Just Because

I was talking with a friend today about life, and things that we would like to be doing...job-wise, study-wise, other-wise.  We agreed that it's possible that not everything we would like or think is good...is necessarily good for us.  A lot of times, we need to simply just take the next step towards what is right in front of us, rather than wishing we were somewhere else.

Just because I want to, doesn’t mean I should.  Just because I don’t want to, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.

Inner Ripening

No one can know what secret inner ripening can come from suffering and sorrow. All we know is that every individuals life is priceless - that each is dear to God.

-- Christoph Probst

...love that imagery, inner ripening, not often how I have thought about suffering / sorrow over the years. But, now it seems quite accurate.

Freedom

Jesus continually communicated freedom -- not freedom to go your own way but freedom to relate to God through the intimacy of grace.

-- keri wyatt kent, Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity

Just Don't Know

We just don't know what will happen in life, we just know what's at the end.  And that should make all the difference...!

Sex Economics 101

What's your 'take' on this subject? What are we translating to our kids regarding what they are facing into today's 'market'?

It seems that what is modeled speaks the loudest. After that, what are we actually teaching / saying about such things...with our words (or, lack of them)?

...click the pic for the article.

Beauty

Beauty is often only considered skin-deep in our culture. No wonder we often live like that is all there is...because we seem to think that's all it really is. But beauty is so much bigger, so much more.

For example, when we observe that something is a thing of beauty, what are we saying? What kinds of things do we describe this way? How about a 'well-oiled' machine, like a high-quality car? How about a team that performs very well together? How about an significant accomplishment that has a manifest result? We say such things are a real 'thing of beauty'. Something we don't fully understand, but can deeply appreciate...can be a real thing of beauty. And, of course, things in nature or artwork can be beautiful.

What about the human dimension of things? Women, for example, can be beautiful. The strength of a man can also be beautiful. A relationship between a man and woman can be beautiful. As can a relationship between a father and son, or mother and daughter.

How about another dimension of beauty; is it possible that a woman's beauty is enhanced by the strength of a man, one that allows her to relax, to offer tenderness, gentleness? To me there is little that surpasses that beauty and yet it can be so easily tarnished when a woman seeks the beauty (glory) of a man. Likewise, the strength of man is a beautiful thing, especially when it is sacrificial, other-centered. A woman, like nothing other, can enhance this kind of beauty, when it supports the risks a man can take when extending his strength towards a world that needs it.

In other words, there seems to be an even more beautiful beauty, a combined beauty, that emerges out of individual masculine and feminine beauty.

I hope our sons and daughters can catch a glimpse of these realities of beauty, a kind that will take them past the skin-deep versions so splattered about by our culture.

Who Could

...even think of such beauty?

Sanitized God

I DON’T PRAY to a sanitized God, an airbrushed God, the God of the silver screen. I pray to the God who put the green into nature and fire into the tongues of men; to the God of ceaseless change, who gives with one hand and smites with the other; to the God of the concentration camps and to the God of the bullies so many of my Jewish brethren have become. I pray for the humanitarians and I pray for the barbarians and I pray to stop pretending I can always tell them apart.

-– Sy Safransky

I really appreciate the honesty here, especially in light of the 'airbrushed' God so often marketed by the church. A lot to reconcile...a lot of reconciliation needed. ...including with me. A sanitized God really puts me in an ungodly position, one of judging Him by who I want Him to be...which, of course, leads to an equally ungodly position of judging what others are.

Self-conscious

I often feel quite self-conscious after speaking in church...which I did that recently. I put a lot of time into it and only a couple of people even mentioned it to me, and then only in passing. In another era of my life, I would have tried to 'read' a lot into that -- condemning only before condemning myself for my inadequacy. Now, I realize that I can make a lot of things 'about me' that really aren't. So, I just worry about it less than I used to.

