Never Again

 Never Again can be a tough thing to do.  It is full of pride, the ego at work.  “I can do this.”  You think your will-power can change some lifelong tendency or action forever simply by saying so.  But this usually leads to failure on the “never again” scale.  I love bread.  Doc says drop the bread.  Ugg.  Impossible.  But maybe I can just not eat bread today with my breakfast.  Just for today.  This is more doable.  And it would help to get a power greater than my weak will-power involved.  “God help me, just for today.”  Now off to breakfast!

Leaven

 A little can go a long way.  So become like leaven.  Don’t worry that you did not do enough.  Do something small rather than nothing.  Flour and water are just that, flour and water.  It won’t become bread until you add just a little bit of yeast.  Then the whole batch will rise and you can bake it.  A little yeast goes a long way.  So today I will try and do the little things that make my home a better place to live.  Reset the dishes in the dishwasher.  I live with savages.  Ok.  I will write about judgment tomorrow.  

Speak Up

 There are times when speaking up is important.  When I see something that is wrong as in someone being wronged, silence would make me a spectator.  Speaking up makes me a witness.  And using my video on my cell phone camera can be a way to speak up as a witness to something that you believe is a wrong done to someone else.  

Silence

 Silence is not really the opposite of speaking out loud.  Sometimes we talk too much without thinking and what comes out is banal at best.  Silence is what gives speech some content worth saying and listening to.  I can sit and listen to people talking and feel no need to “interrupt” for the sake of participating.  My silence is a participation.  And sometimes people need a listening ear and not a talking tongue.  

Retirement

 Retirement is not simply about existing with no purpose.  It is a season of our life.  Seasons have reasons and peculiar activities.  You are entering a new season and it is the time to discover what its purpose is for you.  It is not just about moving to change the outsides such as from cold winters to warmer winters.  Change the insides as well.  It is about a change in patterns of life, ways of doing things, and new things to do as well as old things that have been put aside.  And always a time to avoid isolation.  The “routine” can easily slip into that.  

Cleaver

 I need to be careful that my sermons are not cleaver, but rather profound.  I can come up with cleaver quite easily, but profound takes more time.  It takes prayer to allow the sermons to develop.  Cleaver ideas come more quickly but this is because they are not deep.  Often I am quiet in a room of talkers because I have nothing much to say.  It takes me time.  I prefer to be helpful rather than noticed.  

Two Appetites

 I think that a good balance in daily life is to nourish the body with good balanced foods and then to nourish the soul with good balanced prayer of words, silence, with others, in solitude.  At the end of each day I ask myself how I nourished the insides and the outsides.  I pray early and try to eat a good breakfast on my “normal” days.  Sometimes other stuff happens, but I did not plan the other stuff.  If the day is going to be of schedule then I figure out how and when I am going to do the two nourishings.  I find that many people want me to do things but few are concerned about my nourishing.  So it is up to me.