Choices, Choices, Choices

You can either see the sparkles in the grass, the sparkles in the pine needles on the deck, the sparkles in the cobwebs or you can see the dirt on the window, the fact that the deck needs sweeping, the basket ball goal needs moving, and the cobwebs need removing. You always have choices - you can always choose to give yourself the gift of happiness or you can choose to refuse to give yourself the gift of happiness or you can do nothing, which results in the latter .

Humming and Purring

There's a Humming that surrounds the puzzling, hurtful events in your life- a Humming that goes over and under and around you and your puzzlement. So feel the disappointment, feel the loss, be perplexed and then listen to the Hum and the Purr of the Universe - a peace that passes understanding. Be like children who look to their parent's faces when they encounter events that they don't know how to interpret. The parent's faces tell them whether to be alarmed or not. Likewise, we look to His face and see Him humming and that helps us interpret our lives.

Changed Premise - Problem Solved

To me the problem of evil is quite simple. You've heard it said over and over - "If God is all powerful and all good, how can there be evil?"

Here's how - God is not all powerful! He gave some of His power away - He gave some of His power to us. He said that WE had dominion over the earth. He gave us permission to checkmate Him.

So is it not obvious, since we have the power, we are the ones responsible for whether evil exists or not?

Ongoing Narrative

Reynolds Price wrote, "The fact that my legs were subsequently paralyzed by 25 X-ray treatments ... was a mere complexity in the ongoing narrative which God intended me to make of my life."

What a fantastic way to live! Paralyzed legs are a "complexity in the ongoing narrative which God intended me to make of my life." So my narrative is mine to write - there are complexities and there are givens, but I am responsible to arrange them in such a way that I produce a narrative called "my life".

Many pieces are offered - most of the time I don't get to decide what is offered, but I do get to decide which ones I pick up from the pieces that are offered and then I get to decide what I will do with the ones that I pick up - the result is a picture/story I form/write; ultimately for my own satisfaction. Sometimes, when it is done well the result is called peace; other times it is called contentment.

Identified With Christ

The nice things about our gifts is that we get to benefit from them as well as others. I have this gift/curse of being able to "get inside" other people's heads and hearts (sometimes). So sometimes in my thoughts, I talk to my friends and share my wrestlings and ponderings and then I get inside of them and answer me!

So, in my thoughts, I was telling my friends how I ended up about 180 degrees from where I thought I'd be at my age. I thought I'd be in the ministry with a godly spouse and godly children etc. Then, in my thoughts, my "friend" answered me and said, "But you are more identified with Christ where you are now than had you become what you dreamed of. Where you are is where you would find Him if He was on earth. You are where His heart is, His yearnings. His heart yearns toward the lonely, the hurting, the struggling, the desperate. Like your Father, your heart is always towards your most hurting child. "

Energy Sucking TV

Having finished Graduate School soon after Thanksgiving, I took the next couple of months off and found myself often watching TV. The surprise for me was that I enjoyed it! So now that my Designated Months Off are winding down, I find myself struggling with how much TV to allow in my life. It was becoming an Ought vs. Ought-Not wrestling match.

This afternoon, reluctant to go back to living that way, I asked myself, not "should" I watch TV but rather, how much energy does watching TV consume from me? I actually find myself tired after watching TV, which tells me it probably consumes a lot of energy. As I pondered the reality of the Energy Sucking TV, I decided that today, my energy was going somewhere else where the returns were greater!

The Life of Sound

If God had asked me what gift I wanted, I would have told him I wanted the gift of being able to sing. I don't think any gift gets the yearnings out like the gift of song.

So I listen to Eva Cassidy sing and I think I can't sing like her, but maybe I can live my life the way she sings her songs. She sings in a very leisurely, very much listening-to-her-own-heart-her-own-rhythm sort of way. She meanders through her songs, unaware of oughts or shoulds or how others chose to sing the same song. She gently massages her songs, carefully caressing them, maybe lingering here and maybe lingering there, appearing hesitant to leave such beauty. She slides over words, leisurely wraps herself in the silk of sound, all the while doing a slow dance with notes lined up waiting patiently for her to bring them to life and then winding down to a reluctant ending. A true love affair with the life of sound (or is it the sound of life.)