Father's Good Pleasure to Give

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

-- Luke 12:32

A question might be, what is the kingdom?  ...that He wants to give versus the one that we would like to have.

Read more...

Scientific Revolutions

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.

-- Stephen Jay Gould

Christmas Prayer

Almighty God, who came to us long ago in the birth of Jesus, come again.
Be born in us anew, O Savior and Light of the World. By the power of your Holy Spirit, break through the darkness of our worlds, the darkness of our own hearts, to frighten and free us.

Rouse us. Stir up our hearts this Christmas season. Let heaven intrude
upon our earthly affairs to rip our attention from the darkness of this world
to your Light of Life. Amen.

-- Various sources

Becoming

God became what we are so that we could become what He is.

-- Scot McKnight

How We See Things

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

-- Anais Nin

Humility of Life

Among other things, life is designed to humble us.  It repeatedly offers us this opportunity.  It seems to be more of a matter of how long we choose to resist these opportunities.  But God is patient and seems willing to let life do this work in us.  And, many times it does its work…it humbles us, sooner or later.  Of course, we can choose to fight these things (Him) all the way to the end, whether we know it is Him we are resisting or not. 

I am grateful for news of someone that appears to have yielded to this reality by letting go of her stubbornness and choosing to release some of her pain and to stop using life to make a point about how she has been wronged.  In her mid-50s, the opportunity for humility seems to have prevailed and, at least in part, it appears she has chosen it.  God is not worried about time, about how long such choices seem to take, and perhaps we should be less so as well…in others lives and in our own.

God simply offers us life, each day.  And, each day, we have the opportunity to simply choose Him, to not resist Him, to turn to Him with all that we know and with all that we don’t know.  It seems this is true in almost every area of our lives; we have the opportunity each day to simply choose to start, repentantly, to begin again.  Whether this be with our relationships, our job, our family, our choices in eating, exercise, leisure, worship, etc. we simply have the opportunity to choose each day…to carry all of our reasons not to do something, not to trust, to hold grudges, to complain to justify, or to choose to submit, to be humble, to let go, to turn to God, to repent of what we need to, to ask for help and wait for his provision.  It takes us a while to see how really simple this is, but when we do…we are profoundly relieved and free…to love the way we want to, in the way God wants us to.

Perhaps this is why Jesus instructed us to simply pray each day, that God would provide us what we need to live.  Perhaps this is why it is repeated throughout the scriptures that we always have TODAY…to not harden our hearts and turn to the God, who loves us.   Perhaps it is in this simple, daily, humble living through which God is making all things new.http://familywilliamson.blogspot.com/2010/01/love-ispatient.html

Light

...because light always follows it...and overwhelms it.

Darkness

Learn to not fear darkness.

Extremism

A few nights ago, twelve friends and I attended the lighting of the Portland Christmas tree in Pioneer Square. My friends had all flown in for Thanksgiving, and we decided to join ten-thousand others who walked from all over downtown for the event. What we didn’t know is the spot where we squeezed into the crowd was 25 feet from a van filled with what a young man believed were six, fifty-gallon barrels of explosive material.  Read on...

Christian extremism is willing to die for people, not demonize them to validate their belittlement and oppression.

-- Donald Miller


This Miller post caught my eye.  I think Miller's discussion is helpful and worth considering, especially in light of the media-soup we swim in these days.

I find myself wondering, though, about the 'enemy' as he describes it. I wonder if extremism is still a front for something else, something closer to the real enemy. What do you think the enemy is?

I suspect it is something inside of us (inside me), rather than something out there. ...something like a worship of self, an indulgence of self, a protection of self, a determined defense of our comfort, of our egos, a carelessness about our relationships with others...often reflected in how we think (talk?) about 'others'. In other words, something is fuel for extremism.  What do you think the enemy is?

Unexpected Friendliness

An unexpected friendliness, creates space for wonder. Like the wonder of 'has something changed for that person?' or 'have I missed something somewhere along the way?'

Funny how 'wondering' can often lead to a kind of joy, if we let it do its work.

First December Snow

I felt the sound of jingle today, as our first December snow glinted across my face. It warmed me from the inside, even as my chilled skin stiffened its resistance.

Keeping Believing Nimble

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an Hour, which keep Believing nimble.

-- Emily Dickenson

Thankfulness

I have noticed...that my thankfulness is proportional to my awareness of need.

I am more thankful today, than usual. ...I think my awareness is higher.

Strength in Being Still

There is a real strength in being still.

It requires a good understanding of where our real strength is found.

Parents: On Behalf of the Diety

It is a serious mistake to think that when questions arise and doubts and rebellions are expressed, the correct strategy is an intensified publicity campaign...no parent is required to mount an advertising campaign on behalf of the Deity.

-- Eugene Peterson

Twice as well

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.

-- Charlotte Whitton

...a perfectly funny sexist comment.

Insecurities

The goal cannot be to try not to live out of our insecurities.  This is both endless and hopeless.

The goal is to learn what we are secure in and to live out of that.

So, What is Real?

Very often when I leave a place of worship, the first impression I have of
the so-called 'outside world' is how small it is -- how puny its politics,
paltry its appetites, squint-eyed its interests.  I have just spent an hour
or so with friends reorienting myself in the realities of the world -- the
huge sweep of salvation and the minute particularities of holiness -- and I
blink my eyes in disbelief that so many are willing to live in such reduced
and cramped conditions.  But after a few hours or days, I find myself
getting used to it and going along with its assumptions.  And then some
pastor or priest calls me back to reality with 'Let us worship God', and I
get it straight again, see it whole.