But, I would be lying (at least to myself), if I pretended that I'm not self-conscious about such things at all. When I spoke, I talked about the need to acknowledge the day-to-day things we feel to God, if not to others. And, that not doing so, under the pretense of not 'needing' to do so, really cuts off others and myself from the opportunity for access to some deeper things internally. So, I took my own admonishment and went to God with my 'self-consciousness'.

Two ideas surfaced. One is that in doing such a thing, like speaking in church, I really do not want to do a dis-service to the Truth by mis-representing something about God. I feel this pretty deeply, more deeply than I had realized. This led me to the realization that I likely have to admit that it is impossible not to mis-represent Him...and that, in some unexplainable way, that should be freeing.  But I still don't want to mis-represent Him...either by carelessness or intent.

The second thing that surfaced in my thinking is that almost nothing I do is completely absent of self-serving, self-promotion. So, some of what I want in such situations is simply for people to praise me for things I do, at the very least for the effort I expend. This is nothing to be proud of and not necessarily a revelation, but just admitting it again, out load...takes some of the hot-air out of the pressure I likely put on people to make me feel good.  To whomever I have done that to, I profoundly apologize.

...so, here again, I receive something deeper by taking my own advice and confessing the simplest and most normal of things. Admitting what is going in within me, rather than denying it.

Thriving Child

A child does not thrive on what he is prevented from doing, but on what he actually does.

-– Marcelene Cox

When Was the Last Time?

When is the last time you felt really listened to?

Anyway

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

-– Kent M. Keith

Faith

Faith, to me, seems to be something along the lines of...the willingness to acknowledge the uncertainties of this life (uncertainties about myself, uncertainties about life, uncertainties about God, etc.) and turn to God with them, as opposed to the commonly perceived benefits of simple denial, self-determinism, or the false medications offered by our world.

Emotional Constipation

...if there were such a thing, what do you think 'emotional constipation' would be?

Here's a stab at it:  The inability or unwillingness to recognize or utilize what our emotions indicate to us.

It leads to a number of things:

• Explosiveness
• Addictions
• A kind of forfeiting of goodness to which perceived bad feelings can lead

I was talking to my daughter the other day about the tendency we have to keep things inside. While there is a place for common sense and controlling our tongue, I think many times our silence is not so much prudence as it is self-protection. We don't want others to see some of the things that go on inside us.

The truth may more be, though, that we don't want to see the things that go on inside us either.  And, what we don't realize is that the self-protection we broker with regard to others and their view of us is really a weapon against ourselves. Our silence can cause us not to speak to ourselves, or perhaps put a differently, to not put words to the reality we are experiencing. When that happens, we form a kind of denial about things, about life, about ourselves. Denial at this level can be damaging to who we are, because it allows a false sense of self to grow.

When our kids a little, we say "don't hit, use words".  What we don't often realize as adults is that we often learn to not do either one.  ...and the result is often an experience of someone who is constipated.  Pretty uncomfortable.

Dazzle Gradually

The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man go blind.

-– Emily Dickinson

CUBS 2011

...another fun day at Wrigley. Yes, they lost again.  But, the peanuts were good...they just seem to taste better at the ballpark.

Consumerism

The main problem with this culture...the thing that will destroy evangelical christianity in the next 25 years is it's willingness to be at home with the commercialism and the consumerism of our society.

-- Tony Campolo

Surface

Draw on the surface of things in life, in order to go beneath it.

Comma

Never put a period where God has put a comma.

-- Gracie Allen

It's The End of the World As We Know It

Reason & Spirit

The philosophers of old made reason the sole ruler of man and listened only to her, as the arbiter of conduct. But Christian philosophy makes her move aside and give complete submission to the Holy Spirit, so that the individual no longer lives, but Christ lives and reigns in him (Galatians 2:20).

-- John Calvin

3 Things

I often ask for 3 things: wisdom (to understand what is important and what isn't), courage (to speak or move, even when I don't have wisdom's things all perfectly arranged), and strength (to face accusations caused by my courage -- whether they be legit or not).  I need all 3 of these.  When I choose to stop after any one of them, I feel like I am yielding to a kind of fear.

