Just Pause

Psalm 46:10 

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;

    I will be exalted among the nations,

    I will be exalted in the earth.”

Just pause for a few minutes. I bet you can't. I challenge you to try.

I see how it is with everyone these days. To pause and be still, or quiet, or thoughtful is not something denoting value. But perhaps a waste of time.

The perception can be that it is bad to stop. Success cannot happen when you stop. One must go all the time to accomplish all that is in our minds that we have to do.

To stop and think and muse or just watch the rain outside is a great treasure to enjoy. But it goes against the grain of what culture today tells us. It is also how so many of us are wired, but why is that? This is what I ask myself. Why would you drive more than an hour for entertainment, when there is so much within a few miles (or at home)? Why would you book up your schedule so much that you have no spare time? What are you accomplishing?

Certainly, when our lives are busy and filled to the brim we are not letting those thoughts that cross our minds go to a deeper place, but we remain in this shallow pool of momentary worldly pursuits that satisfy for a minute. 

Even Jesus, who had a short 3 year span of time that he was on his missions, took quiet time away from everyone. He went up to the mountain to be alone, praying, in quiet. Why should we think that we don't need the same thing? You don't have to have a mountain, either. A quiet space, wherever that might be. Your favourite chair, a garden, the library, a chapel, your floor, a coffee shop.

Maybe I am the only one who feels this at the moment, or maybe you agree. When I think of something that goes against the grain of culture, it is worth investigating. When I think of something that Jesus did, it is worth following and doing the same. More and more I read in Scripture of the early Christians going against the way of the world, so why do we so easily just follow along with the mainstream today?

Bookshelf Notes

Just a few of the books I have finished reading recently. What have you been reading?

The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St. Clair
I kept seeing this book when I was last in the UK. At every bookshop, I would see it on a table, or on a shelf looking at me. Intrigued, I would pick it up and look through it, admiring the coloured pages and short histories of many of the colours of the spectrum. But I didn't buy it, saying I would order it later. And like I said, I kept picking it up at each bookshop. Well, I finally did order it, and read the fascinating tales of colours - how many of them were created, how they were originally used, what they mean, and how they influence us today. It was a very enjoyable book, and if you are even remotely interested in history, colours, art, or just generally interesting tidbits, I would certainly recommend this book.

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
This was a short story I picked up in South Kensington in London. I had never seen any short stories by Dostoyevsky, so it was an easy book to grab (plus it is a wonderful Penguin mini classic). This is his earlier writing, more juvenile in style and subject, but still mysterious and enjoyable in the way that he can only present. A young man leads a solitary, lonely life, but comes across a young girl in the streets. He boldly "saves" her from a stalker-type stranger, and they become friends. He falls in love immediately, and they meet each night near her home, but she soon reveals she holds onto hope that a certain man will come back for her, but will he come back? It is a thought-provoking tale of young and naive ventures, but it seems to hold truth of our older selves at the same time.

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
I saw this book while in the UK as well, and I picked it up a few times, but hesitated as I always do with more modern fiction. Will it be worth my time? Will I be disappointed in the themes? Then when I got home, I saw an author/writer I admire who lives in Oxford post a photo of this book and how charming it was, and I immediately ordered it, and I am so glad I did. It is the story of four women from England (they hardly know each other at all) who go on a month-long holiday in Italy, to stay in a castle perched on a cliff. To get away from life and their frustrations, husbands, or stresses to get married. What they each find is not what they expected, it's even better. Definitely a charming read.

The Monster and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien
This is a book of essays that I had on my shelf, and just never read yet! Imagine that! I picked it up again, when I was doing some research for a story I am writing, and by referencing something in one of those essays I ended up reading it all. As I continued to read that one essay, I just ended up reading the whole book. Every bit I read of Tolkien reminds me how much of a language and philologist genius he was. One who loved words and their origins above all. It is so clear, as I try to keep up with his fast-moving brain. I probably pick up a tiny bit of what he is saying, and yet it is still enjoyable to read. It must be like sitting in a lecture of his. I would be scribbling madly as he talked, in his characteristically mumbled speech, trying to comprehend and soak in all that genius in his word-loving brain.

A Few Words for Dad

It's all the scattered memories
that tend to surface at times unexpected.
In some sense, living in those memories 
feels like ages ago, like some distance star 
far away, dimly glowing out there.
But other times the feelings rise that feel so close,
as if I haven't been nine years without his presence.
Sometimes time doesn't seem to have order;
it flits and meanders in and out of lives.
Time within or time without,
Dad is with me in heart and soul.
I feel often like his goodness is what seeps 
out of me when I do the right thing. 
Surely, it's not my own strengths,
but the wisdom he left me in my heart, 
acting out as it should, 
as he would.
And he would smile at that.

My Souls Longs for You

My soul longs for You, O God.
I ache for the peace in You.
Flowing streams are in my dreams
and I wonder when I will see
that place of comfort and 
Your face amidst a troubled time.
I long for the soothing tones of quiet -
A lingering solitude of thought,
where beauty and truth speak
their words into the air.
Disruptions come to push me off
my quiet, restful spot from where I sat.
Rather than succumbing to darkness, 
I seek all day, to find
the joy and peace that hides amidst trial,
for many little glimpses are under the veil,
Then, dwell in it, laser-focused
on the good that is ever-present.
The gifts that point that way, Your way.
The gifts from heavenly graces.

A Post for an Ordinary Monday

Dear Monday, the birdsong is lovely. The light is soft thus far and it wakes me up slowly. Be the beauty I long for on an ordinary day. Help me in my simple day, for it is prone to grow complex the second I walk out the door. I seek the simple, and yet....the world tries its very best to make everything more complex.  Oh how I wish it were not so!

God, You must be so good, so patient, so gracious, and so merciful to love us. We are such as convoluted, complex, faulty, selfish, greedy people. We don't love each other well, and we certainly don't love You well. We try but we tend to we fall short every day, and yet You always show love to us. You show us in ways we might ignore. The small things we sometimes get too busy to see. The blooming jasmine in the yard, the kind stranger who let you pass in front of them in line, the orange glowing sunrise, the first opening of a new book, the encouraging words that someone says to you out of the blue. There are many things we get to experience each day. May we all awaken our eyes to take it into our hearts, and then muse for a second to give thanks for them.

On an ordinary Monday the sun might rise just like it did yesterday. The day may feel the same in all its atmospheres, but it's never just the same. Yesterday there were puffy clouds scattered across the sky but today the sky is electric blue with no cotton candy clouds. Today you have the wisdom gained from something that happened yesterday, and you are now more aware of something. Today you have the imaginative story that you finished reading last night living inside of you as you meditate on the deeper truths that tale was telling. Today you have another chance to show love, as yesterday is already over.

Perhaps this isn't such an ordinary Monday (or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). Maybe it is something special to pay attention to, and treat it as a gift. We can do a lot in a day. In those waking hours there are many choices before us and we have the control over how we act and what we say. It all starts today. I'm going to pour my cup of coffee and pray that God will help me see all the goodness ahead of me, the things He has set-up in my path.