Recently Jan received an email from Paraclete Press with the title "Fill your Inbox with Beauty." This gave us pause to consider just what IS in our Inboxes? Reflecting on email subscriptions prompted these reflections followed by an invitation to you to share your faves with us and our readers.

It’s probably no surprise that Breathing Space emails from Paraclete Press would be at the top of my Inbox Beauty list. Visual beauty, yes, but always nourishing for my soul. No matter the hunger I have, the weekly messages sustain and energize me. When I thirst for companionship in this pandemic isolating world, Breathing Space embraces me with comfort and belonging. Breathing Space’s short meditations open my soul to beauty that I sometimes fail to see in my limited walled-in space.

Beauty to the eyes is often beauty to the appetite. Once in awhile when I want to get creative in the kitchen, my go-to publication (in my Inbox and in print) is the Bake from Scratch magazine. Have you ever walked into a bakery and wanted one of everything just because it all looked so beautiful? Bake from Scratch leads you through simple but detailed steps to baking beautiful showcase goods that anyone can make.

Not up for yeast and gluten? Try Beth’s BudgetByte$. I list BudgetByte$ in the beauty category because the simple recipes indicate how much each serving will cost, portions are usually small enough for two people, and Beth doesn’t dump a mess of unwanted files and cookies (pun not intended) on your computer. Through the years, I feel like I’ve developed a beautiful relationship with a new friend who is always willing to help and answer questions.

We invite you to share with us how you find beauty in your Inbox. Let us know if it’s just for us or if we have permission to share with our readers. You can Reply to this Reflection newsletter or to this address: ReflectionNewsletter@gmail.com

Oh, and yes, we find beauty in the frequent feedback emails you send to our Inbox. Thank you. We appreciate you.

Where are you drawn into wonder? Here are a couple of suggestions from my inbox.

Bearings Online is produced by Collegeville Institute under the slogan, “Exploring faith, igniting imagination, renewing community.” Published several times a week, the emails feature links to recent essays or poems. One recent article gently challenges the common assumption that human beings are the crown of God’s creation: “There is no shame in taking off the crown of creation; it is part of being Christ-like—in and alongside God’s creation.” And a poem about the encounter with Christ on the road to Emmaus contains these lovely lines: “...what is evening for / except to fill the emptiness of day with friendship / and fruits that escaped us through the noon....”

Another recent article discussed the lives of two prisoners – one a double murderer, the other wrongly convicted. The author first thought of them as opposites: One needing forgiveness, the other needing to forgive the wrong done to him. After getting to know them, however, the author saw them as both standing on the “circle in which we all exist: forgiving and forgiven, wrong and wronged, all within the ever-forgiving presence of God.”

The subtitle of Image Journal is “Art / Faith / Mystery,” and their weekly “Image Update” email opens a window to all three. Often focusing on a theme, such as “Heritage, Storytelling, and Place” or “Anchored Hospitality,” each issue provides links not only to items previously published in the journal but also to other material on the theme.

That was how I discovered Maike VanderMeer’s marvelous article, “Silkworms and Star Clusters, Butternuts and Alevins: How Science and Art Teach Us to Pay Attention.” In it, she cites the work of Robert Cording, who “said a poet is a priest who sees the world in a sacramental vision. Poets and scientists and priests, probing the mysteries, being astonished. Telling about it.”

That is what we try to do in this newsletter. But we are not the only ones. There are other email subscriptions that can bring beauty and wonder to your inbox. These are two from which I benefit.

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