Sympathy or Compassion

Sympathy vs Compassion.  Which do you want more?  What's the difference?  Which is more empowering?

Greater

To love God is greater than to know him.

-- Thomas Aquinas

Afraid to Speak

They that know have grown afraid to speak. That is why sorrows that used to purify now only fester.

-- C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Mothers Day 2011

To My Beautiful Wife, Tami,

I want to thank you today, for being you.  I am so grateful for all that you are for us, for our kids.  For how you have battled for our relationship, and to hold on to 'higher things'...and for the direct gift that is to our kids.

I want to thank for giving yourself to them, selflessly over and over.  For showing them that the world is not all about them.  And, for showing them that they are loved, that they are enjoyed. 

I love the way you 'hang' with them, being you...and being with them.  I love how you draw them in...to the things you do in this life.

I love the way you commit yourself to the things they need...even the things that feel endless, like chores and picking up and communicating and doing the things in life that 'just need to be done', to BE a family.

They look forward to dinner every night and that is a wonderful thing, the regularity of it.  The warmth of it.  The humanness of it.  And, the taste of it!  I'm glad you foster an environment that makes it good to eat together.  I'm glad you make them clean-up when we're done.

I'm glad for our home and all that you 'motherly do' (it's clean, it's beautiful, it's inviting) that makes everyone just 'want to be here'.

I'm grateful for your hard work outside of the home, even when that seems overwhelming...and for what that communicates about life to the girls and to Conner. 

I'm grateful that even as mother, you also take time to be my wife.  Hard roles, at times, to effortlessly switch in and out of.

I love you, Tami.  And, am so grateful for you this Mothers Day.

Dana

My Dog, My God, and Me

So, I was running with my dog the other day and he saw a squirrel in the woods to his left.  He started straining to his left, pulling me in that direction.  I remember thinking, 'Probably a squirrel...he always does that'.  Then he pulled harder and my next thought was something like, 'C'mon we're running, Murphy! We don't chase every living thing...we're running!' 

Of course, such sentences, when built with actual words tend to linger for a while in my mind.  What he didn't realize was the three squirrels that were on his right, almost right beside the road.  He saw the squirrel on his left and that was all he saw from that point on. And then, there was me, somewhat ungraciously guiding his leash.  ...thinking how not unlike my dog, I am at times when I see something that looks good to me.  Almost instinctually, I just respond to 'it', no longer realizing much of what else is going on or who else is guiding what I am about that day. 

I wonder sometimes what goes on in Murphy's head, if anything at all.  He is such a creature of habit, of instinct, of simple design and being.  He remembers patterns to things, but (or so it seems to me) completely forgets other things.  Like, he will angle in a certain direction as we run together, based on where we have run before.  He will (incessantly) groan and walk back-and-forth with something in his mouth when he is excited about something familiar about to happen to him (like going on a run together).  And, he will forget all about it, if I yell at him for some irritating habit of his, just going right back to it, even seconds later.  Yes, and he rolls in poop whenever he can get away with it.  No matter what I do to 'discourage' that behavior, he just does it again the next time, with no hesitation whatsoever.  I've concluded that one is 'built-in' to his dog-ness. 

And so, I've wondered about my dog-ness (or, human-ness), how different I am at times in what I instinctively respond to, what I go for, what I naturally think about or do (ok, and yes, what I 'roll in').  I suspect we are all significantly creatures of habit.  Just try to take the ones we've developed away from us.  We get kinda grouchy.  And, the older the we get, the more committed we seem to become to 'our ways' of doing things.  At one level, I'm thinking that must look a lot like my dog did when we were running.

