interruptions

     I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be productive and efficient, which means that I’ve spent a lot of my life avoiding interruptions (even when they’re people). I guess I thought that the ends somehow justify the means: if I’m doing something important, it’s okay to treat people like interruptions instead of treating them like . . . people.

     I don’t want to live that way anymore. That’s partly because, when I was too sick last month to be productive and efficient, I had to rely on other people. They didn’t treat me like an interruption. They treated me like an opportunity, and it felt very good.

“[Interruptions] are obstacles that get in the way of our being highly productive and efficient. And yet . . . they also present us with opportunities--opportunities to give our attention to others . . . , to concern ourselves with their troubles, to identify with their pain, to recognize and honor them by taking time to listen, to be for them a channel of God’s compassion and peace.” Br. David Vryhof

“Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.” Luke 6:36

heaven on earth

     Sometimes I’m afraid that I won’t have enough (health or strength or courage or whatever). When that happens, I have a choice. I can focus on the fear, which fertilizes it and makes it grow and multiply, or I can bring the fear to God, as if He were my good shepherd who would never withhold anything that is good for me. I’ve tried both in the past few weeks. One is heaven on earth.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.” Psalm 23:1

“The Lord withholds no good thing from those who walk with integrity.” Psalm 84:11

“Nothing can be necessary that He withholds.” John Newton

a bad habit

     Here’s the truth: what I say and do reflects who I am; what somebody else says and does reflects who he is—not who I am.

     Here’s the problem: I have a bad habit of taking somebody else’s snarky mood or look or comment personally. Instead of thinking, “Hmm, he must be having a rough day,” I think, “Yep, just as I suspected. I’m not ____ enough, and he knows it, too.”

     Here’s the solution: little by little, I can practice letting go of my bad habit and letting God change the way I think.

“Let God transform [me] . . . by changing the way [I] think.” Romans 12:2 

kneeling at our feet

     Sometimes I get a fleeting glimpse of God as He really is, and then I want to kneel, too.   

“In vain we search the heavens high above, / The God of love is kneeling at our feet.” Malcolm Guite

“Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples. . . .” John 13:5

detours, messes, defeats

     Yesterday, an old friend dropped in out of the blue. I hadn’t seen her in ages, and I was shocked. I had my usual too-long list of places to go and things to do, and her visit wasn’t on my list. We talked and we laughed and we reminisced. Later, when I looked backward from day’s-end and asked myself the question I try always to ask myself (“What was the most life-giving part of my day?”), the answer was clear: the visit. I wonder how often the most life-giving part of my day comes disguised as an out-of-the-blue detour—or even as a mess or a defeat?  

“[W]e need . . . a conviction in our bones that [God’s] purposes and his presence often come disguised as detours, messes, defeats.” Mark Buchanan

“At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized Him.” Luke 24:31

little things

     Someone who loves me gave me the gift of an overnight in the country. I didn’t plan it or orchestrate it or pay for it or earn it. It was gift, and I lived it as gift. I looked for all the little things that were gift—rain and fire and quiet and tastes and nowhere to go and a good book and good company. I savored all the little things. I didn’t hurry past them or toss them aside or ruin them with complaint and comparison. And the little things, all together, perfumed the air.

“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air.” Georges Bernanos

“I will give thanks to the Lord (for today’s little things, too). . . .” Psalm 9:1 (parenthetical added)