Practical Advice on Habits in Our Lives

I ran across this reading recently and these 3 things in particular stuck out to me; I think they're helpful advice for daily living.  And, I like the suggestion that they become habits, perhaps over the new year:

Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

-- Geoffrey James

Map or Guide

If someone tells you to go someplace and you don’t know where to go and, from what you have heard, it’s quite tricky in getting there because there are few if any well-marked streets, not much lighting, and a lot of rather large potholes, would you prefer a map or rather the person who has been there, knows the way, and is quite handy should things break down to go with you? The answer is obvious....

"I will go with you", says the Lord Almighty.

-- Kent Denlinger

This echoes a post I recently read called 'Why, God?'...it is worth the read, as it faces down one of the perennial questions of all time about God and evil. Having recently watched the most recent Les Miserables movie, I am confident that we are on to something here in this collection of thoughts on 'God With Us'. The priest in Les Mis puts it like this, 'To love someone is to see the face of God'.

Hope for a new year -- who knows what is in store -- but He is with us.

My Fast from Ladder Climbing

I love feeling superior, more influential, more important, and more noticed than everybody else. I cried about what a fool I’ve been...

-- Heather Holleman

 Continue Reading

Really worth the minute or two it will take to...and the hour or two it may create for personal consideration. Sobering and delightful. And before we whisper to ourselves something like, "I'm glad I'm not like that," consider the reminder to all of us, however we are going about being important...to ourselves.

Reminds me of things a friend said to me once, when I was struggling with the identity of my own self-importance.

Not Calculate

When one loves, one does not calculate.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux

Circumstances

Circumstances allow us opportunity to be shaped.

In our culture, circumstances (particularly bad ones) are often viewed primarily as something to get out of. In our media, circumstances are presented as something to overcome. But, I suspect that our circumstances really exist more for us as contexts in which we can be shaped, if we allow them to do so.

Space

We all need space. Sometimes, the best thing we can give to another person...is space. Space to think often gives me opportunity to feel. Sometimes what I feel gives me a chance to think about something. Space creates health; constant filling of it does not. It can lead us somewhere that is often neglected within us...to a needed grieving or to an important gratitude.

I realized today that I was hoping for something deeper with my wife in some recent interactions or lack of them. I was reaching for conclusions that would urge me to 'address' it with her. But, my instincts were nudging me back...toward not filling the space with my needs. A bit later she said she has really been preoccupied with news of her father's illness. I was shocked...certainly for him, but also for what I had been ready to do...to get something that I wanted. I wasn't considering that what I was feeling from her really had nothing to do with me, as I had suspected. I was grateful for the space I had chosen in my waiting, for her sake and for mine.

She needed some space. She needed for me not to fill hers with me. I needed the space, too.

Give yourself the gift of space. Give it to someone else.

Forever

Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

-- Isaiah 9:7

Where We Least Expect Him

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure when he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man….

This means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where He seems most helpless that He is most strong, and just where we least expect Him that He comes most fully.

-- Fredrick Beuchner, The Hungering Dark

Peace That Empties

When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times, we empty ourselves so that God may more fully work within us.

-- Joseph Cardinal Benardin

His Law is Love

We don't often see ourselves for what we truly are...either direction...as bad as we really are or for the goodness that is truly within us.

Regarding the former, we are richly deserving of consequences for the sin embedded within us.  At times, I actually forget how true that is.  I reflected recently on a time in my life when I thought I was deeply wronged in an employment situation.  I may have been.  But, it was also true that there were things in my own life at the time that were also deeply wrong and God used the employment situation to get at them -- for my sake, for others' sake, for His sake.  In one sense, He saved me from the end those wrongs were leading to...through this disruption of my life.  He used Pain to reach me, to teach me.  I did not see myself accurately.  I still don't.  But my reflection has allowed me to realize a bit more that I did truly deserve something because of the sin in my life.

But pain goes away with time, not as quickly as it arrives, but it does taper away.  And, so, what struck me this week was that what has really solidified His 'teaching' in me has been...Grace.  Grace has shown me the longer truth that God is really about resurrecting the good that He has put in me by making me in His image.  This is why He is (and we are) so hurt by our sin, because we forfeit this goodness which is designed to be given to others, like He gives to us.  Grace comes along after Pain and shows me that I have not received what I fully deserve...that some of those consequences have been borne by Someone else, on behalf of me.  Grace brings Gratitude to my door and introduces me to her.  Grace is what makes me realize that I don't really want the path of sin after all and that breathes the life into me that doesn't want to reject the goodness I have been offered, in spite of my sins.  So, the final teacher, in my view is Grace.  Pain and Grace both teach me.  And, Grace's voice is often hard to fully hear before Pain's instruction.  But, Grace wins, as it does its final training work in me...to lead me to be what I am designed to be, to who I've been made to be.

Though the verses of this week's posts have pointed me towards something I want, this Christmas season I have felt a strange absence...the absence of something that captures me like a great gift.  Something has felt...pending.  But this reflection on the above has now ushered the great gift right up to my door.

One of my favorite favorite carols puts it nearly perfectly:

       Truly He taught us to love one another,
       His law is love and His gospel is peace.

