See Dana's Blog

Today... go read Dana's blog for Jan. 20th... wow!

http://familywilliamson.blogspot.com/

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.

And try to love the questions themselves.

Do not see the answers that cannot be given you

Because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,

Live along some distant day into the answer.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1929

The Discipline of Choice

Usually not a word I like. I don't exercise often... when I do I find I like the feelings, the results I see... it is a good thing on many levels. I usually don't like the effort involved and so more often than not I avoid it....

I'm reading Henri Nouwen's Beloved and he is saying things like inner discipline, the discipline of relationships, the discipline of community. He is emphasizing choice. That I have a choice about how I spend my energy and what I believe to be true about myself... that I am the beloved. He calls the spiritual battle of choosing to be the beloved (against all around us that denies this) the big, big battle we are engaged in. 

I am wondering about how I spend my time/energy and if it is fueling me for the battle of choice or robbing me of the truth that I am beloved...?

Expectantly Waiting vs. Expectations

Galatians 5 (The Message)

(6ish) Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love*.

I'm wondering what that looks like...a satisfying relationship with the Spirit?

16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit.

I'm curious about this too? I long for this to be true about me.

 22-23 But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives...—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people...able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

I'd like to do that....

25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Curious how to do this as well? Or is it about waiting for His Spirit to do it within me?

*I'm wondering if this is the key somehow... trusting God's Spirit to do the work within me... and while waiting to do what I know to do... live a life of love as best I know how... but continually looking to Him to do the work internally, being surprised at the changes I find along the way...?

More About Expectations

Maybe Insanity is Having Expectations

Saint Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within. 

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be confident knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.

Interpreting What Others Say

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

My husband makes these little clay people. They are very expressive at times. Most of them are curled up in what we see as an "attitude of prayer". It is amazing how he has been able to capture different emotions in some of these little guys. Recently, a man in our church asked David to choose a person to give to his father in memory of the loss of his mother. He said he wanted David's help because he believed that God had called him to this, given him a gift, and he was going to  "hold him to it" (or some sentence like that). I agree. David has a unique ability... he even shared how he went down into the basement to look for the "right" person and how he "just knew" which one when he saw it. I believe this is the Holy Spirit in the life of my husband. I know He has made David uniquely and this is one of the ways God uses him in this world. These times are when I believe heaven and the eternal "breaks through" and touches this earth and our experience here. However, there are times that his "ability" to see things borders on the "ridiculous". Over Christmas break David was making waffles. At the end when there was less batter a "drip" landed on the waffle maker and what resulted was a tiny malformed cross. We laughed and said it "was a sign". I think it is helpful to be able to laugh and not take yourself to seriously... but that little cross is still in the kitchen window... I wonder if there is no difference from God's view... the ridiculous and the sublime... only we get caught up in labeling experiences... rating them... makes me think of the biblical David's dancing in the streets "lightly clad".... his wife labelled that experience incorrectly. I am just wondering what He sees when he looks at my husband's saving a small malformed cross made of waffle batter? What does my husband's spirit look like to the eyes of my God? I think it must be beautiful in a way that can't be described by mere words.

Joe's Contribution

I like cheese, it is yummy.

Questions

What does it mean to follow the Spirit's leading each day? Does it mean I may not sense anything specific at a given time? Is it "OK" to be where I am at any given time without a concentrated effort at focused attention toward God? Is He still moving in me if I am not aware? What does it look like to enter into His life?

More questions than anything else today....