Every call to worship is a call into the Real World.  You'd think that by
this time in my life I wouldn't need to be called anymore.  But I do.  I
encounter such constant and widespread lying about reality each day and meet with such skilled and systematic distortion of the truth that I'm always in danger of losing my grip on reality.  The reality, of course, is that God is sovereign and Christ is savior.  The reality is that prayer is my mother tongue and the Eurcharist my basic food.  The reality is that baptism , not Myers-Briggs, defines who I am."

-- Eugene Peterson

Squeezing Our Nuts

I was recently troubled to learn I think like a squirrel.

A friend told me a story a while back about a squirrel he saw on the deck of his condo. He put a couple nuts out one day, and the squirrel came back the next day looking for more nuts. So he opened his sliding door, and placed a nut just inside. The squirrel studied the distance he’d have to run to get in and out of the house, then took the chance, grabbed the nut and escaped back to his tree. Each day my friend would bring the squirrel further inside the house, until, after a few weeks, he could feed the squirrel from his hand. Awesome story. Except for what happened next.

My friend decided to stop feeding the squirrel. And the squirrel...  Read on ...

-- Donald Miller

Favor

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

-- Mark Twain

Shedding Some Should

Over the last few years I have realized a 'shedding of should' and a 'wakening of want'.  If you had asked me a while back questions about what I wanted to do, I would be almost completely stopped in an unanswerable state.  I couldn't answer, in part, because I didn't seem to know.  I think I did know, but I had become so unpracticed at allowing that to be a factor in determining what I did that I didn't recognize its role in my life.  I lived primarily out of 'should'.  'What should I do?' felt like a much more answerable and important question.  I might have said something like, 'it doesn't matter what I want to do...it's what I should do that matters'.

Today, after years in the vice of 'should', I feel strangely more free from it...noting that I live much more now out of what I want to do.  I suspect this, at least in part, is due to more of an alignment between my ultimate desires to follow God and my daily ability to choose the ways to do that through the desires that He has given me.  I don't detect a conflict between should and want, as much as I did.  In some ways the two have strangely merged, often undetectibly, but from a view point-a and point-b perspective, quite obviously.

I am grateful for the relief from should and for the freedom of want.  I am glad to just be me (well, more of the time anyway).

Another Great Day at the Big House

For more great pics, click here...

Aging

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.

-- Doug Larson

Seeing and Beleving

I tend to agree with the reverse version of the statement:

"I'll believe it, when I see it."

Many things for me have been more like:

"I'll see it, when I believe it."

Thief of Joy

Comparison is the thief of joy.

-- OtR

God is permitting this...

Mother Teresa would say to me in difficult times, "Don't give in your
feelings. God is permitting this." This really taught me that the best and
the worst in life would pass and if I will learn myself to accept the cross,
to be quiet, humble and hopeful, that all will pass.

She knew that everyone can, with God's grace, reach holiness, not in spite
of the mystery of suffering that accompanies every human life, but through it.

Fall 2010

 

Nothing like a walk in the woods this time of year -- gets me every time.

The One who is leading

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One who is leading.

-- Jim Elliot

Nature's Flagrant Dance

The skies and leaves of Winona were caught flagrantly dancing together this morning -- a still and silent one, but dancing nonetheless with joy-filled flair and the most vibrant of colors.

Whether to or not

No matter how disguised, any temptation is a question of whether to trust God or not.

Flock of Birds

I was driving recently down a country road and noticed a great swirling mass of birds up ahead.  It swung and dove, left and right.  Darting, but in a lumbering sort of way, like a big blanket being swung around the sky.  As I watched, I got thinking and wondering about what was happening, about the individual birds in it. Occasionally, it looked liked there were a few stragglers.  At times, the stragglers seemed to attract a section of birds to break off in a new direction, only to swoop back to the larger pack within seconds.  This made me wonder about the birds at the front, what were they doing, thinking?  Did they know they were leading anything?  It looked like they were.  If they were, were the others following?  Or, were they all just flying, in some seemingly cosmic randomness that actually looked planned?  And, what about those stragglers, did they know they were...straggling?

I'm guessing that none of them really 'thought' about what they were doing.  They were just doing it, out of some great instinctiveness, some design that was built into their birdness, individually and togetherly.  I'm guessing the greater percentage of the birds weren't wishing they could lead the flock, nor that the lead birds were wishing the stragglers would do a better job of keeping up.  So, I returned to just the marvel of what I was seeing...a great mass of birds, doing their thing as they headed somewhere, designed for them to go.

And I wondered how much we are like a flock of birds.  No more in control of our destination or what happens to us than those birds us are, despite what we think of ourselves.  Perhaps we could learn from them and just continue to move together wherever we are going, which God only knows.  Moving, not comparing ourselves to the 'leaders', not judging those behind us, just flying...together...a bunch of black dots in motion, silhouetted against the sky in a form of beauty that captures someone's earthly imagination from time to time, teaching the observer to consider Something he or she might not have noticed about this life and the wonder of it.

My Brother, Joy, and Our Family Tree

Over the years, I've discovered that I have a brother named Joy.  As I've become familiar with Joy, I also noticed that he apparently has a twin...whose name is Longing.

Later I met Longing's siblings, Temptation and Purity.  Temptation, like Cain, always tries to kill Longing, while Purity, who loves Longing, introduces me to more members of our family, who sprout like many branches into a great family tree.  Joy seems to know all about the roots of our family and loves to lead the way, encouraging Purity because he knows how big, fulfilling, and wonderful Longing can lead to in our real family life together.

Because of Joy and Longing, I now love my family, all of you, like my Father. I'm guessing you know his name by now, too - Love.

Like me, I'm guessing some of you saw these siblings again as well last night, or perhaps today, in the aftermath of celebration. Joy and Longing seem to hang out together, a lot of the time. Longing (whose nickname is sometimes, Ache) seems to be welcoming me to wait for the rest of family to grow, so we can all go home together some day.

