Thursday, October 31, 2013

Stumbling Into Heaven

I’ve been going through a dry spell lately.  I get these every once in awhile.  Writer’s block seems too lofty to describe it.  Writer’s blah is more like it.  

One of the ways I cope is by trying to write my way through it.  Reviewing the day and trying to get one small thing right.  Easier said than done.   

Life in the abstract seems a priceless gift. In the particular however, it’s often pedestrian, mundane, arbitrary and hardly worth noting.  That is unless you want to get really depressed.  I’ve certainly lived more of my life distracted and bored than enthralled.      

I say this knowing that a life is these mundane events, strung together, morning to evening to morning again.  A seamless progression.  Brushing teeth, sorting socks, picking out a tie, or shoes for the day, walking the dog, heating leftovers; all of it the form and substance of what somehow adds up to our one priceless life.  Yes, this is grace.  

That knowledge is fleeting though.  Through a glass darkly, as Paul says.  My greatest fear sometimes is that this will all become painfully clear to me on my deathbed.  My greatest hope is that it won't be too late.  

Maybe all the convoluted theological jargon about Heaven is nothing more than a life lived where the ordinary is finally seen in its sacredness.  And maybe ushering in the Kingdom is nothing more than honoring that sacredness.  Attending to it in our own life, and in the lives of others.  

I keep coming back to the image of Jesus, raised from the dead, on the lakeshore at dawn,  squatting over a fire cooking a few fish for the disciple’s breakfast.  


In such is heaven found.  

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Truth....

From my journal today.... "Truth is not complicated. We make it complicated so that we don't have to own up to our lack of courage to simply name it, change and grow accordingly."