So, I wonder how God actually views this kind of thing...how He views me.  I picture Him sometimes using His 'guiding leash' with me, not too unlike I do with Murphy.  In spite of all the squirrels he can't go for, Murphy 'loves' to go running with me.  And, in some strange and similar way, I love to go running with my God.  Or, more simply, to be with Him in some way, that is often difficult to describe.  I'm glad He let's me chase my squirrels, that He still takes me running in life, that He guides me where I really need to be going.

And, yes, for the benevolence in His leash.   I didn't used to see it that way -- benevolent.  But as I've plumbed a few of the depths of where my independence gets me, I have realized that there is something wonderful and by design in acknowledging my limitations and my need for His guidance.  This probably isn't a fashionable notion for many, but typically the young reacting to it have to grow up (and get knocked around) a bit more and the old doing the same should acknowledge some of the bitterness they're left with...by going it alone.  I'm not 'there' completely yet (squirrels still interest me, too, and yes, I resent leashes from time to time), but I'm more and more looking forward to the 'rest' at the end of the 'run'.

Ego & Spirit

Passed along from our good friend, Dave Terry:

Imagine this scene if you will. Two babies are inutero, confined to the
wall of their mother's womb, and they are having a conversation. For the
sake of clarity we'll call these twins Ego and Spirit.

Spirit says to Ego, "I know you are going to find this difficult to
accept, but I truly believe there is life after birth."

Ego responds, "Don't be ridiculous. Look around you. This is all there
is. Why must you always be thinking about something beyond this reality?
Accept your lot in life. Make yourself comfortable and forget about all
of this life-after-birth nonsense."

Spirit quiets down for a while, but her inner voice won't allow her to
remain silent any longer. "Ego, now don't get mad, but I have something
else to say. I also believe that there is a Mother."

"A Mother!" Ego guffaws. "How can you be so absurd? You've never seen a
Mother. Why can't you accept that this is all there is? The idea of a
Mother is crazy. You are here alone with me. This is your reality. Now
grab hold of the cord. Go into your corner and stop being so silly.
Trust me, there is no Mother."

Spirit reluctantly stops her conversation with Ego, but her restlessness
soon gets the better of her. "Ego," she implores, "please listen without
rejecting my idea. Somehow I think those constant pressures we both
feel, those movements that make us so uncomfortable sometimes, that
continual repositioning and all of that closing in that seems to be
taking place as we keep growing, is getting us ready for a place of
glowing light, and we will experience it very soon."

"Now I know you are absolutely insane," replies Ego. "All you've ever
known is darkness. You've never seen light. How can you even contemplate such an idea? Those movements and pressures you feel are your reality. You are a distinct separate being. This is your journey. Darkness and pressures and a closed-in feeling is what life is all about. You'll have to fight it as long as you live. Now grab your cord and please stay still."

Spirit relaxes for a while, but finally she can contain herself no
longer. "Ego, I have only one more thing to say and then I'll never
bother you again."

"Go ahead," Ego responds impatiently.

"I believe all of these pressures and all of this discomfort is not only
going to bring us to a new celestial light, but when we experience it,
we are going to meet Mother face-to-face and know an ecstasy that is
beyond anything we have ever ex-perienced up until now."

"You really are crazy, Spirit. Now I'm truly convinced of it."

This story contains a central truth. We as persons get stuck, locked in,
and fixated on a certain point of view about real-ity, and we, like Ego,
have great difficulty developing an alternative reading of reality.
Spiritual transformation involves the capacity to face our confined
human perspective, to look beyond our limited experience, and often, to
transcend what our primary relationships have negatively taught us about
the world and about ourselves. We are invited to be like Spirit and to
expect and to seek out a new reality, a new creation, and Another whom
we have not yet encountered fully.

-- Wayne D. Dyer's adaptation of a story told by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Thank God that there is more than we know. And, knowing that there is more can free us from clinging so tightly to our methods of trying to survive in this world. What do we ultimately have to fear if nothing can stop us from truly being born?

...food for thought as we as we move on in getting free from the lies
of self-preservation.

Nothing We Can't Do...?

"Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can't do..." as he hailed the pride of those who broke out in overnight celebrations as word spread around the globe.

-- President Obama said of the news of the killing Osama Bin Laden

Really? Sounds a bit like our last President, too, and frankly many before that. What do our leaders trust in...our military, our effort...ourselves? And, we the people, seem to just drink it in, especially when the bad guy 'over there' meets a demise suitable to us.  God save us (literally) from this kind of thinking.  We need to drink a little more from this glass:

   When your enemy falls, do not rejoice;
   when he stumbles do not let your heart exult.
   Lest Yahweh see and (it be) bad in his eyes
   and he turn his wrath away from him.

   -- Prov. 24:17-18

...more of the damage of such things here.  Thanks, Jim, for forwarding.

The Pastor

More good stuff from Eugene, click image for the NPR interview...thanks Tyler!

Wasteland of Hyperactivity

We are every day becoming aware of the costs of a life without rest. Increasingly, social workers, courts, and probation officers are raising our children, rescuing them the unintentional wasteland of our hyperactivity.

-- Wayne Muller

As you might detect, I am doing some reading on the concept of Sabbath in our lives. Noting, particularly, that from God's perspective, this isn't just a recommendation (see the 10 Commandments, number 4). I'm wondering if 'remember the Sabbath' is a pivotal commandment between the earlier ones and those that follow and am considering the ways that this might be the case. And, in so doing, the quote above makes some sense.

Why do you think we are so submerged in 'activity'? What are we afraid of...if we don't stay 'busy'?

The author of the book referenced below suggests:

...our restlessness injures the people around us, who need our attention more than they need our accomplishments. Our children need us to have the time to look them in the eyes, to ask about their lives, to give them the gift of attention. And we need that as well.

I really like this.  It is both convicting and freeing...to be different, to stop...to rest.

How Great Thou Art

Morning Prayer

Good morning, heavenly Father.
Good morning, Lord Jesus.
Good morning, Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, I worship you as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe.
Lord Jesus, I worship you, Savior and Lord of the world.
Holy Spirit, I worship you, Sanctifier of the people of God.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen.

Heavenly Father, I pray that I may live this day in your presence and please you more and more.
Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you.
Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself and cause your fruit to ripen in my life:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, three persons in one God, have mercy upon me.  Amen.

-- John Stott

It will become clear of itself

Who is it that can make the muddy water clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually become clear of itself.

-- Tao Te Ching


To practice Sabbath is to practice a stillness that brings clarity to our lives. From Rest:  Living in Sabbath Simplicity by keri wyatt kent

Cause and Effect

There is cause and there is effect.

And, there is mercy and there is grace.

Visual Jesus

A shout out to Donald Miller for this one:

A Portrait of Christ from Jeremy Cowart on Vimeo.

Creativity

Hey, Michelle, thanks for the link for this from a thread on another discussion.

Mary's Joy

I've often thought of Mary, the mother of Jesus, through the eyes I think I would have if I were a mother. I think I have largely viewed her as the bearer of an unbelievable burden, to birth and raise and mother the Son of God, whose purposes were so beyond the world of normal family life that...well, I just haven't imagined much of it beyond the focus of surprise, wonder, pain beyond bearing, loss, and confusion at what all just happened to me...the last 33 years.

Perhaps time would reveal more, as it does for so many of us. Perhaps that revelation would overcome the terrors of earlier days.

I read a description of Mary in a writing of a friend. She said, he wrote, "Joy came and found me and joy has never left." This got me thinking about my view of Mary, the work of Jesus, life itself. What causes me to see more largely the tragedy of life than the redemption running through it? I'm sure the answer is somewhat simple; something like the limitations of my humanity.

But considering Mary primarily through the lens of joy alters my perception of her experience as it defers to a greater one. One that I, too, must defer to. And when I consider that greater one, I am filled with something new, something alive, something more real than the realness that the pain of life seems to offer as our only expectation.

