why many of us who abandoned those beliefs years ago can't just shake the feeling that somehow we got used up (fun fact: Women who only dated the one man and "saved sex for marriage" also feel this way after marriage).

It's because the metaphors stick.

Friends, I have so much to say about this, and I struggle for the words but I'm going to try.

One of the projects of a new adulthood, of a refreshed imagination is the project of new metaphors. This applies to everything: education, government, politics, art, culture, music, religion, everything.

It is the calling to dig into the dirt of a mountainside to find a gleaming gem.

It is to surrender to the force of gravity that keeps our feet planted on earth.

It is to take the old, the tired, the broken ways of the world, draw it close to ourselves to nurture and care for and rebuild a better future.

If you look at your life and wonder what happened, if you look at the faith you had and question why it left, can I gently suggest you pay attention to the metaphors? Maybe the metaphors that shaped you also left you stuck.

May you find the wide and green pastures where your soul can rest. May you find a well where the water doesn't run dry.

I want us to join together in this metaphor project. Tell me a metaphor in the comments that brings you joy and freedom, and share this post with your friends so they can join too. Post about it too and use #thebettermetaphorsproject

#thelifechangingmagicofgrowingup

Get the good stuff here.

Email Address

Devi

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Menu

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Home
Start Here
About
Blog
Speaking
Podcast
Motherhood
Contact

Copyright ©2021. DEVI.