Where To

We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit.

-- Blaise Pascal

Treat people...

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they're capable of being.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

More or less, Less is More

It seems to me that less is more; the less we have the more we are able to understand.  The more we have, the less we are able to understand.

I've noticed the pattern of this in my own life over the years.  I may think I know more, but I seem to understand less.  I suspect it is partly due to the direction of effort.  When I have more, there is more to take care of...and less time.  Time seems to allow more opportunity to be in touch with something I need for life.  The more effort I put into maintaining things, the more my sense of dependence decreases.

In other words, less means more dependence for me and more means less dependence (or, a sense of it).

What does the LORD give?

The LORD gives strength to his people;
     the LORD blesses his people with peace.

-- Psalm 29:11

Humanity

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

-- Victor Hugo

Climbing...for truth, for freedom

I was recently discussing with a friend some areas of life that have changed for me over the years and the discovery that has ensued as I have allowed myself more freedom to pursue things that appeared, on the front side, to be ‘out of my reach’. Several years ago now, I and my son had the opportunity to climb Pike’s Peak. It was a chore and very uncomfortable for me physically; I felt sick most of the way. I wanted to enjoy the event and everything around me, but just couldn’t because of my physical condition. At that point I determined two things: one, that I did not want to be that uncomfortable again, and two, that I wanted to be able to truly enjoy such things, such challenges and such beauty going forward. I decided to get in shape and climb it again. The result was a much more enjoyable experience for me 2 years later after picking up a regimen of daily running and exercise. Today I can say that I continue to see many benefits from the discipline I determined to achieve back then and there are many things I can now enjoy that I simply could not before.

I often reflect on the significance of this story on other areas of my life, seeing even that the benefits in one area actually spill over into benefits in many other areas as well. All of this would have continued to go undetected, had my experience not forced me into new considerations of the way I was living my life. I can experience more because of something I wanted to avoid and because of something I wanted to enjoy. I think this applies to other areas of life, beyond physical conditioning, as well. I can experience more relationally, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc. by imagining (now from understanding) that there is much more yet to experience – things to avoid, things to pursue.

The point is not that there are lies surrounding truth (in fact, that is always a given), the point is that there is truth to be discovered and that, in so doing, we embark on new legs of the journey that we have not yet experienced…in part, by the sheer discipline of doing it. I do not believe that I can be or do anything I want…but I do believe that I can be and do a lot more than I know at any given point. Here again, lies and truth are side-by-side. Understanding the difference is helpful (after all, we simply must be honest…), but pursuing the latter is transforming. “The more I know, the less I understand”…is not a defeating thing, it is a liberating thing.

Let’s climb…for more. After all, it’s the truth that will set you free.

Find him there...

He departed from our sight, so that we should turn to our hearts and find him there.

-- St. Augustine

Same People

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

-- G.K. Chesterton

Everyman, the standard?

Compared to Everyman, I really don't have much to complain about....

It is interesting how comparing numbs us to something, isn't it? What about what we really want? Do we even know, when most of the time we don't even know what all we are made for? I wonder if such a way of knowing ourselves (comparing) isn't more like a disease, that more sickens us, than anything else. If I am only relative to what the other guy has or looks like, then can I end up anywhere but disappointed?

What is the standard then?

I think it is something inside of us, rather than something outside of us. And, to go one step further, I think it is someone who is inside of us...whose spirit resides within us. So how do we learn...to take our cues from what is inside, rather than what is outside of us? And, what distracts us from this kind of learning?

Living

We live with a humility born out of personal brokeness, moving towards each other with a deep patience, anticipating the surprising and mysterious work of the Spirit of God in all of us, individually and together.

Forgiveness...then Repentance

The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. Thus the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace.

-- Brennan Manning

Community

Why?

In heaven, God will not ask us why we sinned; He will ask us why we didn't repent.

-- Pope Shenouda III

...worth pondering.

Not measured by paragraphs

Writing is only writing. The accomplishments of courage and tenderness are not to be measured by paragraphs.

-- Mary Oliver

Let Us Run the Race Before Us...

...together!

Pilgrimage: Patience and Passion

...a funny thing happened on the way to my vocation.  Today, twenty-five years after I left education in anger and fear, my work is deeply related to the renewal of educational institutions.  I believe that this is possible only because my true self dragged me, kicking and screaming, toward honoring its nature and needs, forcing me to find my rightful place in the ecosystem of life, to find a right relation to institutions with which I have a lifelong lover's quarrel.  Had I denied my true self, remaining "at my post" simply because I was paralyzed with fear, I would almost certainly be lost in bitterness today instead of serving a cause I care about.

Rosa Parks took her stand with clarity and courage.  I took mine by diversion and default.  Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled.  But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.

As May Sarton reminds us, the pilgrimage toward true self will take "time, many years and places."  The world needs people with the patience and passion to make that pilgrimage not only for their own sake but also as a social and political act.  The world still waits for the truth that will set us free -- my truth, your truth, our truth -- the truth that was seeded in the earth when each of us arrived here formed in the image of God.  Cultivating that truth, I believe is the authentic vocation of every human being.

-- Parker Palmer

Arcade Fire and Suburban Camping

It was supposed to be all about comfort and predictability, twin notions that must make God chortle fairly heartily.

-- Andy Whitman

Get this music to honest up your heart a bit.

Afraid to laugh

It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.

-- George MacDonald

Stars

One thing about stars, while once or twice a year on some undistracted evening we 'oooh and aaah'...most of the time we just don't notice them at all, often forgetting they are even there.

And the odd thing is that we...want to be stars, if not to all, at least to those most closely around us, especially family. But more often than not, it seems, we have to live like the stars -- relatively unnoticed...even when shining with a twinkle in our eyes...but still without much thought or reflection from the star-gazers we want to see us.

