The Soft Return
5 o’clock Wednesday morning .
I return to a 20-minute morning practice before the day begins. Photo by Angela.
It’s July 2026, the halfway point of the year. Last month, I talked about the grinding season; I’m still there. It emerges regardless of how meticulously you’ve planned your days, weeks, or months—something inevitably interrupts. It is marked by God’s abundance, responding to His call, and encountering surprises and distractions along the way. Read here. After arising several mornings at 4:30 am, I’ve encountered the quiet grace in the practice of a soft return.
A soft return is returning to a practice. Whether returning to prayer, silence, journaling, Scripture, or simply the practice of noticing God's presence, a soft return reminds us that the sacred is patient. It’s not about being perfect, getting it right, saying the right things; the soft return is our willingness to be present again.
There are times when familiar spiritual practices fall away. Life becomes full, grief reshapes our days, joy carries us in unexpected directions, or weariness settles deeply within us. Yet when we return, we often discover that the practice has been quietly waiting for us, ready to meet us where we are rather than where we think we should be.
Two days in a row, I had a six o’clock in-person commitment. A required schedule change: leave at 4:15 a.m. to arrive by 5:15 a.m. without rolling out of bed and bolting out of the house. My body doesn’t like those movements. My mind gets frustrated, and I forget things. My heart races too fast. So I had to return to a former morning routine when I taught 7 o’clock morning classes at the Culinary Institute of America. College writing, not cooking.
Coffee and a diary at the dining room table. Then my window faced rooftops; now my window faces treetops. Ironically, in both spaces, birds chirp, whistle, and tweet. I love the bird chant. I returned to a more scheduled morning, 20 minutes to sip coffee and write, write, and sip coffee. Or sometimes just sip coffee.
Over the past two days, I have returned to the song “Slow Down” by I am Son. This time, meditating on the question “What is it that’s keeping you from bringing Me your questions?” All that you bury underneath.” Hmm. Am I burying something?
That question, paired with the question from "Pray as You Go," “What are the wounds that you need God to know about and to heal?” caused me to pause and think deeply with God.
These small returns— 4:30 am wake-up, the dining room table, the window, I'd set aside—are teaching me something about return itself. It isn't a straight line back to where I left off. Each time I come back, I bring the person I've become in the space between, and the practice meets that person, not the one who left.
Time away often changes our perspective. We return with different questions, new tenderness, and a greater capacity to recognize God's faithful presence in places we may once have overlooked and discover unexpected graces.
In spiritual direction, we often speak of paying attention. A soft return invites us to pay attention to the practice and the Holy Spirit who has accompanied us along the way.
Perhaps this is the invitation: to return gently, with curiosity instead of judgment, trusting that every beginning again is itself a sacred practice. In each soft return, we discover not only the practice we left behind, but also the faithful presence that has never left us.
What sacred practice needs a soft return in your life: painting, collaging, dancing, writing, journaling, prayer? Or sitting quietly for 20 minutes before the day begins?
