Who Yearns and Waits...for Us

 ...and thanks to my friend Holly for forwarding this today. I am grateful for the right description of things. I had read some of Walter's works years ago. This reminds me to look into what he has been doing lately...more teaching and writing, I presume.

Change

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

-- Benjamin Franklin

We really don't like change too much.  Why do you think that is?

'Ben' essentially said change is a constant. I tend to agree. It must have something to do with how we are made; how what has been made is.  I wonder if we don't like change because we want to control things...for our own purposes...especially things we become used to.  So perhaps the design of things, including change, is for our own good.  ...so that we can't rely too heavily on this desire to use things exclusively for how we would like things to be, for our purposes, for our comfort.

How we react to change seems important.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

Dancing Pine

What do I see that speaks to me of God?  As I contemplated this today, I found myself standing before the undulating pine tree. It was as if it was doing a slow, barely detectable dance...one you couldn't see from very far away, but quite mesmerizing up close. It appeared that there was no wind, even as the living stack of verdant branches was 'doing its thing'. It didn't seem to care whether I noticed it or not. It just moved in a living rhythm, seemingly for it's own pleasure (or for the One who made it).

After a drenching rain, nearly each pine needle seemed to be oozing droplets of water, which graced like diamonds the waving branches which so proudly displayed their tiny wonders. The pine aroma aroused a deep affection as shadowy memories of color, texture, and scent wafted over me. I was in awe...of what stood before me, the past it grabbed swung around like a scarf and the nostalgic sense of future anticipation proffered an amazing coming of something that you can only feel by being surrounded by the natural world.

I stepped back as its liquid descenders leaped to land somewhere upon me.  As I turned away, another coniferous wonder confronted me; this time with fronds of green that were like exact duplicates of the the finest feathers I've even seen.

I knew in that moment that I could never capture the enrapturing nature of that with which I was now overcome, even as I attempted to do so with my far inferior camera of my cell phone. I had the sense that this moment was something more for me to share between me, the tree, and God than with anyone else. Though I nearly burst to tell of it somehow...what I am doing here.

One comment eeked out a few minutes later, 'wonder and worship are sometimes like siamese twins'.

Losing Things

At times, it takes losing things in order to really find things.

I have noticed in my life that I have had to lose things to discover that I am really hanging on to them.  And, that it was necessary for me to lose these things in order for me to find the things I really need (want) to be hanging on to.

...like my identity.

No king is saved by the size of his army;
   no warrior escapes by his great strength.

-- Psalm 33:16

I have tended to think things like this may be true for the big stuff...you know, like in war...national stuff.  But what about the small place where I live?  Is the place where I live really under the same kind of control?  The same kind of interest...on God's part?  But, where does such logic come from?  Isn't it usually the case that if the big stuff is covered, that the small stuff is, too?  Because it's the big stuff that we use (or gets used against us) to believe that things really are out of control; that the strong are getting away with things (and, somehow, at my expense)...because of their power or strength.  And, so, again under such logic, my small situation is even more susceptible to the power of the strong.

But, even though this view is pervasive, it remains illogical, deceptive even.  Nothing happens outside of God's purview, not even the activity (successes) of the powerful...corporate or individual.  Nothing happens that God does not allow.  That may not be comforting at times when my sense of things is 'at risk'.  But that really is only my perception...because the truth is that nothing, no one, does anything...on his own.  Big...or small.  At war...or in my small and normal life.

I am grateful for this simple truth about kings and warriors.

More on Forgiveness

There is a hard law...when an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.

-- Alan Paton

Forgiveness

He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.

-- George Herbert

GO BLUE!

Wow! What a game!

Saturday Morning

Perhaps it's time to for me...to remember the original goals of my 'Saturday Morning' efforts. ...which were largely to create some space in my life to reflect on...it. My life. The pace of things, life's seemingly endless demands, the multi-variate (is that a word?) directions of it...all seem to point to something that has increasingly become more reactionary, than planned. I'm not saying that is all bad. In fact, for me, I discovered many good things about it. My 'planned' life preferences aren't all bad either, but they do seem to introduce more possibility that I live 'outside the moment at hand'. And, there are many benefits to acknowledging and living 'in' the moments of life as they cascade upon us (me, anyway. You?).