We feel this from our kids, as they grow older...and try to shine brightly on their own. We feel this from time to time from our spouses or a friend. But in the end, faith teaches us to 'twinkle' on anyway...noticed in the moment or not...because we know that one day our star will be an important one among the many which reflect the hidden beauty and marvels of God. Our star in the midst of His Milky Way; we become content with the momentary opportunity to do our direct twinkle-work every once in a while, when someone we love stops to notice.

May we take our spots in the sky with gratitude and not seek to be brighter than we are.

Stand Up...Again

It is faith that compels us to stand up again...to stand up again and look through all the evidence of our failures to the God of our faith who draws us away from the emprisoning ugliness of self-determinism and towards the beauty of our released freedom in Him.

There is Truth...

There is some truth in what almost everyone is saying....

No Painless Way

If you are looking for painless ways to grow toward each other and toward maturity, call off the search.

-- J. Grant Howard

A Beautiful Mind

I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found.

-- John Nash

I've been introducing some movies to my son that have been meaningful to me over the years.  I watched this one again recently, realizing I've forgotten what a great story it is.  I particularly like the choice of love that John's wife makes to reach her husband.

I also have recognized periods of my life where unreal things distort my sense of reality...while not the same issues, they are not unlike what John Nash had to work through. Perhaps the things that tempt us or plague us never really do go completely away -- these thorns in the flesh. But, in retrospect, they do seem to be able to be silenced, even as they continue to wait for opportunity to ensnare us...not unlike the image in Genesis of sin that 'crouches at the door'.  Believing in truth strikes me as a lot like what is depicted in this movie.

Humility

True humility doesn't consist of thinking ill of yourself but of not thinking of yourself much differently from the way you'd be apt to think of anybody else.

-- Frederick Buechner

The Story of Now

Have you noticed how...we often refer to things that have taken place in the past?

Duck & Run

After we learned more about the status of things, the race was even more fun.  Cardinal Center apparently has lost over 3/4 of a million funding dollars and have had to lay off 20 employees, with remaining employees taking a 4% cut in pay.  We were a little more ready to 'run', knowing some of our effort was helping a good thing for our community.

Click for more pics...

Trees & Pornography

If man were a tree, pornography is like taking an axe to his roots.  It cuts off his source of strength, weakening his whole being.

"Blessed is the man...

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
       which yields its fruit in season
       and whose leaf does not wither.
       Whatever he does prospers."

-- Psalm 1:3

...and trees wait, while pornography can only think long enough to say, "Why wait?".

Chicago

Amazing view of Chicago's skyline!  Click for more pics....

Endless Good

We can walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good which He is always giving as fast as He can get us able to take it in.

-- George Macdonald

Hanging On

You don't hang on to God, He hangs on to you.  Believing that is where you come in.

Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment

A recent re-viewing of this great story reminds me again of the power of mercy in life...in my life. I am grateful for Hugo's telling of life.

"Mercy triumphs over judgment!"

-- James 2:13

Great Things

I am done with Great things and Big things, with great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular forces, that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world, like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, but which give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of men's pride.

-- William James

Parenting Adolescents

When I observe the families where parents seem to be doing a good job of living the Christian faith in relation to their children, it is readily apparent that actual practices vary widely.  Particular rules, techniques of discipline, variation in strictness and permissiveness – they run the gamut.  One thing stands out:  these parents, seriously, honesty, joyfully follow the way of Christ themselves.  They don’t define adolescence as a problem and try to solve it.  They are engaged in vigorous Christian growth on their own and permit their children to look over their shoulders while they do it.

…they don’t have to live perfect lives, but they must take seriously what they are doing, which is growing up in Christ.  They must do it openly before adolescents so that the adolescents can observe, imitate, and make mistakes in the context of care and faith.

-- Eugene Peterson, Like Dew Your Youth

Love

The harder you work to be loved, the more you wonder whether you are loved.

Pilgrimage

It is remarkable to me, the power of an unfilled morning. Space. The space of time. What such a thing opens within me. Today’s space afforded me the opportunity for more than 5 minutes of sound-bite living, more than 5 minutes to test a reading to see if it could capture my perpetually rolling attention.

A short story from Image journal called Pilgrimage, by Paula Huston won…both my time and attention. As I finished, tears were slowly making their way down my face. Not convulsively, but ache-ingly. The story captures the life of a competent middle-aged daughter wrestling with the power of an even more accomplished, yet distant father…and the wake of love unexplored it had created. She meets an old friend of her father, who in the end tells her that her father “always carried a picture of you, a new one every time I saw him. …How could you not know it? She stared him, stunned…”

As I pondered the significance of this against the story line, I realized that like her I, too, so long for such unbridled affection…or perhaps to know about it towards me. I ache for it, but mostly don’t even know that I do. And, in my unwitting compensation for it, I endlessly am doing things. Only occasionally, like this morning, do I recognize what a good portion of all the doing is all about, to fill or to get someone to fill this gaping hole within me. I so longed to waken Tami, have her read the story, try to explain what it aroused with me, …hoping for an attempt on her part to shovel something into the hole for me. I know she can’t do this, at least in the way I think I want. But, I still want her to try. I still want everyone to try. But, because that would be too obvious – my desire for love, complete undeserved acceptance, I seek both through endless activity for everyone around me. This is a sweetly painful revelation, not completely new, but nonetheless fresh.

And the irony, and tearfully sad to me, is that I wonder if the depth of affection the main character in the story felt from and for her father is a similar kind of tragedy with my own daughters, especially Makenzie. Who, like the father in the story, I adore, but that I also wonder whether she knows the 'picture' of her I carry in my mind. My eyes swell again…for her sake, and the ‘wake’ in her life.

