Sandals and a Stick

How Quickly I Forget

For the rest of my morning exercise, my mind was consumed with thanksgiving. I realized that in reality, these common irritations were limited in scope - sometimes based only on mood. However, the list of “I-am-grateful for” was revealed to be endless.

Headwinds

But then I remembered that without a headwind, it's harder for a plane to get the lift required to leave the ground. It is also more favorable to land flying into the wind as well. Yin-yang, perhaps. Further thoughts put me smack in the middle of my constant attempt to live more like Jesus. Sorry if I hurt your neck with this one. Here’s the mental picture involved here. We’re human so following the ideal is going to come with headwinds. It’s just a fact that a spiritual life collides with everyday human life.

Level Up

We need to reinstate the Golden Rule thing and then level it up by a significantly large measure. If we loved one another as Jesus loves us, NONE of those bullet points would ever see print.

MIssing Fall Colors

The pictures above display the rhythm of seasonal change. We also show similar rhythms. As much as we want to be the vibrant tree and the most colorful leaf, we will eventually trend toward darker shades as a matter of nature. That leans toward melancholy. But it doesn't have to.

Smile - And Serve Pasta

Growing up we hated television commercials – those horrible interruptions to our glued-to-the-device intake of entertainment. I still feel that way, especially when some of these creations seem to be strobe-lights-of-images flashing so quickly that your mind (mine anyway) cannot grasp what might be happening. However, several times I have pointed to television commercials that have moved me, made me think about principles, or even generated an emotion or two. The irritation of the general term can easily be ignored when a beautiful song is incorporated into a reason-for-life lesson along with the commercialization of a product.

The View From Here

We live in interesting times. When I opened my desktop the other day, this is what I saw. The image filling the entire screen also filled me with a slight case of acrophobia. I didn't know that a two-dimensional picture could do that. It reminded me of a recent conversation about viewpoints. We weren't talking about visual viewpoints, but experiential viewpoints that change our picture of life - and our opinions. I think I'm ready to show you an example. Imagine the following scene.