This gallery contains 5 photos.
This brought home, more than TV or Newspapers, both the terrible destruction of Katrina and Rita in Louisiana and the beauty of the human spirit.
Does God Have a Weird Sense of Humor or What?
One of many prayer stories.
This is a story from a member of a traveling Christian repertory theater ministry.
Sarah, a nineteen year old, made very little money in this ministry from September through May, so she spent the summers at home working as a temp to supplement her meager income.
Since she had no car, she walked to and from work. At the first of the summer, she found this a blessing of time spent in prayer and reflection. As the temperatures rose it became less a blessing than an ordeal and she began to ask God to send her a ride somehow. After asking everyday for a week to no avail, as she was walking once again to work, she finally prayed,
“Lord, I can see that I might not find the time to spend with you, if I had a ride. And the heat is only uncomfortable, not dangerous, so the walking…
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Friends, Family, and Countrymen Lend Me Your Ears!
LISTEN TO ONE ANOTHER…BOTH SIDES OF EVERY ISSUE HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD.
I have much loved relatives and friends that think very differently than I do. That’s works for me.
However, when posts turn vicious and judgmental, I hide them.
If posts are logical explanations of a different view point, I read them, because I’m old enough now to know there are valid points on both sides of any issue.
I have come to believe that progress will be made toward bettering all of our lives, if we find ways to cling to our ideals while using practical solutions to minimize the negative fallout for the innocent everywhere.
To quote my best friend, “Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves.”
It takes the idealists to move us toward better ways of humanity surviving in this world together.
It takes the pragmatists to keep us from getting destroyed while trying to do that.
For the sake of our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren open your minds and hearts to work together.
He Who Began a Good Work in You, Will Be Faithful to Complete It.
The Spirituality of Old Age is a whole other ball game!
In old age, the life question, “Why am I here?” becomes, “Why am I still here?”
In the past fifteen years scientists have discovered that the natural human life span
may be one hundred and twenty years or more. I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news!
Does the Gospel message have any good news for the challenges of later life?
Many people have conscientiously lived the Gospel message, that it is better to give than to
receive all their lives, so they find it difficult to figure out how to answer the call, “Come, follow
me,” when they are flat on their back, stuck in a wheelchair, in pain, and dependent on family
or nursing home care.
I’ve become convinced that following Jesus in our later years is a completely different
call. Jesus does not limit the “Come Follow Me” to his years of healing the…
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The Gifts of Age: Part Five: If Old Age is Better than the Alternative, We Are All in Deep Doggie Doo
Re-posting just for the fun of it.
People talk about the stress of being a working mom, as if stress ends when either or both jobs stop. Who are they trying to kid?
Old lady stress is 24/7.
Little Old Lady Stress
Second Stand-Up Gig
At night, as soon as you get your pillow nest all arranged to support aching backs and knees and burrow gratefully into it, doubt enters the room. Did I lock the doors? Did I turn off the stove? Did I switch the wet wash to the dryer? Did I take my pills? Yes, I think I did all that tonight. No, that was last night. Oh hell, I better go check.
Then, because your bladder is your only body part that’s gotten more active with age, there are at least three trips to the john every night. And since your early warning system is now deceased, these are made at warp speed, even on a walker. Panic is a…
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A Change in Priorities
A timely subject as I do some soul searching on accepting some new limits as I age.
A joke about seniors illustrates very clearly how our priorities change as we age. Since I am currently re-evaluating what priorities are still within my skill set, this seemed like a timely re-post. 🙂
A senior citizen, who normally rode the Senior Center Bus on their outings, hadn’t shown up for several months. Then, one morning he showed up again.
Sam, his co-bus rider and pool playing buddy at the center, after being assured that Jim hadn’t been ill or out of town, asked him why he hadn’t been around lately.
“Well, I’ve met a lady at church and we’re going to get married. I came today to ask you to be my best man.”
“My goodness, sure I will. That’s great news. Tell me about her. Is she good looking?” Sam asked excitedly.
“Um, well, no, not really,” Jim replied hesitantly.
“Well, at our age that’s not as important as it…
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The Trap of Depression
I am officiallt taking a nervous slow down for a while, to avoid my annual Christmas one or two day nervous breakdown where I yell at everyone and announce that I hate Christmas. Right after I decided to do this, I ran across this older blog and it spoke volumes!!
I need to start with a disclaimer. My struggle with depression and the things that have helped me may not help anyone else. And there may be things that would have helped me more. I also believe that we are born with different chemical balances and that stages of life like puberty, pregnancy, and change of life can cause balances to get more out of whack for some people.(How’s that for medical terminology.)