I wonder what kind of nexus this is all about today as I consider the pace of the last few years, the space of this morning, another summer which always seems to bring about its annual respite and changes, and the fact today is my father’s birthday….

God, you pierce me this morning, but I am grateful to know that it is you, both in my aching for, and from, you.

Truth & Comfort

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth...

-- C.S. Lewis

By Example

Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice.

-- Unknown

Life's Lessons

I've high-lighted the ones I recognize as really valuable for me (at half her age)...

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written.
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16.. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come...

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

-- Regina Brett, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio.

Discipline of Gratitude

The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

-- Henri Nouwen

I have not often thought of gratitude as a discipline.  But over the years I have come to know the choice that it is.

Graduate 2010

Live...by the Spirit

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

-- Galatians 5:25-26

...interesting how conceit and competition are juxtaposed with living by the Spirit.

To Discern What Is Best

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best...

...and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

-- Philippians 1:9-11

Ranking Work and Pleasing God

There is no work better than to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all is one, to wash dishes and to preach is all one, as touching the deed, to please God.

-- William Tyndale

2010 Senior Scholarship Night!

24 - Season Finale!

Understanding

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

-- St. Augustine

Desire for transcendence

Despite what people think, the discussion about speed is never really about the current state of technology. It goes much deeper than that, it goes back to the human desire for transcendence.

-- Mark Kingwell

I've not thought of speed in this way, but I can see the connection to technology (especially in our age), which does seem to often be used, in whatever age, for something like transcendence.

Mercy

Lord, have mercy.

Have mercy on my darkness,
my weakness,
my confusion.
Have mercy on my infidelity,
my cowardice,
my turning about in circles,
my wandering,
my evasions.

I do not ask for anything but such mercy, always, in everything,
mercy.

My life here – a little solidity and very much ashes.
Almost everything is ashes. What I have prized most is ashes.
What I have attended to least is, perhaps…
a little solid.

Lord, have mercy.
Guide me,
make me want again to be holy,
to be a man of God, even though in desperateness and confusion.

I do not necessarily ask for clarity, a plain way, but only to go according to your love,
to follow your mercy, to trust your mercy.

I want to seek nothing at all, if this is possible.
But only to be led without looking and without seeking.

For thus to seek is to find.

-- Thomas Merton, Journals, August 2, 1960, IV.28

Makenzie & Friends - 8th Grade Dance

Even Mystery

Even mystery has a stone on which to kneel.

Seeing

I thank God today for the ability to see. 

I was out running this morning through the woods, down a path that meandered a course along a local stream.  The landscape was whipped from yesterday’s endless winds, but the morning was winning back its beauty as everything relaxed back into its slow, more regular reach for the skies.  The stream was full and coursing along in the places it falls, in others just pacing as the terrain allowed.  Suddenly a huge span of wings filled the waters’ surface as a giant heron slowed ascended just above the trickling below to escape any possible danger from me.  It flew slowly and silently, hovering over the middle of the stream, as if anticipating to someday hang in perfect balance in the capture of some professional photographers' gallery.  As it flew out of sight, I murmured ‘Thank You’ to God for the ability to see such a thing.

I came around another bend in the trail and the picture before simply repeated itself again down yet another stretch of the winding watery path.  I thought knowing such a thing happens whether I am the one to see it or not deepens a sense of something within me.  My seeing also led to my knowing something, something bigger than my routine sense of things, something I had not quite yet known before.  I felt like a student in one of God’s many schools, this time the session being held in the natural classroom that He made.

A third time I came upon the great bird, now just standing still in the middle of the creek.  He watching me this time, poised but perhaps more tolerant of my presence because I had presented him no danger up until now.  I ran by with not one movement on his part, except for the slow darting of his eye to retain his sense of knowing something.  What a dance this had become between me and the natural world.

What a gift my eye-sight was to a deeper knowledge, that I fit in a much larger order of the things of God. 

I thanked God again for allowing me to 'see'.

Tomorrow and Today

I am struck again today at 2 seemingly opposite things:

- That I regularly live trying to anticipate the future
- That the future is completely unknown

I cannot know what lies ahead – good or ill.  Yet I try to anticipate everything I can about the possibilities of both.  But the effort is largely ill-founded and largely a waste of energy.

I noticed this again today while running; realizing that I can only thank God for the beauty of the day outside and for the ability he has given me to simply notice it, to enjoy it … to see it, smell it, feel it, taste it, hear it, sense it.  I then thought about my yesterdays, in light of my experience today and realized that God is both taking care of me now (today) and that He has done so in all my yesterdays (the past).  Why then would I worry about the future?  Is the future any more in my hands than today is, than yesterday was?  What makes me think I can manage the future, especially when I realize I haven’t controlled much of anything up to this point?  In fact, the worry about getting through tomorrow seems to do little more than detract from my ‘today’, and my awareness that He is taking care of me in ways well beyond what I can imagine.

The only thing I need to do is the only thing I can do – trust Him…today.

A life un-preoccupied with the future is a life that is finally free.

Earnie Harwell - Farewell

I don't profess to be a 'huge' baseball fan, but I do remember many many nights going to sleep to Earnie's voice.  His passing brought back many childhood memories that only his voice captured.

There was something magical about life (radio) before 'everything was televised'.

Tigers legend instilled love of baseball

Not What We Expect

I was thinking today that when we have the courage to pray for God's expansion in our lives, we don't have in mind that His answer often is to provide humility...so that His kind of expansion can occur.  Even less do we expect the contexts where humility is often provided...in the destruction of parts of ourselves that we are working hard to expand.

The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.

-- Thomas Carlyle

Opposites

The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief.