I am grateful for my friend's writing this morning. I am grateful for joy . I'm lifted up and into something by it.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know...

-- James 1:2

How many people do you want at your funeral?

Read this....

So, how many?

Man does not...

The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, man does not.

-- Oswald Chambers

Space

I have a 4-day weekend this week.  And, I am amazed at what 'space' does for my soul.  I often live so much of the time by schedules, ToDos, things that need attention...how to fit everything together.  In other words, packed in.  Long spans of time in this mode are not good for me...I change.  I become something (someone) I'm not.

Space helps me breathe.  It helps me know myself.  It gives me opportunity to be more who I really am.  Like this morning for example, facing the next four days, I awoke with a strong desire to connect with myself, things important to me, by writing.  While many mornings start with a groan about having to crank the engine of getting 'all things done', today I had to force myself to just lay there.  Finally, my desire to write, to explore my thoughts won and I headed off, even happily, to Starbucks to sip and write.

I love 'space'.

Wilco Wow

The Leavers

Mankind

Our ground of hope is that God does not weary of mankind.

-- Ralph W. Sockman

Mercy for Japan, Mercy for Us

Father in heaven, you are the absolute Sovereign over the shaking of the earth, the rising of the sea, and the raging of the waves. We tremble at your power and bow before your unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways. We cover our faces and kiss your omnipotent hand. We fall helpless to the floor in prayer and feel how fragile the very ground is beneath our knees.

O God, we humble ourselves under your holy majesty and repent. In a moment-in the twinkling of an eye-we too could be swept away. We are not more deserving of firm ground than our fellowmen in Japan. We too are flesh. We have bodies and homes and cars and family and precious places. We know that if we were treated according to our sins, who could stand? All of it would be gone in a moment. So in this dark hour we turn against our sins, not against you.

And we cry for mercy for Japan. Mercy, Father. Not for what they or we deserve. But mercy.

Have you not encouraged us in this? Have we not heard a hundred times in your Word the riches of your kindness, forbearance, and patience? Do you not a thousand times withhold your judgments, leading your rebellious world toward repentance? Yes, Lord. For your ways are not our ways, and your thoughts are not our thoughts.

Grant, O God, that the wicked will forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Grant us, your sinful creatures, to return to you, that you may have compassion. For surely you will abundantly pardon. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord Jesus, your beloved Son, will be saved.

May every heart-breaking loss-millions upon millions of losses-be healed by the wounded hands of the risen Christ. You are not unacquainted with your creatures' pain. You did not spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all.

In Jesus you tasted loss. In Jesus you shared the overwhelming flood of our sorrows and suffering. In Jesus you are a sympathetic Priest in the midst of our pain.

Deal tenderly now, Father, with this fragile people. Woo them. Win them. Save them.

And may the floods they so much dread make blessings break upon their head.

O let them not judge you with feeble sense, but trust you for your grace. And so behind this providence, soon find a smiling face.

In Jesus' merciful name, Amen.

-- John Piper

GO BLUE!

Human Beings / Spiritual Beings

Just an observation within myself; such distinctions have been quite helpful to me in many ways over the years. But, of late, I have noticed that recognizing wholeness of our being is also important. There has been a tendency (at least within myself) to peer at one through the lens of the other...depending on which 'being' is dominating my sense of things at the time. I suspect the reality is that we are fully both and there seems to be a number of implications to that. For one, we can't take ourselves apart and look at things in separate containers. We are inextricably interconnected. My view of God (and then of myself) is highly influenced by my human experience. And vice-versa. All that to say, I'm (at the moment) more in favor of both than one over the other.

Forgiveness

What a marvel it is to ask for and grant forgiveness.  Did you notice how difficult it is to NOT grant forgiveness when it is sought?  It is like offering a response as light as air, really easy to do...almost natural.  Too bad we are often convinced that asking for forgiveness is something hard and heavy.  Makes me wonder who is telling us that lie.  God certainly doesn't seem to be saying that, nearly always offering us forgiveness if we will just ask for it.

