Investment in Therapy

There are a number of people spending more time and energy in therapy than they are on life.  The investment is so great it is little wonder they resist recovery.

Children

I find each day I have the world's nicest children.  They are good and kind people.  They have their mother's heart.

Art

It is only lines and colors.  How they are arranged makes them art.

The Church's Forward Movement

It is probably a favorable sign that fewer people are going to church and those attending are contributing less.  It is indicative of discernment rather than a decline in their religious sense.  They are being better consumers, noting the product is less serviceable and asks or expects more than it provides.  There is probably a relationship between people's spirituality and their disappointment.  They may even have shifted to a level exceeding that of the church, so that they are becoming less able to communicate with it.

Church has at other times lost touch and needed to reach a degree of estrangement from the people, and from the ideal of itself, at which time it has caught up with where the people have led.  Then for a time church and believers remain in harmony, until the people again move forward.  Each step in this process takes longer than we might wish, but it is in the nature of progress that we do not trust it as we might, and so we make it proceed more slowly that it could.

Not Reason Enough

The futility of some things is no reason not to pursue them.

Perspective on Prayer

He says we call it prayer so we won't seem to be talking to ourselves, though what we say are the same obsessive complaints, requests, and whinings, only now they are referenced to God.

God's Mistakes

One of God's early mistakes was letting people know he had power.  They then expected he would use it in ways they determined.  Another was in letting them know he was perfect.  It was an impossible standard, since people's notion and expectation of perfection varied as well.  He might have been better to advertise as "nicer than earlier notions of God, less capricious where I have choices and wishing you well no matter what the outcome."

Entitled to Tantrum Behavior

They were feeling entitled to tantrum behavior.  The game had become that important, or maybe because they had seen it on television they think the tantrum is an integral part of the game, and that placating them is what coaches and parents ought to do.  The placating has, of course, a reinforcing effect, and even though they are only kids playing a game it has taken on the appearance and intensity of even younger children frustrated by reason's intrusion on their self-absorbed way of life.  Throwing helmets or bats, pounding on the ground and crying suggest it has lost its "gameness" and the feeling that the yelling and slamming are important demonstrations of one's commitment to the contest suggests we may be a society too concerned with appearance, too focused on winning and pursuit of more foolishness than could ever be helpful.

When God Spoke

Back when God was making covenants he would call people together, tell them what he wanted, seal the bargain, and be on his way.  It was hardly democratic, but at least he spoke.

The Language of Depression

When each day is such a burden, the prospect of a longer life -- which to others might seem a promise -- becomes instead a frightful prospect.  It is a sentence, and simply moving is so hard to do.  It would be a relief to foresee an end to the obligation to sustain life and to no longer pretend it is as exciting as it may seem through other eyes.  It is not that it is devoid of satisfaction.  Were that so I would have despaired far sooner.  It is the prospect of having to continue where such moments are more the exception, and where in its place emptiness seems to grow.

I get tired of saying, "one more day."  Were it only one more I could handle it better, but it is not one and despite the love of those around me it seems so often so very alone.  I feel so often I am pretending I understand how others' lives are, that I am visiting in a different world when I am with them, even when they are people about whom I care so very much.  For a long time -- as long as I can remember -- life has cycled back to the sadness, with its familiarity and pain.

It is not to be shared, and times I have tried to it was no better and seemed worse in some ways since I was offering it to someone who would be no better for hearing it spoken, nor would that person ever really understand that this is not a passing thing, a moment of sadness that is gotten through or over and then life goes on.  They did not really speak the language (which I am grateful to say) and so thought these words had different meanings.  But the pain is not to be dismissed and it resists understanding, and most of all it never really goes away.

Promises

We are better keepers of lesser promises.

Value

Few things have value apart from the associations they contain, the memories they may evoke.

Incomplete

No matter the length of life it could always seem incomplete.

Dream Interpretation

I dreamt I was making violins and each was perfect until the next one was begun.  It was interesting that I seemed most absorbed in the neck, where in guitars the frets are located, confirming my having fretted to excess.  (So much for dreams and their interpretation).

Our Boundaries

We are limited by the boundaries we establish, and so if we say this is the correct or only way to act, think, or believe we can go no further and must become defensive, less welcoming, and we will feel obliged to condemn diversity -- a sad and unavoidable prospect.

Priorities

People who think money is so important end up on teams owned by George Steinbrenner.

Stay or Go

Until we want to stay, it may not be time to go.

Misplaced Worry

I worry about the wrong things.  I always have.  I want to manage and limit.  Controlling (or pretending to) where trust would be more fitting.  I am unsettled by love and would keep it at a distance if I could, forgetting it is love and so need not be frightening.

Kingdom

Back when the kingdom was like trees and fields and living things, it was a nicer kingdom, a more welcome place than it can sometimes seem now that birds nest less often in it.

Gift

James' gift was best of all.

These Stones

These stones that mark where we have come to rest are not us.  No matter how grand or humble, they simply note an end of a journey.

Deferred Foolishness

Why wait so long to become foolish?  When we could have it out of the way in adolescence, we instead defer it to a point when it is even more out of line.

Better Summary

I asked Albert to read something.  He instead asked me to tell him what it was about.  The telling was shorter and more of value.

One World, At What Cost

They were saying it could be one world, but meant it would have to be one at the cost of diversity, and so we would become as they were with a single governmental and economic system, to be followed by a single system of values and beliefs, with only one language, and so while we could speak together it would have to be about what used to be, since the moment would have lost its savor.

Serious Laughter

He laughed as much at serious questions as he did at the more basic.  He was equally insightful in all contexts.

Chosen

To think one is chosen is to incur an obligation that may not be actual.

Religion's Humanity

Religions can sometimes be territorial and protective of what seems their turf, and they demonstrate their fear, calling it instead something else.  They also demonstrate their lack of faith, marking them as human.

Sacred

Unless we recognize the sacred we will feel entitled to destroy.

Misunderstanding

The young man asked and Jesus responded, and because he did and because the man wanted to hear even more, Jesus may have thought he was also agreeing.  Perhaps he did, but in the end the man went away.  Maybe his understanding had been only of the words.  Maybe the young man's sadness was as great as Jesus' own at what might have been, but in that moment could not be.

Wanting to Stop Giving

He is tired of giving, tired too of considering what others might need.  He is only reluctantly willing to honor commitments, and determined to make no new ones.  Giving is not so terrible a thing, but he wants now to stop.  Not so that he can instead take, but rather so he can do nothing.  It is to me an understandable notion, but as long as there is life it will be marked by this focus on what is needed or wanted by someone else, and so if there is a change it will be in the reluctance with which he responds rather than in the responding.  For whatever reasons we get into patterns and styles, ways in which we deal with others, and for him (and maybe me as well) it has become centered on what is their need and on what is the right thing to do, with the right thing defined by response rather than avoidance of it.

We would like to think in giving we also receive, and that is true much of the time, but giving is sometimes just giving, and there are times when it is more a burden than it ought to be.  To stop giving is perhaps why people anticipate retirement and why we welcome independence in children.  It is why zeal gives way to tolerance, and I well understand his wish, but life is not so easily latered.