-- Leslie Weatherhead

Less

The more I feel responsible for, the less free I seem to be.

More

The more I do, the more I think I'm responsible for.

Damage

Sin in life has damaged us all. So now what? What is productive about comparing our damage? If this is a given, what cliff are we looking over?

Like Pouring Light into Your Soul

Can't really say enough about the redemption that drips from a recent letter from Linford Detweiler of the band Over the Rhine. If something could drip with redemption, I would say this is pretty darn close!

Spring has come.... The grass is green, the silver maples have their leaves, our part of the earth has tilted back toward the sun, which seems to take pleasure now in drenching the house in morning light. If you stand on the porch, close your eyes, turn your face toward the sun and let it shine on your eyelids, if you breathe deeply, it feels like someone is pouring a pitcher of light directly into your soul.

The birds are drunk on spring, flirting, nesting, singing. Our lone tupelo tree has new eager buds that make it look like a candelabra full of tiny green candles. My mother says if you pay attention it’s like watching the world being created all over again right in front of your eyes.

Yes, we are feeling adventurous. (Maybe adventure is simply paying attention to the part of you that wants to be created all over again.)

We believe making music has something to do with what we were put on this earth to do. If we leave our songs alone, they call to us until we come back to where we belong. When we live in the sweet spot of that calling, it gives others (you?) permission to discover the sweet spot of your own calling and live there.

Karin and I have been writing our new songs for a good while now. I suppose many of them are understated glimpses into the people we are (so far) and the people we long to be and the difference that lies between.

-- Linford Detweiler

Let's make a record!

Weight

Good outweighs bad...by a long shot. But bad's weight will still kill you...and only good can lift you back to life.

Beloved, I Urge You

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.

-- 1 Peter 2:11

Disaster

You will be graced with the disaster your soul requires to find it’s way home. 

-- Tim Farrington

Aligator Walking!

Forfeit Grace?

Those who cling to worthless idols
       forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

-- Jonah 2:8

Since We Are Free...

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

-- Galatians 5:1

The work has been done...that is a huge relief, that things don't hang in the balance because of something we must still do. So what does it look like to 'not let ourselves be burdened again'? What is the yoke of slavery? Where does the metaphor apply specifically in my life, in your life?

Don't Forget to Grieve

Those of us who inhabit the sphere of “American Christianity” live in a world that doesn’t know when, how, or even why to grieve. For us, Christianity is about victory, it’s about feeling better about ourselves. It’s upbeat, inspiring, short, and peppy. I know one pastor of a large church who once asked his worship leaders not to play any songs written in a minor key. Too much of a downer.

-- Bob Hyatt

For more, click here.

The Truth

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

-- Flannery O'Connor

Liberty

Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it.

-- George Bernard Shaw

In light of the role of 'responsibility' in The Shack, I have found myself intrigued by the possibility of any potential comeback for it. I would feel a bit more comfortable with something like the words 'allows for' or 'accommodates' in place of 'means' in the quote above.  But, I'm still young....

Brokering Goodness

I want to stop brokering goodness with God...from God and wherever else I think it is.  I want to yield completely to God's goodness, the only real goodness there is, whether it feels like goodness to me or not.

BigTen 2010 Basketball Tourney

Lets Not Be Afraid To Look

Lets not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

-- Henri Nouwen

Humility

God uses life to offer humility to everyone.

What Is In Us

We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.

-- C.S. Lewis

Melissa Pritchard on Life and Writing

Several ideas resonate with me from this interview with Melissa Pritchard...mostly things that I cannot yet fully put words to. The ones below are sprinkled throughout the interview, referenced in full by the link below.  I'll enjoy musing opportunities on these over the next few runs of mine.

I believe greatness of soul demands sacrifice, and sacrifice implies the death or deaths of the smaller self, of the overcoat of ego, of the shield of good opinion.
...

I was drawn by the idea that mysticism may more accurately partake of the nature of reality than we, in our deadening, pedestrian habits, do.
...

...let go of your dull, safe, unilateral reality—cross into the light, the vibration of light, move in circles, by spinning, into divine mystery, into the elusive, prodigious stream of creation.
...

I had liked the archbishop, and the fact of his precipitous, very public fall from grace did not disillusion me; it deepened my conviction that compassion, a tender understanding the complex and sometimes tragic contradictions in human beings, was central to the importance and power of storytelling.

-- Melissa Pritchard, Image Interview

Accept It, Knowing...

Accept as good whatever happens to you or affects you, knowing that nothing happens without God.

-- The Didache

Funeral & Forgiveness

Have you seen the posts at "Dawn's Random Acts of Thought"? I particularly like this one:

Beware of refusing to go to the funeral
of your own independence.

-- Oswald Chambers

And from our friend, Dick Rooker:

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

-- Mark Twain

Secret of Faith

The great secret of a life of faith is to hang upon Jesus daily; to go to Him in every trial; to cast upon Him every burden; to take the infirmity, the corruption, the cross, as it rises, simply and immediately to Jesus.

-- Octavius Winslow

Notice the difference in this approach to life compared to the one Tiger described.  Where did he turn (and we turn)?  Where does faith ask us to turn?

I Deserve

I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard throughout my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. Thanks to money and fame I didn't have to go far to find them. I was wrong. I was foolish. I didn't get to play by different rules.

-- Tiger Woods


I have noticed that along with the things I work hard at...is a belief at times that I, too, deserve something. This seems pretty profound...a misunderstanding to be sure, but something of a great discovery about the vagaries of the ways we seek our independence.

Every Single Piece of You

God is going to redeem every single piece of you…He just is not going to submit his plan for doing so for your approval.

Pessimism

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.
 
-- George F. Will

Bald Eagles Presiding Over Winona Lake

More Winona eagle pics here....

