ContemplativeJourney

When we are young, we dream great dreams and have great visions.  We will be nurses, doctors, firemen and superheroes.  We will marry Prince Charming and have beautiful children who think we are the most wonderful parents in the history of the world.  As we grow older, we sometimes wake up to find our dreams have faded away...some of us lose sight of our dreams altogether.  Others of us never really learn to dream, or find the loss of some dreams too painful to risk trying to dream again. A thought occurred to me just now about the nature of dreaming...when we're in love, we usually dream great dreams about the object of our affection.  What we will do and where we will go...what we will say in a special moment, and just how we will look.  In a word, dreaming is akin to obsession. An obsession that steals us away...lost in imaginative thoughts of happy times and unlimited possibilities. Do you have any dreams left to dream?  Any magnificent obs...

In an amazing twist of literary construction, we began our sermon today on the topic of 'How to Have a God-Centered Family,' and ended with the subject of tithing. I just love my new church, and my Pastor. During February, Pastor and his wife have been sharing about healthy and godly relationships, and doing a fabulous job of it.  As we finish up the series, our focus was turned to our relationship with God, and how to put and keep Him first. We began with Matthew 6:33, a verse that never gets old. It is so simple, and yet the promise is so complete. Plucked from the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, arguably Jesus' most 'famous' sermon, in some ways this verse encapsulates the core of how we are to live our lives... But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you as well. It becomes more complicated when we begin to unpack what the verse means, because I think most followers of Jesus spend the majority of our l...

" Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world."  Ephesians 6:11-12 The seeds of this particular blog were planted on the day I saw just a snippet of the video taken of the Jordanian pilot as he was burned alive inside a cage. There are no words in our language to do justice to the horror of that image.  Sometimes we become numb to these images of evil. Perhaps we must be numb in order to cope. On this day however, for me, I felt a physical wave of nausea come over me. Unspeakable evil, a heartless desire to see another human suffer.  The ability to 'produce' that person's suffering for personal gain...how can this happen? Today, a still photo of Coptic Christians from Egypt. 21 of them, standing in water just slightly...

  Why worship? It's popular today for folks to say, "I can worship just as easily on the golf course as I can in the church...." or, "I can worship God better taking a walk in the woods than I ever did in church." Maybe so.  Perhaps you can.  Sometimes I believe these things may be true, at least for certain times and occasions.  In the months following my Mom's death, I found the idea of being in church more than I could bear.  I'm not suggesting that my feelings were right, or wrong.  But I would be lying if I said my feelings were anything other than what they really were.  One of my life's challenges has always been to manage the degree to which my feelings run my life and behavior.  I feel things very intensely, and often act on my feelings when those feelings aren't necessarily pointing me in the right direction.  Still, when it came to the subject of worship and church attendance during the months after Mom died, my f...

Sometimes there is nothing to do but stay the course.   When a canopy of beauty becomes something that blocks the light on your path, stay the course. Do you see these majestic trees?  Such beauty demands deep roots, and healthy ones too. It takes time to create such depth. Scripture warns us to never let the root of bitterness take hold.   Just a little bitterness can bring it all down. No matter your anger, no matter your hurt.  Forgive and keep moving. God in His time will give beauty for ashes, but you? You, stay the course. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. He says to always, no matter what happens, stay connected to Him.  Stay the course. The Proverbs teach us: Godliness is like a well-watered tree that bears fruit in its season.  Remember this teaching; persevere in times of drought, and don't quit.  It bears saying again:  stay the course. Take care the fruit of your life, and discern between the bitte...

This morning I happened upon a blog entitled, "You Went to a Funeral and then You Went Home."  It was a powerful blog, and spoke to the separation of experience and feelings between those of us who attend funerals, and those who are the closest loved ones of the person who has passed. As it happened, I went to a funeral today for the father of a very dear friend of mine: Pop.  Pop was more officially known as Conrad Corley, and his daughter has been a treasured and faithful friend to me for the past 23 years.  This was only the second funeral I've attended in the 4 years since my Mom passed away in 2010, and I was struck in both cases by the impact these men had on their families and all the people whose lives they touched.  I knew Pop, "Mr. Corley" to me, and my most enduring memory of him was his love for the Texas Rangers and his retirement job as a Ballpark Usher.  They shared today that his pay for ushering was probably less than what it cost him to get...

I was driving to a New Year's Eve celebration last week...a low key affair, just a small get together with family members.  While channel surfing for some nice music, I stopped momentarily on a church service being broadcast...I remember these New Year's Eve services being called Watch Night Services, and I have never been to one in my life. The pastor was talking about how much fun we can have playing Monopoly...hours of fun.   I enjoy Monopoly, so the topic caught my interest enough to leave the radio dial alone.  I was curious where this discussion of Monopoly was headed as the centerpiece of a New Year's Eve sermon.  I confess that the ending caught me by surprise! Monopoly isn't everyone's favorite game, in part because of the competition...in part because it's one of those games that usually takes hours to play.  I can remember many times when we didn't really finish at all...we got tired after a while and just quit.  But there were...