Normal: Good, Moving Toward Great

A disclaimer.  We do not have television.  I voted on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday as usual: a cup of good coffee in a beautiful handmade oxblood-red cup, the Ancient Text with the Ancient of Days, and a long view of the earth, yard, river, mountains, rain falling from the sky, my normal.  Later I saw in my mail a text from a Christian Podcast I follow, with the mail title, "Catastrophic Wipeout for Republicans.”  I smiled.  I had not experienced a catastrophic loss since my mom died in March, and even that wasn’t really catastrophic, more like a goodbye for now.  I turned off my mail, picked up a good book, and kept drinking my coffee as I watched a glorious rain move over the mountains west of me and work its way across the river to the land I live on.  A wonderful, NORMAL start to my Wednesday. 

PS: Just received word that this was the second anniversary morning of our family's adoption of our little Inca Treasure boy, Joshua, the happiest grandchild we have.  Life is normal; good, moving toward great.   

Our Joshua on his adoption morning, one of 
the most blessed days of our family's history.  

 

Pay Attention to Your Senses

In the very darkest hours, or days, or months, or even years, there is always the overwhelming joy of Jesus.  But I must avail myself of Him, seek Him, make time for Him, “ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, DELIGHT IN HIM.”  He will not burst into my sorrow uninvited or if I choose to go it alone.  In the midst of it, the great mental and emotional strain of it, I must “come to my senses” and remember Him, and return to Him, with all the confidence of his child.  The sorrow will not be removed, but I will be reminded that Someone Greater than the cause of and the resulting sorrow of my situation is waiting on the porch looking for me…filled with compassion for me, to wrap his arms around me, to put his shoes on my feet and his robe around my body and his ring on my finger.  I am home with HIM.  

Exercising is another great way to come to Him.
This is our trail at Swan Pond that we bike every morning.

 

Time

Clocks all over the world have been turned back.  Meanwhile; 

“Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above.  

Join with all nature in manifold witness 

to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.”  

And You and they never change!!!  

 

Sacred Work Left To Do

At retirement, one can feel overwhelmed by everything to do because the list, “when I get time” is long. However, after a few years, the long list is completed, and there is still plenty of time left. It is then that one must have meaningful work to do, work that seems purposeful and needful to be done because there is no real incentive to work or labor. When one was employed, work was mandatory even if one didn't quite like it or think it had value. Now all incentives have been removed. One must find meaning in and by the quality of the work. I mean this in the highest form of the word. That is why I have changed the word quality for sacred. Sacred work calls forth not only our greatest efforts but our prolonged and diligent ones as well. Sacred work is that which combines the will of the Divine with your abilities that you love to do, those tasks you do because “you find God’s pleasure”* when you do them. Discovery is one of the greatest gifts to remaining competent, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically, and sacred work is the greatest gift of discovery.

*Eric Lydell’s statement on how he felt when he ran.

One of our Sacred Tasks is to build our family graveyard atop Brown Mountain.  We are now
gathering stone to build the wall around it and gathering moss
to seed it.

 

TRUTH

A walk in the woods is as good a medicine as there is for whatever ails you.  In the quietness, beauty, and abundant life found there, one can fully realize the ultimate TRUTH of all truths; there is One who loves and cares for you.  

 

A Two Page Love Note

Each evening I gift myself a goodness like that of red on a rose.  I build a fire stack complete with tinder underneath, so upon rising in the morning, I need only strike a match and the divine gift of fire enters our home.  I keep it going for a couple of hours, driving off the fall chill from our home, and then bank it up and by noon it is out.  It is a present that I hold like a two-page love note, waiting quietly in my thoughts until it is opened to warm my lover, my heart, my soul, and my ageing cold body.  

 

 

Some Poor, Struggling Seaman

Oh, the daylight comes on like a hopeful answered prayer of the greatest magnitude, but is often never acknowledged.  But suppose for a moment that dawn didn’t come and the morning hour nine came, then ten and eleven and by noon there was still darkness, dark as coal, dark night.  Would not all our hearts break asunder.  Would not the pray-er cry out, the politician stand silent, the rioter drop his rock in fear, the sinner and the saint clutch their breast.  But it did come on today.  I sat before a fire and watched it slowly, like a divine whisper, gloriously, miraculously, become day, the light again, the star obediently letting there be light.  Oh, my heart softens in gratefulness; I am a child again, feeling the security of the touch, the peace that passes by and leaves me dumbfounded in ways to say how I feel.   “Let the lower lights be burning, send the gleam across the waves.  Some poor struggling fainting seaman, you may rescue, you may save.”        

God is good!  God is great!  Let us thank Him!

The light burning away the fog
uncovering the island across the way.