Conclusions

I’ve reached all kinds of conclusions about you…because of all my conclusions about myself.

Unquenchably...His Work

The love I bear Christ is but a faint and feeble spark, but it is an emanation from himself:  He kindled it and he keeps it alive; and because it is his work, I trust many waters shall not quench it.

-- John Newton

Mashed Potatoes of Emptiness

More often than not, but not every time, I wake up with a fairly clear list of the ‘get tos’ I want for the ensuing day.  Things to think about, things or people to pursue, thoughts to jot down, things to get done – things I just want or need to ‘get to’.  More often than not, by the end of the day, something has mashed most of those things together into some kind of mush that makes it very difficult to return to any constructive activity related to my original morning plans.  At best only one thing still has a shape…and even then it is difficult to apply the kind of energy that is needed to do much about it.  Perhaps this is just plain ole tiredness.  I don’t like to admit that, but it could be true.  It feels to me though that it is a little more about something else…like an exhaustion result of so much stuff that has just run through my mind and body for the waking hours since sleep last jiggled things back into a recognizable shape and form.

Last night, for example, I just could not get to anything other than physical movement.  I was aware of wanting many things, wanting to get to many things, but even my attempts more often than not left me staring for minutes on end.  This morning, however, few things look like last evening’s mashed potatoes.  And, like the freshness of the morning’s sun on our new fallen snow, I feel ready to go. 

I do catch a whiff of last night’s starch though, and one morsel of truth lingers.  That there is an energy that is self-perpetuating about the activity and fill of life…and when that subsides, we must not try to jolt it back into gear.  There is something very valuable about waiting in an open space in our lives…something important about feeling emptiness.  It is as real and important as the constantness of being full. 

I wanted to find a jolt last night and abiding with all of my ‘options’ was a pervading sense that I need to remain…empty.  Such remaining allows something else to happen, other things to be detected that are often overwhelmed by our busyness, an acknowledgement of a dependence we so unconsciously avoid.  Emptiness is a good thing, a very good thing.  And, all the versions of 5-hour energy drinks that we now have in our society, should really be avoided.

There is a time for everything…and this is the time to be empty, to be alone, to feel ache in it.

Anxious; why?

And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

-- Luke 12:25-26

Save or Savor

AS WE LAY IN BED this morning, Norma asked what I was going to do today. “Save the world,” I replied in a deadpan voice. “Did you say ‘save,’” she asked, “or ‘savor’?” I laughed. “Try ‘savor,’?” she said.

-- Sy Safransky, Sy Safransky's Notebook

Whence and the Keeper

The Milky Way was created
by a herd of white horses
set loose, rearing and kicking,
galloping through the desert night,
leaving their white hoof prints
by the thousands upon thousands
across the empty black sands.

The Milky Way is a river of rising
rapids and frothy currents cresting
around bends, surging over white
boulders. It is a bridge of shining
ice cracking to pieces, slivers, chips,
gems, above a bottomless gorge.

That glowing arc, that band
of light is as ceremonious
as a congregation of luminous
plankton in a swirl of ocean current.
It is as devoted as a prayer
of pilgrims with lighted lanterns
moving across a barren valley
and up a steep mountain
to a future shrine.

Everything I see of the heavens,
I know by the earth. The Milky
Way is a pinwheel with four
spiraling arms composed of young
blue stars, old red stars at its bulging
center, and older citizen stars
of the ancient halo surrounding.

It protests war like a highway
of crushed and shattered bones,
promises like an avenue
of white violets and Easter lilies
laid for a passing corpse, floats
like a field of dandelion hairs
and spinning milkweed wings
scattered by a gust of cosmic
wind, sinks casually like coins
and strings of pearls tossed
from a carnival barge into the night.
By the earth I see whatever I see.

-- Pattiann Rogers

...from Image journal, Issue 63

Listen

The first duty of love - is to listen.

-- Paul Tillich

I wonder if the listening required is a listening to life and to those in it, as if to live with the desire to have an understanding of it…not unlike listening to a person, not unlike loving a person.

What's Missing & What's Present

As much as there is in the 1 Cor 13 passage on love (see below), I'm struck by is 'not' there...and what is not there seems to lead to a different orientation to the things that are there.

So, what isn't there?  One thing, on the order of our common cultural diet, seems to not be related to what we should do...to love.  We often look at something like this and only have enough interest to pursue what the 'actions' are...to determine whether or not those appear worth doing.  When I consider the pieces of this passage and the tenor of them combined, I am struck by...what love isn't, what it doesn't do.  The actions implied seem to be un-named and likely to flow out of out of something else.  We want a list, which it looks like it is, but even more, we want a list of things we can do...in an effort, I'm afraid, to force an outcome we imagine.  This description of love seems to avoid offering this to us.

What is there?  I'm also struck by loves disposition, what it seems to have to believe.  Like 'what isn't there', this description's 'To Do' items are equally non-specific in terms of specific tasks and tend to reference things that defy specific time-frames. It feels like love described here is something that results from something believed in, something dependent on a long-term view, something that is not abated by short-term circumstances.  Love here seems to come from...understanding, not from feedback, not from results.

While we want something to do, love wants us to know something, to believe in something, to pursue something...all the way to the end.  The kind of thing that perseverance needs...to continue despite reasons not to, despite the ease of typical responses to life and the hard things in it...love compels us to.

Perhaps the standard that is often set by this passage is not so much the perfection of accomplishing such things as it is in the believing what it takes...to stick to something (someone?), through think and thin, because it knows where it is headed.  Love never gives up...is both the introduction and conclusion.

Q&A: Love

Q:  Is 'love' an idea or a person?

A:  God is love.

Gran Torino

Bitterness & Confession.
Prejudice & Love.
Life & Death.

...one of my Top 10 movies.