He loves us too much not to remain firmly committed to our deepest good, that which He put within us.  His love, in that way, is law.  It is hard and fast...and for our sake, it won't budge.  The good news is that through His Teachers and the training process He takes us through in this life, we are also being offered Peace.

Thank God for His many and wondrous gifts to us this Christmas.  It is enough to enjoin me this time of year to Hallelujah!  ...I have not audibly heard this 'chorus' yet this year, but I'm still hoping for the tears of joy it brings!

12/21/12 - Forecast

 

As You Trust

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

-- Romans 15:13

He Will Not Fail

The Lord will lead you. He himself is with you. He will not fail you or leave you. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid!

-- Deuteronomy 31:8

Now...is the time of Grief

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

-- John 16:22

Overcome

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

-- John 16:33

Union

Whenever my husband and I hug each other in the kitchen, my 3-year-old daughter is inevitably there within two seconds. She squeezes through our legs until she's right in between us, at which point she announces: "Family hug!" She sees our love for one another, and she wants in.

Because of our union with Jesus we can join the Trinity's family embrace: "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them …. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14:20-23).

...

But if I am in Christ, I can expect suffering to be a normal part of my discipleship. It is not a detour from Plan A, but an expected component of life with Jesus. In fact, it is an opportunity to participate in Jesus' life, to share in his sufferings (for he suffers with us), and to have his resurrection made known in my body (2 Cor. 4:10-11). That can radically change my experience of suffering.

Our suffering is not a pointless impediment to our productivity or fruitfulness. It is something we share with Jesus, for the good of our souls and of his kingdom.

-- Sarah Lebhar Hall, The Key to a Purposeful Life

Click pic to Continue Reading

Second to Last

Pain is our second-to-last teacher.

This begs the question, if suffering is the second to last teacher, what is the last one.  ...more soon.

Violence: have we finally had enough?

Where? How many? How young?

What terrible questions for a society to have to keep asking itself.
No, our violence-rich culture does not make murderers of us all. But cigarettes don't give everyone lung cancer. That does not make them non-lethal.

Have we finally had enough? It must not start with just gun control. It must start with us. 

Continue Reading

...thanks Statons for forwarding.

Best Apologies

Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.

-- Tryon Edwards

More Immoral

The more immoral we become in big ways, the more puritanical we become in little ways.

-- Florence King

Mirage

I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.

-- C.S. Lewis

Want to See

We tend to see what we want to see.

...perhaps worse, we tend not to see what we don't want to see.

Babel Sounds & Angels

Every year now, it seems a new old Christmas carol sneaks up on me. This year, so far, I am a bit overcome by the quieting power and glory of this seasonal favorite:

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

-- Edmund Hamilton Sears

...the all encompassing view of time and its unimpeded, glorious end are a compelling vision for me. And, the blending of all things I know with things I don't know that much about (like angels) creates an unusual and often surprising sense of something much greater and more wonderful that I too can join...an unearthly Peace.

I now realize afresh why we decorate our home with carolers this time of year...what better response to something so glorious than for man to join the heavenlies in such a singing.

The Innkeeper

I am moved by this presentation of the pain that surrounded what otherwise is celebrated this Christmas time of year. There is, in fact, great cause for celebration...but the context of our need for it often seems to be shoved away under a bunch of wrapping paper.

Hope for the Hurting this Christmas

Click the link for some background or the video above to watch directly (just a bit over 11 minutes).

Daily Rituals

It would seem a bit large of me to claim that I can tackle 'everything' that comes my way.

Every day I need physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional balance to tackle everything that comes my way. Self-care is the secret to performing at the highest level.

-- Mike Del Ponte

But I do concur with several of the basic rituals he goes on to recommend here. The ideas he identifies are ones that I've discovered too in recent years. I may not do them exactly as he describes, but I've found that these basic elements do go a long way toward providing me physical energy, mental clarity, and emotional balance.

Mirror

Gotta say, if a sunrise like this morning's doesn't 'wake you up', I'm not sure what will. It was fabulous beyond description, from east to west, each reflecting in literal ways something bright emerging onto us. I was again inspired...to act this day reflecting just some of the glory of this morning's voice calling out, 'Join Me!'.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Worry

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.

-- Corrie ten Boom

Thanks, David, for this one. Reminds me of this one.

On the Crowd

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

-- James Crook

Pessimist

A pessimist is a person who wants to be an optimist, but has a grasp of the facts.

-- Norman Augustine

Sunrise

I have come to rather relish the notion that a sunrise (like yesterday's) is an indication -- if not a heralding -- that God has been up a while and is rolling out another day of His glory.  Over my life, I have learned to look east with anticipation.  What does He communicate to me through this ritual exercise that is similar, but never exactly the same?  What does this tell me about Him?  And, how does that free to me to experience the ensuing day with a different and fresh perspective?

...I think it does just that and to be about doing the same thing.  It prays this prayer for me:

Lord, take me where you want me to go, let me meet who you want me to meet, tell me what you want me to say, and keep me out of your way.

-- Prayer of Father Mychal Judge

What Is

We can so easily become focused on what isn't in others. Perhaps serving our own self-promotion, we use what 'should be' to overlook what is...in them.  ...or, more importantly, what could be in them, especially in time.