Another Day in Pictures

Good Day! It's Wednesday. That means it is a good time to share another day of pictures. The weather is lovely. Chilled. The sky is clear. The air feels fresh. It's a perfect day to take a walk.....and a lunch break at Mitchell's Coffee Shop, a favorite of mine. Joy crosses my path every time I step outside. I am making a habit of being outside today...

The City

NYC March 2003

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines.
Here is New York, E.B. White

It's been many years since I have been to New York City. Early Spring of 2003 brought me to the city with my brother Jason and we were surprised by a day of snow. It was beautiful, and cold. I had not experienced city life in the snow before. The next day we drove out of the city to a church in the country, where Jason had to film an interview.

I have been craving another visit to the city. E.B. White's description of New York is exactly right. Life is compressed within the city, and yet somehow open and diverse. It's a harmonious mixture of life and even in the freezing cold as we walked the streets by the MET and the NYC Public Library. Central Park was blanketed in white and cold air hit my legs through my thin pants as we explored. I haven't seen snow since this trip, and I think it is due time for it.

Muddy Monday

Solitary sighs rise

Involuntarily

It is Monday

Truth be told

I don't quite mind the day

It's coming back from holiday

After a lovely time off of work, it is always a little difficult to go back to the usual office atmosphere. When I grow accustomed to sleeping in a little bit, making coffee, and stepping outside to sit and read or write in my journal as the boys work on the cars. When the family is able to enjoy time together in meals and games. I have to leave all that and go back into the cube life of the office.

So today, I am reminded from some words of Tara Leigh Cobble in her new book Orange Jumpsuit:

I had the hope, but I was choosing fear instead. After all, I get to choose what I think about- I can either think about how trustworthy He is or how things feel like they're falling apart. Instead of taking my thoughts captive, it seemed they were taking me captive.

These words are what I need today to remind me to trust in God's plans and directions. To know that even if His plans do not coalesce with my own ideas, if I follow the path God is leading me on, a beautiful harmony of life circumstances will ensue.  

The Lost Art of Reading Out Loud

There is something we are missing these days. That is, reading passages out loud. Whatever it may be: poems, stories, a chapter, a few lines from a favorite book, or song lyrics.

I remember in elementary, middle, and high school we would take turns reading passages out loud in English class. Everyone had a turn. Some students read slow, some faster, some with vigor, some were insipid. But I loved hearing the book come alive through each voice.

There is something about hearing words read. It fills the space around you and sinks into your soul. The words read by someone can infuse a phrase or scene in your mind. The words meld together as they are read, and with your imagination you create your version of the scene. It can set the tone and mood of the piece. When someone else reads, it might change the feeling completely and awaken something in the writing to you.

Yet he did not feel in the least as if he were dreaming; rather the other way; as waking was more actual than dreaming, so this seemed by another degree more actual than waking itself. -G.K. Chesterton

The Mysterious

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this 'emotion' is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder, or stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. His eyes are closed.
-Albert Einstein

We leave very little to our imaginations any more. We don't allow much room for the mysterious. And yet God is wrapped in mystery, and there is so much beauty and awe because of that. Did you ever wonder why God likes to stay in mystery?

The mysteries of God are no trifles. They are full and wondrous and encircle our lives, in everything we see and don't see. It can be as small as a word spoken to you by a friend that sinks into your soul. We can stand in awe looking out at the view from the top of a mountain, or from the valley below, like we did in Yosemite National Park. Half Dome (in picture above) is certainly mysterious.

We can stand in His silence and listen to the whispers...

Through experiences we can see God work in situations we never even dreamed of or ever thought possible. Where the only explanation is no explanation except that it must be the work of a divine being.

And there inlays a mystery that opens our eyes and heart to God.

Thankful Hearts Growing...

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. - Colossians 3.15

Let us remember to take a little time to stop and thank God for everything in our lives. We can also thank Him continuously throughout the day. We have so much to be thankful for. Did you wake up this morning? There's a good start. Did you eat some breakfast and enjoy a cup of coffee? A lot of people don't have that luxury. Did your car start? (well, on Monday it didn't) You are blessed to own a car at all.

And then there are the obvious things that we know we are thankful for, but don't quite express it enough. Like a supportive and loving family, close friends who know your dark & light and who you can share anything with, a comfortable place to live, a job, gifts and talents, this day, the faith we hold in Christ, the air we breathe, and remembering those loved ones who are no longer here with us. I am thankful for the 25 years I had with my Dad.

From a thankful heart sprouts a thriving tree bearing fruits of the spirit.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Dark Night

Who among you fears the Lord

and obeys the voice of his servant,

who walks in darkness and has no light,

yet trusts in the name of the Lord

and relies upon his God?

