learn to love it now

"So if the work you are creating demands completion before you can find fulfillment, it’s doubtful the creation will be finished, and perhaps more doubtful it will be any good when it’s done. You’ll labor through it, pushing it up a hill like a broken cart. But if you can love the actual work, not the finished product, you’re on to something. If you have a rhythm, if you get up every morning and work for a few hours, and you like the getting up and the work, and you don’t think about how great it will be when it’s done, but rather how great it is every day that you get to get up and do the work, your creation will be tremendous. Don’t think about the finished product. Stop rewarding yourself with something that doesn’t exist, and may never exist. Instead, think about how delightful it is you get to do this, you get to make this, and how delightful it will be to get up and do it again tomorrow." -Donald Miller

truth in craziness

"It is nearly impossible for man to live alone and survive."

(Written by a schizophrenic homeless man that I have been working with)

Namaste

Today, I cried with a client. We cried about how hopeless the streets are, how selfish we can all become, how people often settle for less than they can achieve, how frustrating the social systems are, and how good our God is.

I really really see The Lord when I look at and talk to this older gentleman. I see pain and suffering, but I also see a heart that has been redeemed. All of the verses about the Lord being with the poor make so much more sense after encountering the poor. The humble heart of a man who has been homeless for 45 years made me cry today. It was a good kind of cry.. the kind where you catch a glimpse of holiness in a fallen human. 

If you think about it, pray for him. That the sadness of a life full of darkness can be replaced with a few years of glory. Pray for miracles, pray for his dependence in the Lord, pray for his addictions, and pray that he knows the depth of the Love Christ has for him.

A New Years List

So this year I decided to make a list of things I want to accomplish. One thing for each year that I have been alive. Not anything drastic, no impossible goals, simply a few things to do this year that will motivate bigger changes in the future.

#1 Get my piano tuned
#2 Get my bike fixed at this Cool place
#3 Open up a savings account
#4 Create a budget
#5 Finish calling everyone on my potential donor list for support raising
#6 Write monthly news letters
#7 Plant something (Flowers,Veggies, fruits etc)
#8 Start using more natural products
#9 Cut back on hydrogenated oils and trans fats
#10 Get a planner
#11 Paint my coat rack
#12 Join a fitness class
#13 Call an out of town friend once a week
#14 Obtain a 3 hole punch
#15 Buy an external hard drive
#16 Cook more often
#17 Sign up for a city recycling bin
#18 Shop locally
#19 Invite new people over for dinner
#20 Craft once a month
#21 Blog once a week
#22 Have more intentional conversations; ask more questions
#23 Organize support group for my homeless project

Vessel

"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."
(John 15:5)

Reminded this past week that when the Lord isn't in my plans they do not succeed.
It's such an interesting process to unlearn the natural human response to make things happen and instead sit back in prayer.

Lord teach me to be your vessel. To learn to sit with hands open and hold your goodness and power not attempt to harness it.

October Twenty Second

dark though it is

Despite the shadow that follows the rain on days like today it seems inappropriate to turn lights on in the house.
Here is to dark days, rain, and prayer with friends on muggy screened-in porches.

"Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is"

[W.S. Merwin]