Love is...Patient

I’m in a hurry a lot.  I find myself often thinking that I could get more done IF it didn’t take me so long to get from A to B.  So I tend to run from place to place, to work, from work.  This morning I was running back from my workout feeling some time pressure to get home faster, in order to make breakfast on time for the kids.  I’d gotten up a bit later than usual, worked out faster than normal and was now trying to get home more quickly…thinking if I ran a little faster, I could be home more quickly…wishing I could ‘transport’ myself, so that it would be faster.  I then realized I couldn’t run that much faster anyway and, afterall, it would only save me a minute or two.  Besides what would be lost in a minute or two?  Perhaps there is a reason why I have to put up with time…the time it takes to do things, to get places.  What is behind my impatience with time anyway?

It dawns on me that there is an assumption I am making about what all I need to get done…and that there might be far less that needs to get done than I tend to think.  My mind, with the benefit of my running time, wanders to my recent contemplations on love and I notice something familiar about this situation and how I tend to view love.  For example, I often think that love is something that I need to do better and learn faster.  Why is that?  Would love even conform to such a thing…as compression?  There is, afterall, something elusive about love…as if it is not to be fully captured…especially not by hurrying to it, hurrying through it.

It strikes me that one of the pre-dominant challenges of love is that it is something that you have to wait for, wait in.  And then, my mind pops, “Love is patient.”  What does it take to be patient?  Experience mostly; whatever it takes, it seems to take a while.  Why experience?  Because experience gives us understanding.  It teaches us to be willing to be patient, to wait, because it knows something important happens in the process of waiting.  I suspect we have to experience the limitations of hurry and the benefits of the lessons time teaches us.  And as we learn, we are willing to wait because we know it is better to do so…to trust in something happening that you can’t see in any given moment.  Love is patient.

And, I am thankful, even if prematurely, for the limitations of hurrying…that time has much to teach us, that minutes don’t matter as much as we think, that an inconveniently longer than desired run can give me the many gifts of thought, and wonderings, and waitings on God for His timing in things.

Love loves when...

Love loves when it is not loved back.

How can it do this?  …because it knows it is loved by another who loves when He is not loved back.

Love always trusts...

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Is trust the root of protects, hopes, perseveres?  In other words, can I protect something that I don't trust?  Can I hope or offer hope in something I don't trust?  Can I really persevere without trust?

What does love trust in?  In the likelihood of something turning out the way I want it to?  In the innate goodness of another person?  In my own ability to hold on to it?  ...I'm guessing that in order to do all of these things (or any of them), I have to ultimately trust in something else...something other than these things.

Love never fails...

Love never fails – 1 Corinthians 13:8.  I feel a bit snagged by the absolute nature of this statement, but suspect that it is meant to be encouraging, at the very least not defeating.  What is the import of this truth about love, for me today?

New Old Law

We reach for a new law, often through the muck of an ever-present old one.  And, as we do, we discover that the ‘new law’ is really the oldest one – the law of love, as so eloquently put in the now annually fading echo of the Christmas song, “Oh Holy Night”.  The middle-law, the one we feel entrenched in now, is the law of independence.  Its requirement is to ‘Be Independent’…do not put yourself at the risk of dependence on something else, much less others.  The odd thing, and one that seems to take a while for us to detect, is that it comes guised in false wrapping – for by being ‘independent’, it instructs that we will have something we want, namely freedom.  And in so doing, it attempts to subtly distort the freedom to ‘love’.

But, as we all come to know, this is not the way.  Our dependence on God is what leads us to the older and more true law.  The scent of ‘Be Independent’ is everywhere now, without and within.  Help me learn to detect the real flavor of the ‘Be Dependent’, rather the false aroma of ‘Be Independent’, to know what real love is…through the freedom to do it.

Being Human and Loving

I am both surprised and disappointed at the regularity and rate of change within myself.  Why would I even be surprised or disappointed by such things?  Largely, I’m guessing, it is because so often I feel so out of control of what is happening…and my ability to understand it seems so limited.  Further, I’m guessing I’m only now embracing some things that it means to be human, by acknowledging more ways that I am human…and limited in my ability to control much of life, much less myself.

What brought this to light recently is my awareness of how selfish I am, how much love can escape me when I don’t feel loved.  How much I am unable to steel myself in ‘love’ against the failures of my own ability to love well.  Of course, it is possible that I don’t really understand much about love at all.   And so, my mind recalls some of the summarized descriptors of love in I Corinthians 13.  Because of some of the old ways and some of the new ways I have become aware (again) of my failures to love, I’ve decided to try to read and contemplate this passage again each day for 39 days.  Why 39?  Because it is one less than 40 days…and 40 days seems to be a popular euphemism for making something successful.  While I probably do more than I think, I really don’t want to be successful at love…as much as I want to love better, in part by understanding it differently than the regular diet of love definition I absorb from the world.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

New Year

What will a new year bring?  Unanticipated suffering or surprising ease.  Health or physical descent.  Or, rather than either extreme, will it bring something in between.  And, with any of these paths, will the thing we don't expect accompany it?  I hope for a deeper trust -- in God, in others, in myself.  I know the probable path that hope will lead me and the thought of it makes me shrink back a bit into something more familiar...even as I don't want as much of what is familiar as I do of what isn't.  Such odd juxtapositions within me...enough to make me feel strange at times, at others enough to make me feel like the living I'm doing is just beginning.

I don't want pain and I don't want to cause it, but both will happen.  Can I believe that the joys that often accompany such things will outlast what will turn out more to be inconveniences than anything else?  I hope I have faith enough to find out.  Even as I hope, I know that I am being given it...despite the evidence that can worthily damn me.  For that truth, for that good, for surpassing greatness I step forward...into a new year.