The blockhead does not set out with that as his goal

Games Some Parents Play

There is a child intent on performance and needing the response of his family, but they are unfortunately a diverse audience and so when one smiles the other frowns.  As one is drawn closer, the other draws back.  Applause and rejection have to go together even though he shifts from one action to the next as fast as he can.  There are a lot of children being the board on which parents play games, games more cruel than anything else.  To respond only to himself might mean both would frown and maybe for now that is too much to tolerate.  Maybe someday, and maybe then his parents twill deal more directly.

No Reasonable Explanation

It is probably as well that we avoid an explanation of that Gospel which says we are not worthy unless we deny father, mother, spouse, and children.  There is no good and reasonable explanation of such things.

Moments

I have ended up cherishing moments and memories I might not even have saved had life been different.

Wholeness

Because it is a hospital we may think people bring to it just their illness, as we can think they bring only a mind to school and a soul to church.  Wherever they are, they are there with the wholeness of their being.

A Fleeting Glimpse

We never did find the girl with the fireman's hat.

Naming Not Blaming

If you name it, you have not thereby caused it.

Not So Great To Know

Knowing what motivates behavior makes it no less distressing and only slightly more tolerable.

So Near The Surface

So quickly does the sadness return and it is all at once there with all of its intensity.  I sometimes think it always will be, since it is never so very far away.

Being Helped

Each adult held one of his hands.  Each was helping him walk down the stairs, but each was going in a different direction and one was not as tall as the other so his hands were being held, and pulled, from different heights.  Neither adult thought the other very helpful, or not as helpful as she would have been alone -- but each held on, pulling from her level.  It is not easy being helped.  No matter that he might have done it poorly alone, it might have been better to try.  But there had been no choice, and so he helped through his endurance -- and by so doing, helping both of his helpers far more than either were helping him.

Escaping Silence

You go all that way to find the silence but then can only tolerate it for five minutes.

Missing

I don't know how not to miss you.  I suppose I don't want to know such a thing.

Trusting Those Left Behind

I suppose Jesus realized at some time he would be unable to tell them all they might need to know, and that he would have to trust them to find it within themselves, or to not need it after all.  I wonder if in the realization he found peace.

Settling Into Being

There is less need to hurry, less need to achieve.  It used to be important to have someone hear what I needed to say.  Then it was important just to have said it.  Now, neither the saying nor the hearing is essential.  There is to life less time and that is a satisfying rather than a threatening notion.  It is easier now to settle into being and not feeling driven to become.  Accomplishing is not a priority.  Narrowing into the moment, but needing to do nothing about it, is becoming more the norm than was the sometimes-frenzied drive to leave a mark on the world, and to have it be known as mine.

I am not anxious to have it be over, but were life to end it would be O.K.  It would not be important that no one beyond this small circle would ever notice my absence, and I will be no less satisfied than I might have been had more youthful dreams actually followed.  There really wasn't the need to become the new Francis Xavier, John Carboy, Martin Luther, or anyone else.  To have become them would be repeating what had already been and there really was no need for that.  I can instead be grateful for this moment, as grateful as I have been for many that preceded it, and in this moment I can sometimes find all that life could contain.

Silliness The Virtue

We should not try to be silly -- or maybe silly is the virtue and it is dumb we should try not to be.

Our Presumptive Selves

We are reluctant to offend or upset them and so we become (or try to) who they would be most at ease with, but then we resent them -- never having given them a chance to have an actual role, an actual choice about how they might want to respond to what we never showed them.

Being the Best

Those who play best work hardest at the game, noticing where they have been less successful and being more annoyed by the lapse.  They are getting better scores, but having far less fun.

The Difference Sacraments Make

Colin said Churches with sacraments feel they can overlook other aspects while those without sacraments must concentrate on fellowship and social action.  It seems to be so and also it seems the non-sacramental congregations are the more satisfied.

Changes at Church

Church has become a terribly sad place.  It is filled with more memories than it is with their fulfillment.  There is a labored sense to the singing as it becomes more dirge-like -- the same few hymns moaned or shouted in accompaniment to a service become so frightfully routine.  The preaching sounds as hard to speak as it is to hear, and each week there are fewer people.  I appreciate the boys coming along but I sense that given a choice they would readily be anywhere else.  I would too.  It is more burden than celebration.  We endure.

Taking Notice

We pass through a number of settings and situations as though we could handle them well.  In fact, we pretend we are but it is only passing through and if we are fortunate we will sometimes recognize this is so.  There will be an occasion to make changes so we might stop for awhile, stop passing through and instead notice.

Indifference Takes Hold

It seems there are fewer opportunities to validate what is right, less occasions in which to find goodness recognized or people pleased to act as they ought.  It is not that something terrible has taken the ascendency.  Rather, indifference is the more prominent -- an absence rather than a presence.

Like Golf

Life is like golf.  No one really knows how to play, no matter how long he or she has been at it, and each of us can appear quite ridiculous as we go along.  There are, in both life and golf, the times when it all comes together and even if it is but one shot of the hundred taken it keeps you playing.

Life's Rules When Applied to Me

There are points of awareness, moments when what has been obvious also becomes actual in my own life, and so it is not so much a fact or generalization.  It is there to become more essential and acted upon.  I had always known we were each individuals responsible for our choices and so not needing to make them based on someone else's principles or expectations, but then I saw it applied to my life, the specific instance who is me.  I had also known we cannot live a full life in the habitat only of our heads, but that too became real -- or it is at least becoming so, as it has at other times and has been recognized until I again slid into my mind.

Why and how life becomes more personal and why it happens now rather than when it might have are mysteries and perhaps they require no answer, though sooner would really have been better, and not having to re-learn (or becoming "reaware") might have helped.  Less instances of saying, "Yes, that is true" would have been beneficial, less saying so and then just moving on might have saved a lot of trouble and a fair bit of superficiality.

Squirrel's Attributes

Squirrel won again.  My most recent and to date most elaborate device could keep him from the birdfeeder no more than five minutes.  James said it means squirrel may be smarter, though I thought more focused might be the case.

Our Typical Selves

We probably have a typical pattern of response and so our personality is the focus rather than the specific event.  There is then a typical way of handling an occurrence, be it great or small.  The response will be a variation on the usual pattern whether its immediate focus be terrible sadness or great joy.  To all of life's events we bring ourselves and in each instance it is us that we will be.  There is then no "typical" response, but only us responding in ways "typical" of us.  The events do not alter us so much as we incorporate them into who we have always been.

A Kind of Loss

I resent (though that is not the word I want) the loss of all that never got to happen.

Wishes

I will sometimes say as a fact what I actually wish were so.  It is not a good idea, since so much stands in the way of the wish -- things within me more than those on the outside, but that makes them no less real, and maybe instead they become more so.

Our Essential Depression

It seems we hoard our depression, resisting any threat to it.  Why do we guard it so?  Perhaps because we consider it so very essential.

Defense

The greater the defense, the greater the number of enemies we perceive.

Behavior and Belief

While we have control only of behavior, the value or significance assigned to the behavior will depend upon more essential though less tangible factors -- such as belief.