Advent: Day 3

Why do many of us procrastinate? Is it to exert control over what they can and can't do?

Waiting, however, is not procrastinating. In waiting, there is a measure of patience and an expectation that the wait, might be long. We are not delaying in what needs to be done, but instead waiting to do when it needs to be done or will be done to us.

As we wait for the coming of our Lord, we are told that we will be redeemed, when He comes. Redeemed from who? Those who persecute us? I don't think so. I believe we will be redeemed from our very flaws, flaws like procrastination.

We wait O Lord for you to redeem us from the things that we know we need to do, but won't.

A man had a neighbor who never had any visitors because he was always so angry and bitter. He looked like he was withering away.

His neighbor's home was old and grey. His grass was dead and his trees barren.

The withered man one day knocked on his door and asked "Neighbor, how is it that you and yours are always so happy? Why do people flock to your home? What is the secret? Help me to understand".

The man through the kindness of his heart told him "I have a trough in the back of my house, that supplies me with what I need. Come let me show you".

He led the withered man to the back of his house and there stood a door. He reached into his trousers and took out of it a silver key. He put the key in the door, turned it and a cool burst of air, smelling of flowers blew at them both.

What lay before them was a small trough 2 x 2 in dimension, made of silver. The trough glowed and the water seemed to sparkle. In just seeing the trough, the withered man felt relief. He turned back at his neighbor and for once in a long time, smiled.

"Here is the source from where I drink. When I drink from it, it brings me peace." said the good neighbor, "I can not make you drink, or make you walk through the door, but I offer it to you."

The withered man hesitantly and slowly moved to the trough, he stuck his hands in the sparkling water to test it, then slowly started to drink.

He suddenly saw his hands return to youth, his nails which were dirty cleansed. He was no longer hunched over by the burdens of his past.

He looked over at the neighbor and with tears in his eyes said, " Thank you kind sir. For your love, has allowed me to see with clarity and allowed me to forget my troubles, I am renewed".

The man led the neighbor out of his home, and at the door told him, "Come back if you ever need some more."

Every morning for the next few months, the man looked across to his neighbors house and no longer saw withered grass or barren trees. He saw life grow on every inch of his neighbors yard.

And every morning the once withered man, waved and smiled at his friend starting at him from the window. Through the many months, they talked and sometimes they shared each other's company.

The once withered man had many people visit him, flock to him to marvel at his beautiful home and enjoy his company.

Months passed and the once withered man kept inviting his rescuer neighbor over, but he stopped coming.

The very man who had once shared his trough, started boarding up his own home and would not allow anyone to enter.

The once withered man not understanding what was happening, could only wonder.

The withered man made several attempts to share even more of his fortunes, for he had found a gold trough of his own hidden behind a door in his home. He drank from it everyday, and always gave thanks to his neighbor for guiding him to it and for the one who put the trough there for him to drink.

But the man who was once his rescuer, no longer waved to him.

The man looking through his boarded up window said to himself bitterly, "Who does he think he is drinking so much from that trough! Why does he continue to drink from it everyday?"

Bitterness and uncertainty took over him. His home and porch grew barren and he himelf slowly started to wither.

He shut the curtains in his home, because he was completely consumed, and because of that consumption, he forgot, that he too had a key, to his own trough in his own pocket.

What happens to people? Why do they push away? They lead you to water, then when you drink from it, they tell you, "You are drinking too much."

One can only wonder.

I guess there's a reason......

I will wait, for my house has no door, it is open and leads right to my trough, free to those who come to drink from it.

Advent 2015 Journal: Day Two

Advent: Day two

"O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel"

Nothing we achieve, nothing we do or how much we know, seems to bring us lasting satisfaction.
 I seem to want to know more and more. Why?

I long for God that much?

I have always wondered why God favors mankind?
Why us?
We are wretched, sinful, destroyers of most that is good.
Why does God have so much love for us?
Why does he bother with humanity?
Is humankind worth that much?

 Redeem me, O Lord! I can't do anything right!

To where....

On a train of what will be.

On a train, I stare out the window,

staring at creation,

Harmony, sustenance, without human interference,

in places without interruption.