Freedom

...the truth will set you free.

-- John 8:32

Go Out Into Darkness

And I said to the man
who stood at the gate of the year:
"Give me a light,
that I may tread safely into the unknown!"
And he replied, "Go out into the darkness
and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way."

So I went forth,
And finding the hand of God,
Trod gladly into the night.
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.
So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife of things,
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.
God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature. In Him
All time hath full provision.
Then rest; until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of life's stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise,
God's thought around His creatures
Our minds shall fill.

-- Marie Louise Haskins 1876 - 1957

Do you?

Do you ever wonder, at times, if something and what is happening to you...as you tumble on, sometimes lazily and sometimes in nearly catapulting form, into simply the next series of things that overtake your time and energy?  While busy with next obvious steps that are always in front of you, do you ever wonder where things are actually going, where they are taking you?  What it all is about?  Does it ever feel like just a dream of all things normal, yet strangely something else?

Yes, I do wonder such things.  And, today is one of those days...where it seems more like just the next thing happening for some inexplicable reason.  ...where all things big, and planned, and deeper, and purposeful about life are slightly and unattainably out-of-view and out-of-reach.

Perhaps, I noticed this sense of things today, because of this morning's slow, methodical late-winter dripping going on outside.

Aging & People

Somehow, you have to admire an aging man who moves towards people rather than away from them.

See Andy's story here.

Progress is Overrated

We have become so focused on progress, as if everything can be overcome.  We can get perpetually better, more able to solve problems...more able to win, with the benefits of progress.  Until we realize somewhere along this path, that progress isn't really what we thought it was.  It really doesn't overcome everything, or solve or change everything afterall.  We find that there are things that we just have to live with, learn to live with.

Perhaps, we should trade in our infatuation for progress for the things we learn along the way that help us to cope with what is not getting better; for the things that help us lean more into what is beside or within us than what is behind us.  Perhaps the good habits of life that instruct us how to be alive with what is are more helpful to us than getting beyond our problems and inconveniences.  Perhaps they lead us to the understanding of Who is with us in an ever-changing, unchanging world.

I think the saying goes, 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.

Progress is illusive...and over-rated.

The Deadening of Flat

It seems to me that one of the great risks of the electronic age is that it flattens our world, our deeper sense of things.  Notice things like the emotion you feel when you move from the flat screens of our lives to the world of nature; sight, sound, smell, feeling -- things like coolness, wind, moisture, etc. You can almost taste the difference and we often feel a deep yearning for more of it.

...like the dawning of the morning sun over a ridge, the warmth and the perking up it creates for everything in its splash.
...like the sound of a waterfall that makes you 'have' to go find it.
...like fallen leaves crunching under your feet against the earth as you hike.
...like the brilliant white of a new blanket of snow, especially when the sun turns it's flakes to diamonds.

Something about an electronic life seems to deaden something within us that wants to be alive.

Satisfaction

Find satisfaction in Him who made you, and only then find satisfaction in yourself as a part of His creation.

-- St. Augustine

Gratitudes: Reflections on 25 Years of Marriage

As I reflect on a journey of 25 years now with my wife, a few things seem to stand out a bit from the fabric of it all.  I am grateful for the deepenings that these many gifts have brought:

Things about love / marriage:

• I had notions of marriage which were unrealistic, but they were tied to things that were important for me to recognize.
• I really had no real idea of what it means to love someone, in deeply sacrificial ways.
• I discovered that I wanted marriage (Tami, actually) to fill things inside of me, to take care of things inside of me that only God could take care of.
• I cannot maintain an image of myself (for myself or for my wife) that will engender (or require) love.  Love can only be offered, without requirement.
• My ability to love is not contingent upon my understanding of the love I receive.
• Being loved is not contingent upon my being viewed as right.
• I can love at nearly any cost and therefore I don't need to defend myself (in order to preserve my notion of the love I want or think I deserve).  
• Most of a life of love is facing a common direction and walking towards it together, not towards each other (though that, too, is allowed at times).
• Sex is what the 'knowers' said it was, a by-product of something else, and only occasionally a path towards it.  And, that it is not what those-who-don't-know say it is.
• Joining each other in the simplest of things send some of the most powerful messages to each other -- presence (as some have called it).
• There had to be space for things to go on that had nothing to do with me...things that Tami was working through, that I was threatened by, things that threatened my sense of the ideals I was seeking.
• There are few things more powerful than forgiveness.
• Things take time, in order to be seen clearly.
• We have only just begun to live, even as the things that seemed like 'life' wither away.

Things about myself:

• Many of my needs / desires were highly cloaked (mostly from myself, but also from others).
• I really needed Tami to come through for me when in fact she really didn't.
• Not nearly as much was about me as I assumed (and therefore that I am in even less control of anything than I realized, less able to make anything good happen than I suspected).
• I am by nature completely consumed with myself.  That to be unconsumed requires kinds of death to myself.
• It took a desperation of myself to free my grip on my expectations of my wife.
• Desire cannot be suppressed or managed.
• Anger is an important signal of something.  That it calls me towards something.
• I never thought I was good enough and that I, in fact, am not, but that is more OK than I thought it was.
• 'No' is OK, and so is the disappointment of others.
• I must accept my design, not try to design myself.
• Pursuing God and how and what He has made me for (strength) frees up my wife to allow God to pursue her -- she doesn't have to operate from the pressure to take care of me...which will lead to a natural and healthy way of contributing to my care.

Things about friendship / community:

• Willingness for exposure to community was (is) a critical path towards life for me
• What deep and spiritual friendship is -- that words are really important and that presence is even more important
• Feeling abandoned and being abandoned are two different things -- I have never been abandoned
• Staying with community has been a life-line to learning these things about my marriage, myself, Tami, God, etc.

Things about Tami:

• I am deeply loved by my wife, in the ways that she is capable of loving me.  That to require something different, to require different ways of loving me is a violation of something within her.
• Genuine wonder about my wife really frees me up from evaluating my relationship based on what I get out of it.
• Tami has a deep and profound beauty that is uniquely constructed for her and for her to offer to her world
• I have come to love the way she gives herself away
• I can join that beauty and seek ways to breath life into it
• She is courageous to look at herself as the Spirit prompts her
• I am deeply grateful for Tami's integrity and the desire within her to follow God

Things about God:

• I can trust God (especially over longer periods of time that I would have guessed) to allow her, to teach her how to love me the way I need to be loved (as opposed to the way I want to be loved). -- we often fought about this early on
• I can fully trust what God is up to in my wife, even when I don't recognize what it is.
• It took the likely destruction of normal and good things in life to help me see past my expectations out of life.
• Whatever I thought I was losing, I was gaining far more
• I must fight with God more than I fight with my wife.  And, when I am fighting with her more than Him, something is wrong.
• Grieving needs to be among my greater muscles.
• Being willing to grieve was more important than trying to resolve something.
• God is very firm, gentle (even when harsh), but very firm and that this is a good thing, something that I can rely on, relax in.  
• I can wait for God, in me, in my wife, in my kids.  
• As my notions of Him got sorted out, He was way ahead of me and that I need to trust Him almost all the time with almost everything.
• God uses an awful lot of the normal experiences of life to teach us what we really need to know.
• I have no idea how much goodness God has ready for me and that, therefore, it is rather silly to try to broker for it.  That the world has no idea about this kind of goodness.

If there is one word that captures how I reflect on the last 25 years, it would be 'gratitude'.  Gratitude for Tami, gratitude for my spiritual friendship and community, gratitude to God...not only for the abyss' that He preserved me through, but for the joy and beauty and life He has ended up giving me...and giving us together.