Preparing the Jordan

“Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you’ve got and fix it as you go”… Paul Arden

This is my New Year’s resolution for 2008. Quit using the expectation of perfection to prevent me from experiencing anything or anyone (including myself).

Peace and Love
Keren

Anyone give a llama for Christmas?

More delight and wisdom from the late Grandpa Caleb...

Peace on Earth

This is for everyone, but especially for my brother and my sister, and all of us who were teenagers in the 70's.

Peace and Love
Kembo

Love people even in...

"Love people even in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all of God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love."

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

(photo by {Blue})

For your listening pleasure...

Songwriter Todd Baio was inspired by reading some of the works of Bill Dahl, Jim Palmer and Wayne Jacobsen, and composed this song, "Mr. Nobody", which he graciously allowed me to post here. (Thank you, Todd!) Let me know if you end up listening to this many times in a row as I have, and feel the same joy as I do!

Another nobody amazed by the gift of Love

You Are Love

It's one thing to know that God loves you by pointing at certain Bible verses. John 3:16, Romans 11:36, Romans 5:6-10, and so on. It's relatively simple to say, Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.

It's something else to feel that love. To know it in your heart, your marrow, the core of your being. It's nothing you can force or manipulate.

Where does love come from? Maybe it's always there, but sometimes just buried beneath layers of stuff -- experiences telling us we're not worthy, feelings of rejection, abuse and violence, fear. Another huge factor for many people is the message they have received that suggests God really loves only a select few. After years f having that pounded into your head and after millennia of collective indoctrination of that message, it is very difficult to think and feel differently.

Yet, I', convinced that ultimately nothing can separate us from the love of God. The reason? God is with us, so love is with us. Gd is love and God is fully integrated with humanity from the least of us to the greatest. We can't escape love because we are love -- formed and fashioned in love. Attempting to express love. Longing to feel and give love.

It may be misplaced often. We may not always see it. However, it is there. We can and we will, eventually, find it becuase we can't get away from who we are.

Loving Babies

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that love never fails. However, today I've seen no less than 5 babies less than a year old. They're giggly, bright-eyed, and spontaneous. They are doing nothing but being themselves. Whenever a baby enters the room, everything softens. Everything lights up. Love becomes apparent every time. It just never fails.

Love as Choice

In his book Return from Tomorrow, George Ritchie talks about meeting a man who'd been a prisoner in the concentration camp where Ritchie was sent as a soldier right at the end of WWII. He talks about the amazing compassion "Wild Bill" had for all his fellow prisoners and how he was regarded as a friend to all. Wild Bill even counseled others to forgive the Germans for the atrocities they'd been through, and said this:

"We lived in the Jewish section of Warsaw. My wife, our two daughters, and our three little boys. When the Germans reached our street they lined everyone up against a wall and opened up with machine guns. I begged to be allowed to die with my family, but because I spoke German they put me in a work group. I had to decide right then whether to let myself hate the soldiers who had done this. It was an easy decision really. I was a lawyer. In my practice I had seen too often what hate could do to people's minds and bodies. Hate had just killed the six people who mattered most to me in the world. I decided then that I would spend the rest of my life - whether it was a few days or many years - loving every person I came in contact with."

Ritchie continues: "Loving every person...this was the power that had kept a man well in the face of every privation. It was the Power I had first met in a hospital room (during a Near Death Experience) in Texas, and was learning little by little to recognize wherever He chose to shine through - whether the human vehicle was aware of Him or not."

Here's to Love - to the will to love, to the choice of love, to our hearts opening wide and spilling out love during the moments of our lives. May the story of Wild Bill be another way God uses to point me to his Truth.

A TLIO Quote

Prayer is an act of love, words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.

St. Teresa of Avila
The Way of Perfection

Le Getting There is Half Le Fun

....un pew diversion...

Joy - Expect the Unexpected

This is sort of an addendum to this post. I re-read it and decided it sounds a little cranky, but it is not intended that way.

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The season of advent is about paying attention, being aware, being expectant, preparing for the coming of the savior, the second coming of Christ, etc.

I totally believe in the blessing of centering prayer and reflecting on experience and I practice these myself in groups and alone.

There is a time and a place for everything. However...Interruptions may not be desired but be aware and awake that the greater cause of the interupption may be calling you to a new and wonderful place....or maybe it is just some happy loud-mouth, but you might make a new friend! Here is the original post.

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Have you ever felt really good, full of joy, exuberant even, for absolutely no reason at all?

Have you ever been told "shhhhhh" while you are feeling this way?

Have you ever had this feeling of exuberance and inadvertently brought yourself and your joy into a room where people are are quietly and reverently discussing our journey toward God?

"Sssshhhhhhhh, we are reflecting!" aka "Silence your joy so we can try to use silence to find ours".....huh?

I think children get rebuked this way often. Nothing wrong with silent reflection and I encourage it, but joy and exuberance need to be recognised too.

Today begins the season of Advent. Wake up, look around..something wonderful is coming. It can happen!

Peace and Joy and Love
Keren