Monday, January 26, 2009

A Journal entry

I am lost. It makes no sense to pretend otherwise. I have been walking in circles for weeks. My mouth is full of bitterness. My eyes burn. The ground gives way under my feet.

I don’t know how to get my bearings. All the old tricks have been exposed. I try to read, but the book in my hands is a mirage, the words shimmer and dance with neither meaning nor nourishment.

I have nothing to say for myself. It all sounds like the muttering of derelicts wandering the fluorescent-lit grocery aisles among the bright boxes of oatmeal and detergent at midnight.

I have no baptism to account for this. The heavens have not opened. There has been no heavenly voice. There has been no wild man with reservations. No devil to grant permission; no stones and no bread.

There is no justification for any of it. No ransom note, no telltale sign.

There is only the clock unwinding on the mantle, one thundering tick at a time, and this long scarf of smoke outside my window, unraveling in the crimson January sky.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A New Beginning

The American savior machine is rolled out and cranked up. Bush and Cheney they seemed so small...bugs out from under the magnifying glass. We give and we take away. They scurry off into the future, and when they return, it will be in the rosy glow of our collective short memory.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Important perspective

Given the one sided nature of coverage around this issue, I think this is an important perspective for us.

http://tinyurl.com/7gl33u

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Thoughts for the day of Epiphany

Here's the thing I just don't get. You'd think a star that could literally point out a baby in a haystack would be pretty hard to miss. And yet, everyone is oblivious to it except our three travelers from the East.

Is everyone so caught up in the daily grind of life in Bethlehem that even a star moving through town goes unnoticed? How could the majesty of God be so obvious to foreigners while the citizens of Bethlehem could be so oblivious?

I can't help but wonder, what stars are shining in my life right now, that I am too dense, preoccupied, oblivious (fill in your own adjective) to notice? Prayer may be nothing more than opening our eyes to the shining wonder of God's presence in the present moment.