Why does man interfere in Creation,

in the planned, of what must be?

Humanity driven like a river to its destination,

As if the one in the current had control of its’ own.

Why not just drift to where it leads,

instead of swimming upstream, of what will be.

Man and God... and the Millenial

If you watch the news today you can definitely understand why atheist's have their ideas.  The world seems to always be in turmoil and most times hides or advertises the turmoil through religion.

The future seems uncertain for many of our younger people. Many 20 something's that I talk to are very anxious about their future. It seems that growing up under the shadow of 911 has affected them. They question US policy and its' role in the rest of the world.

It is call to the neighborly aspect of the Gospel.  A call to the conscience of the United States.

For the most part, greed and power always brings back man to religion, and man, always misinterpreting religion, makes a mess out of the world.

World history always comes back to greed and power, of which no previous and current religious institution has ever held an immunity.  And so atheist and many young people pose a good question.

Where is this God of yours who allows homelessness, death and destruction?

In a sense, the atheists' unbelief might be a plead to God himself.

Many of the 30 something's now look for certainty and affirmation through the "proof" given to them through science. Anxious for what the future holds, feeling and seeing the the previous institutions fail them... I can't blame them.

They question their taught beliefs because the very institutions that were supposed to protect them, for the most part fail them.

Our children are smart, creative  and think in different ways. Their way of communication has changed. They push all the institutions to think of the human person. To think for those who have for the most part been ostracized from what seems conditional love.

I have had the opportunity to meet some of these young folks, like my nephew, my son and his friends and they surprise me with their openness.  Their relationships seem genuine, different from the relationships that I had when I was younger.

It's different. Is it good? I don't know, but it is who they are.

People call them Millenials, and maybe that's exactly where they will take the world... into the next Millenium and maybe, just maybe, God will reveal himself through them.

Run, Walk or Hike

I have recently started running to lose weight and have been reading lots books based on the lives of running athletes for motivation.  In all these books, of all these great runners there's an underlying theme: The authors ran away or ran to something in struggle.

The story of the greatest running athletes all seem to have a common struggle, the human condition. I myself have struggled with one thing all my life, that I must say, might just be the motivating factor for who I have become.  And so for the most part it "runs" my life.

As I read about the lives of all these runners, I totally "get it." From being bad fathers, to alcoholics, to their tragedies, I can totally identify.

I am starting to understand there's no condition at all. Instead it is just Life. I believe that the human condition is not so much a condition, but the standard.

It's not a condition at all.

I believe one key aspect to live is to learn how to stay motivated and minimize the damage.

Is that the point of religion?  In the major religions it is all about being free of this condition and to being better off, but is that part of being human?

I will continue to run, not so much for the weight loss, but because I believe that running might reflect how life can be, sometimes enjoyable and sometimes not.

The human condition is somehow reflected in the very terrain of our hikes and our runs, and it is in the struggle to conquer the next hill, to reach the next peak, or our own peaks, that we can sometimes prepare for the run..... Life.

The Badger

They say that a Badger digs really deep to make it's home, and to a certain extent human beings tend to do the same.  We seem to dig really deep to figure out who we are, why we are and why we do the things we do, but, eventually we all have to make a home.

I have been "badgering" for quite a while and still can't seem to find my home. The song, "I still haven't found what I am looking for" by U2 is where I continually "find" myself and says it best.

The saints, guru's and mystics say that what we all really long for is Love, God and compassion.  Is that the home we all search for?

Is that all I need? If so, can you please tell me how or where I can get such things?

I am told that Truth is a person, but this Truth seems so distant to me. This Truth seems so irrelevant in my life at the moment.

And so, I search and dig.

I was recently told by my doctor that I have to lose weight. That I can do!  Because through experience, I have made that home before, so I know exactly how much to dig to get to it. But these other aspects of life like work, relationships, God, the universe, religion are all places that this Badger fails to find.

It seems that once you think you have it, you learn that there's something else that shifts the dirt or fills the "whole."

I don't think that we are meant to live like badgers that continuously dig and dig because it doesn't seem to be working.

I guess the saying, "Where you go, there you are" is where I am and it sure feels lonely here.