Cyber Monday

Ads have a tendency to promote narcissism while portraying our lives as dull and ordinary. They trade on natural desires but in a way that heightens our dissatisfaction and creates unrealistic expectations.

-- Jean Kibbourne, media critic

Adversity

If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ?

-- Thomas à Kempis

Dare I pray for this kind of friendship? My spirit is willing, but....  Fortunately, he is a far better friend to me than I to him.  He will take me where I need to go, through adversity or not.

Thanksgiving - Honesty and Hope

There is something about the sweep of things, if we're honest...that illuminates day-to-day goings-on. 

It also takes an honesty about the day-to-day, lest the 'overview' of things become the Christmas newsletter where only the good things of life are mentioned...to leave an impression about something that isn't really true...like how well our lives are going.

Looking back, at times like Thanksgiving, gives us the opportunity to be honest about what isn't yet, about our need, about our longings for more.  It is also reminds us about what is true...that God is calling us, that God is with us, that God is guiding us...and, therefore, that we have hope in Him in the day-to-day of our lives.

It's a good circle.

Joy in giving

There is a surprising joy in giving to others.

We Are All Pilgrims

The Pilgrims made 7 times more graves than huts.  It might be said that no Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

All of us at one point or another don't realize that it is through suffering that we become thankful, for what we do have, for what we have been given.  No one expects this truth on the front side, but on the back side, those who have experienced it, recognize the truth of it.  How ironic, then, that we so vigorously avoid what we fear will take our lives, while all the while it is the very means through which life is given to us.

I must say that I am thankful for pilgrim-suffering (whatever the form may be) in my life.

Education & Creativity

I think it comes down to money (which is really a question of values). People would say that economies of scale of manufacturing have had to be put in place in education, in order to afford it...thus largely the 'system' we have today. That sounds OK on the surface, but when you consider the amount of other money being spent now on other things by school systems, parents, etc. that are really only somewhat connected to education (sports might be a good example), it makes you wonder whether the argument of not enough money really holds water. It seems more like a matter of priorities, of cultural values, of how we like to spend money...for the enjoyment / experience we connect with it. I wonder if the current system can be broken...without being forced to do so by some outside factor. Ironically, that could be economics after all.

Thanks for sending, Cliff!

Us

My children, my grandfather said, you'll never see anything worse than yourselves.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

...seems hard to believe, doesn't it? We're so used to it, we don't see ourselves clearly.

What Is vs What Ought

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

-- C.S. Lewis

Because

Many people believe in God because of what they think He will do for them....

I didn't know it, but I have been one of those people at times in my life, too.  It's when God doesn't seem to work with the plan we've ended up for Him that things get interesting.

Nature's Christmas Lights

Wow!  What an awesome morning to be alive.

Perhaps due to an extra hour of sleep or perhaps due to a call I couldn't resist, I was able to enjoy a run in the woods this morning.  What a time!  What startling beauty.  The receding green has now almost completely given way to the emergent color falling everywhere.  The paths of hardened dirt are softened with a carpet of color padding every step.  You can see more, with less leaves at eye level and above, and the texture of all that is alive in the woods makes quite a chorus of joy to the eye.  A deer bolted across the stream right in front of me.  And around the next bend, one of my favorite 100-yard stretches of path was lit up this time with what seemed like the Christmas lights of nature -- a whole row of straggly and overgrown fire bushes reaching for the forest sky blazed red with the morning sunlight streaming through them just above my head.  It was one of the more beautiful sights of the morning...one that nature had organized and that quite out-shines the man-made versions we'll be seeing a lot of in a month or two.  I marveled as the phrase 'Repeat the Sounding Joy!' echoed from my head towards my throat. 

Today is one day I'm thrilled to be alive.  What a gift.

Do People Change?

Do you think people change?

I'd like to explore this question in subsequent posts.  I'd enjoy your thoughts / comments, too.

Breathe a little more deeply

I don’t know about you, but in this part of the world when the leaves take the long dive, and the nights grow longer, and a chill comes into the ground beneath our feet, music starts to sound different. And feels really, really good. And if that music is happening on a warmly lit stage in front of a room full of people who came in out of the cold and have braided the songs into the soulful stories they are writing with their lives, it can positively help one breathe a little more deeply. See this imperfect, beautiful world with new eyes.

-- OtR

‘But the poet says we must praise the mutilated world, we’re all workin’ the graveyard shift: we might as well sing along. All my favorite people are broken.’

...do yourself a favor and see these beautifully talented and humble people this year. You won't regret it. You will get your breath back eventually....

Purses - Reflections

I've been reflecting a bit on Hugo's thought (see post below).  At first blush, it is easy to disagree...we need money.  We have more fun when there is money.  Our futures are more secure when we have money.  ...or so goes common legend.  And yet, it seems undeniable that something else goes on when we accumulate 'money in the purse'.  Something shifts.  A grip tightens.  The need to protect it goes up.  Time shortens.  ...and we miss out on something very significant. While we gain certain things, others begin to pass us by. In retrospect, I would admit that I've been more alive, more open, more aware of others and the goings-on inside myself, more human, more dependent...during the times when I didn't have money.

But I suspect Hugo is really on to something more than simply the bane of mammon.  Perhaps he is speaking as much about the virtue of emptying oneself, the blessing of giving ourselves to others, whatever the currency might be.  Does he know about the value of being empty, of being emptied, of allowing God to fill us...rather than doing it for ourselves? I'm guessing he's pointing to a great surprise awaiting all of us through our willingness to be emptied for the sake of someone else...whether monetarily or otherwise.

Them or Us

...our sense of material entitlement has had a profound impact on the financial choices of American families.

Thanks to Jim for sending this my way.  While it's easy to say it's 'them', perhaps it's really 'us'.

Carpet of Color

Purses

As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.

-- Victor Hugo