Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
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
-- C.S. Lewis
Sunday, June 20, 2010
By Example
Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice.
-- Unknown
-- Unknown
Saturday, June 19, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
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.
-- 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.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Friday, June 11, 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.
-- Galatians 5:25-26
...interesting how conceit and competition are juxtaposed with living by the Spirit.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
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
...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
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