Reluctance to Ask

Because the implication of his response is so significant, I can be reluctant to ask the question.

Someone To Agree

He said he wanted to be heard, when he really wanted to be agreed with.

Freedom

When you can say the immediate choices are not your own, there should be freedom rather than frustration.

What Is Good

There is awareness, a realization that even though it has no name, there is something about which I need not worry and it is the assurance that what is good, whatever that may be, will stay so.  It happens every so often and there is no need to pursue to what it may refer.

Jesus's Doubt

Since he alone had heard God's voice, you might wonder did Jesus doubt it had actually occurred.  As he walked away from the Jordan, or maybe the next day, did he doubt what had in that moment seemed so real.

Love Beyond Comparison

On reflection, there may be validity in the notion of a single great love, but others are not diminished for being other loves.  Others are instead themselves and so complete in themselves.  They are different rather than less.  Love is not a comparative process.

One Real Love

He has decided, with the same lack of reason so common to much of his thought, that each life is entitled to one real love, but most people settle for something less.  They may become aware that it is settling, and so they will sense regret and will wonder what that one real love might have offered.  He thought too some of us might find and lose that love and only in its loss would we realize what it had been.  It seemed, as often is so, that he had perhaps half a thought and sought to make it more true than it could be.

A Different World

The kings came back by a different route and hopefully they returned to a different place.

Many Truths

Any number of things may be true but that does not make them essential.  It means at best they are factual.  It does not mean they are less true for being of no significance to someone.

Smaller Gifts

We had thought it important to make a contribution, to somehow give a gift to the world, to bring about a better society, and almost always it was on a grand scale.  Over time, it has seemed smaller and more intimate gifts are better ones.

Our Investments

Only about our time and energy have we actual choices and so how we invest them become significant choices.

Able To Give

We can ask from people only what they are able to give.  To want more than that is to disparage the gift they have made available, saying it is not enough.  Be grateful for what is offered.

True Meaning

They kept saying, "But what do you really mean," as though behind each statement had to stand another, one even more obscure.

Drifting Into The Past

It is hard some days to be present in the present moment, to not notice and to move toward memories, and it is hard not to wish ourselves off into a different place, a new time, one whose time is not yet here.  Maybe instead of resisting the call of reminiscence or the hope of what might one day be, we should instead drift closer to them, even if only to visit.

Digging Holes

No matter how deep the hole you dig, it will always be empty.  In fact, the deeper the emptier.

What Can Never Be

Asking for what can never be, you should eventually become somewhat less surprised when it does not happen.

When To End

At the point where people recycle issues without changing them, it may be time to end.

Try Silly

Have people try silly -- they already know angry and sad too well; and as well as they know them, they are no better for that knowledge.  Silly can work no less well, and might well be a decided improvement.  Only our supposed dignity is at risk

Love Grown Old

There is an intensity to young love that gives people something to do while getting to know each other, and as nice as it is it cannot compare with the satisfaction and familiarity of love grown old.

When Life Is Frustrating

If we find life frustrating have we perhaps asked more of it than it can provide, or do we overlook what is actually there?

Thriving By Being Better

They seem to think their goodness derives from someone else's less being good, or better, their being bad.  A silly way to be and yet they seem to thrive on it.  As long as "good" is a relative term they can, if only for a while, be better.

All-right-ness

I think of it as a voice when it is more a realization or awareness.  It said this morning what it has said before and each time it is assured enough to convince me it is so.  It said, "It will be all right."  I suppose I want it also to say I will be all right, but that is not so important to know and in truth my idea of what might constitute "all right-ness" is not the best standard.  Better to instead wait and trust, settling into the awareness once again.

The World Evolves

Despite all the attempts to manipulate and manage events, the outcome is only temporary and in time the world evolves around its apparent controllers.

Disbelieving Life's Essence

Those aspects of life that only infrequently occur, those moments when there is satisfaction and peace, when we do not need to question or stand in the way of life, are the more essential and so the more real; but we are not used to thinking that what consumes so little energy and uses so little time is what life is composed of in its essence.  The depth and value of life have less to do with time's length or with the energy it might consume.

Cruel Penalty

Why ever would someone want a dog to keep on a rope or chain out in the yard or in a pen that permits no real movement?  Do they not know that animals grow?  They do not, and had not meant to, stay cute.  Is this tying-up and penning a penalty imposed upon their aging?  Is that the meaning of this exile?  If so, why are they so willing to display their ignorance and what seems such cruel behavior?

Anachronism

The intent was to be modern and as relevant as could be, but marching in behind the streaming banners with his flowing robes he offered a sense that we had instead returned to the Middle Ages.

Wander

When there are too many directions and too clear a pathway it may mean we should instead wander.

Real and Actual

There is a distinction between real and actual, so that what is actually happening can still lack reality.

Narrowing The World

Young children, because they are so young, can think the world a small place and at the center they see themselves.  Some, perhaps because they are more resistant to maturing, may resent the notion that it is not so small and that it has no single center, but many.  It is the same when as adults we become frightened and less secure, and we react by narrowing the world, closing it around ourselves to keep others away.  We say they are not there, and if they are then they are less central than we are.

Young beliefs and frightened churches act the same way, focusing on themselves as so very true and central; and if other beliefs or churches are present at all, then because they are not us they must be less -- less real, less true, less loved by God.

Living in a bigger world gives children more to explore and with awareness less to be frighted of.  Secure people recognize they are not undone by the presence of others, no matter how distinct they might be.  They find instead there are opportunities of more to be shared, and new awarenesses to be had.  Grown-up churches can do the same.

Considering The Past

Aspects of our past will present themselves as it is time to consider them.  If we pursue them, they will be unavailable.

Entertaining Death

He decided this might be a reasonable time to die.  He was without debts, had no outstanding disputes with anyone, and even had friends who could be sad without having to be overly distressed.  It was a good thought and for a time it entertained him.  It was hard to decide how he would be welcomed into whatever was next, but he had a fair sense of who would be there to receive him.  This thought returned for awhile and then it stopped.  Life was again as reasonable a pursuit.