-Isaiah 50.10

We have much to be thankful for, even if we are wandering in a strange land full of change and uncertainty. I need to use this week of Thanksgiving (and beyond) to recognize and muse upon the place I am in right now. The other night I was reading one (of my several) books purchased in Oxford, Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster (a very thought-provoking and challenging book that hits points of being a disciple that we tend to ignore) and this passage jumped out at me and I felt it was something I needed to reflect on. I read it a few times and wrote it out in my journal:

Recognise the dark night for what it is. Be grateful that God is lovingly drawing you away from every distraction so that you can see him clearly. Rather than chafing and fighting, become still and wait.

It is so obvious when you think about it, but we don't see things that way. Did you ever think about why you might be being lead away from something, or why a certain tug on your heart won't go away? Could it be that something was distracting us? And we are so bad at practicing the part of being still and waiting. Why do we find that so hard when the plans God has in store are so much better than our own?

Imagination

The poetry of the Bible is beautiful and powerful. It has been written with imagination, and it needs to be read with imagination. - Knut Heim

I recently read an article that was very thought-provoking on this topic. The author re-invented the hypothesis that Saint Anselm did, in the eleventh century. That is: what if we could use our imaginations to prove the existence of God? Here is the breakdown: Saint Anselm began with one fact: that we can use our imaginations to think of God, who is unimaginable.

Next, Anselm claimed that God is beyond anything we could ever imagine.

Lastly, he stated that it is greater to exist than to only be imagined.

So, we can say that God exists in our imaginations and then we can recall the statement that it is greater for God to exist in reality. Remembering the first fact that God is greater than anything we can ever imagine.

Conclusion: God must exist in reality because if He only existed in our imagination then we could think about something that is greater than God. And by definition here, God has to be greater than anything we can imagine. So God exists.

There are holes in this approach, of course, but it is an interesting theological experiment. None of us can prove the existence of God. It requires our deepest faith.
The heart has its reasons which reason cannot comprehend. It is the heart which knows God, not the reason. -Blaise Pascal

Behold the Sky

The bird saw its cage open- beheld the sky- remembered its own remote isle & grove & nest- heard in spirit a voice call it to come- felt its pinion nerved with impatient energy- launched into air & was gone.

-Charlotte Brontë

My creative thoughts are forced to be checked all day as I am in the office. Finally at the end of the day, as I am free from the cube life (both literally and figuratively), my stream of thoughts can fly freely. Sometimes they are still scattered and abrupt, bouncing off each other in excitement for being set free. Sadly, sometimes errands or household things get in the way, and I suppress them. But I will push those things aside if I can get my journal and pen in my hands fast enough.

For to write, to muse about how God is working in my life, to reflect on my day and record stories, to ponder life and be creative with words, is one of my greatest joys and passions in life. And that is far more important than mopping the floor (well, the floor will have to mopped eventually, but it can wait).

Priority. We all set our own priorities in our everyday, even if we don't realize it. I have learned over the years that there are much more important things in life than what the world tries to ingrain in us, like spending time with family and close friends, following your passions and using your gifts for good. We can let the world dictate what is our priority, or we can choose to set our own. I find that when I let the world choose for me, stress abounds. Yet when I follow my passions and use the gifts God gave me, I am relaxed and easy-going. Still focused and passionate, but not pressured and stressed. Goodness and opportunities come to me. Stress takes away from my creativity, so I kick it out.

Free then, I let the words jump from mind to pen to pages.

Expectation

We are always harking back to some occasion which seemed to us to reach perfection, setting that up as a norm, and depreciating all other occasions by comparison. But these other occasions, I now suspect, are often full of their own blessing, if only we would lay ourselves open to it. God shows us a new facet of the glory, and we refuse to look at it because we're still looking for the old one.

Letters to Malcolm, C.S. Lewis

As you read through this, does it feel like Lewis is writing a letter to you? You aren't alone. It is so true, and as I read it, I recognize how often I do that without a second thought. We place our expectations in this world unreasonably high, setting ourselves up for disappointment. We forget that we are living in a fallen world full of imperfect people who tend to forget about you, fail to keep promises, and unintentionally hurt others. We expect that if something previously turned out perfectly, every other occasion is going to follow suit. In holding all those expectations, we neglect to notice the blessing that is right in front of our eyes.

We all know better than to believe that everything is going to go our way. Yet we still do. Somewhere along the way we adopted an entitlement facade, believing that we deserve this or that. Then our expectations sit on that high shelf that is hard to reach. 

When I catch myself setting expectations or telling myself that I deserve "something", I hear Shakespeare's wise words in my head, "Expectation is the root of all heartache". And instead of holding expectations for people, I shift my expectation to the One that I can trust no matter the circumstance. As Paul writes in Philippians 1.20:

...as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.