Also, when the chips are down, I do believe deeply that I am loved, just as I am, by the only One who actually makes much difference at my stage of life and that means I know I am not alone when down in the pit of despair.
Depression is the emotional equivalent of an abscessed tooth. Self-hatred is a judgement and judgment is like cement that sets emotion into stone.The one thing about emotions is they…
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What Number Spells Success?
Creative people often fall short in the area of persevering. I think we fear if we finish something and put it out there for acceptance and it’s rejected, we will have to face our greatest fear: “We are not good enough.”
The truth is no one is “good” enough for everyone. Flannery O’Conner and Margaret Atwood depress me. But the popular romance novelists bore me.
I’m having to face that I am not a great significant writer, but unfortunately I’m not superficial enough to be popular either. And I don’t have a tiny fraction of the talent of my favorite writer, Anne Lamott.
Although I would certainly love to make some money and I would greatly enjoy feeling successful, the truth is what I mostly want is to share what I’ve learned in seventy-eight years that I value deeply.
And there have been times when I’ve gotten feedback that I blogged or shared something that I’ve written that has spoken to someone else’s condition. It didn’t save them from pain or ever making mistakes or change the direction of their life, but for a moment in time they either didn’t feel alone or they saw something in a new way that was meaningful for them. I do think there are probably others out there that I will never know about that respond to what I share.
The question for me then is: How many people does it take to make it worth the struggle and time spent writing and risking being told that I am not good enough?
Dear fellow writers, the answer both scares and frees me.
I’m pretty sure the person I most try to follow would say. “One.”
Bluetooth Lottery
A writer in the Netherlands that I follow. I think this short story is really fantastic on a lot of levels.
As the intercity train from Schiphol arrives at Leiden Central, we shuffle and adjust until we are standing on either side of the train doors. The twin doors heave and open with a sigh, letting rush-hour passengers out via the narrow aisle we’ve created. Once the last passenger gets off, we dash for the two cabins on the right. Each passenger holds the swinging glass cabin door for the next to catch as though passing the baton in a relay race, a perfunctory smile or nod in place.
I always sit in the upper deck. After I settle into my seat, my phone beeps. Martijn wants to share a song with me via Bluetooth. I crane forward and backward, rising from my chair, to catch a view of Martijn. Most people in the thirty-two-seater cabin have their eyes glued to the Metro newspaper, a tablet, or a smart phone. A…
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From Monkeys to Jesus: Has Humanity Made the Leap from Monkey Yet?
I read about a Psychology 101 behavior experiment today that raises some interesting questions.
You start with a cage containing four monkeys, and inside the cage you hang a banana on a string, and then you place a set of stairs under the banana.
Before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.
You then spray ALL the monkeys with cold water.
After a while, another monkey makes an attempt. As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray ALL the monkeys with cold water.
Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new monkey. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, ALL of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original four monkeys, replacing it with a new monkey. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment – with enthusiasm — because he is now part of the “team.”
Then, replace a third original monkey with a new monkey, followed by the fourth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Now, the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. Having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, not one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana.
Why, you ask? Because in their minds, that is the way it has always been!
My thoughts on this.
Unfortunately this is true of many, if not most, of us human beings. We don’t seem to have made the leap from monkeys.
This is why I so admire the human aspect of Jesus. He responded to the challenge to outgrow his prejudices and even his convictions about the limits of his ministry. It was painful (we see him weep as he has to accept that the people he loved and thought he could save from their blindness reject him). Over and over we see him change and grow beyond both the limits and misunderstandings of his traditional religion, beyond his own followers, his era and even beyond his own previous assumptions. Often the challenges to His traditional religious attitudes and limits come from disreputable sources: women, gentiles, Samaritans, the military of the hated conqueror, sinners, and the sick.
That kind of openness is pure grace! And that’s what it takes to become fully human.
A cartoon on Facebook along with my recent immersion in the history of the Cathars while traveling in South Western France resonated powerfully for me along with the story of animal behavior.
The cartoon showed a Knight riding a horse and holding a flag with a cross emblazoned on it while leading long lines of armed soldiers. One of the soldiers says to the man next to him, ” I hear it’s because we’re right and they’re wrong.”
The Cathars were people who began to question some of the priorities and beliefs within the Christian Church of the 13th century. After failed attempts to convince them of the error or their ways, Pope Innocent III with the support of the armies of the King of France mounted a crusade aimed at completely eliminating the Cathars. It took many battles and involved burning down cathedrals while the Cathars seeking sanctuary were inside them and burning thousands of others at the stake. Some pious Catholics attempted to save their Cathar neighbors and friends and were ruthlessly wiped out along with them.
Who do you think were Christ like in this scenario?