But there is also a sense of 'go with the flow' that I continue to find leads me away from things I value, things I need...as I constantly end up seeking to satisfy the moment. I lose track of something along the way, and often it is the process, the destination. I become engrossed in meeting other's expectations and lose track of who I am...largely becoming defined by something external, rather than something internal. I lose track of my identity. More significantly, I notice a parallel track of these rails that leads me to lose track of God. He doesn't really go anywhere, but I seem to. I end up relying more and more on my own efforts, which leads me toward stress and towards a demand from others to 'cooperate' with my efforts. Something 'not good' happens on these paths. And, the noise of perpetual motion seems to contribute to it. I need to make time to stop. I need a few moments on Saturday morning each week to do so.

This is why, at least in part, I renamed my journaling (blogging) to 'Saturday Mornings', a time to stop each week and reflect on what is going on, what is guiding me, who I am leaning on. Re-connecting to God in my life, while ceasing - at least for a few moments - my striving. Oddly enough my computer screen, from which I write, has a quite glossy finish...which when I look at it less for the words being typed and more at its reflection, seems to show a somewhat shadowy image of my face...an image of me. When I look at, really looking at it, I see myself again and I am prompted to ask who I really am. Who do I see in this reflection? Is the me I see really who I want to be, or more of who I tend to become...an impersonal endless effort to 'keep up' in this world.

So, it's Saturday Morning and I'm catching back up with the real me...by slowing down enough to notice.

Bon Iver - Holocene

Believing

If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe Him at all.

-- C.H. Spurgeon

Being Outside Leads You Inside

Coming off of a youth retreat this weekend, I am reminded that there is something profoundly true about how being outside leads you inside.

I have seen it over and over and over again.  The natural world calls to our hearts like nothing other.  Not unlike (and perhaps the same thing), the Creator calling to the created.

If you can't get inside yourself...go outside for a while.

Lead by Following

It is by what you follow, that you lead.

Put more succinctly, who you follow.  We're not following anything, except when we're following God.  And, we're not leading anything (or anyone), except when we're doing the same thing.

I used to think that you lead by...leading.  Now, I believe you lead by...following, when you're following God.

Identity

I didn't know who I really was until I could no longer define who I was by what I did.  It was when I thought I wasn't good enough to do anything, that I learned who I really was.  I am not what I do.  I am whose I am.

My acceptance of myself was really based on what I did and how well I did it and that was largely based on how others evaluated what I did.  But when others abandoned that process, I really didn't know who I was any longer.  All I had was theories about life, about myself, but no real belief...because my acceptance of myself was based on the acceptance of others.

My employment situations a few years ago were a big part of both sides of these realities.  The irony is that it was when I lost the identity I had through my employments that I really began to learn where my acceptance was really found...not in what I did or accomplished, not in what others said about me.  It was in the acceptance I had in God, regardless of what I was or was not doing...even when it appeared that I was doing nothing.

I learned this through nearly 2 long (yet relatively short) years of not being able to understand myself through what I accomplished in the eyes of the world.  And, I am eternally grateful for the true identity I found during this time.

I particularly enjoy the way Henri Nowen puts things...regarding our identity..

Prayer in Life's Tensions

Recently I found myself praying something familiar...for 3 things, really 4...when facing something about which I feel tension:

1. Wisdom -- that I would see what really needs to be seen, not just what looks familiar to me (based on my own experience).  In other words, for more of what God sees.

2. Courage -- that I would move towards things, speak into things that I might otherwise avoid due to my human inclination to take the path of least resistance.  And, that I would have courage not to move / speak when needed...to allow God to do His work.

3. Strength -- to be willing to stand in things when resistance comes, to not shrink back, but to be willing to stay...even when I become the object of the resistance.

...and, yes, a 4th thing:

4. Love -- that God would grant me love for those in the situation, for as the Scriptures note, without love (even if granted the 3 things above) I have nothing.