Listening to: Joe Purdy's Paris in the Morning
Reading: Paul: A Fresh Perspective by N.T. Wright
Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Initially, I was quite reluctant to venture into a world filled with things like blog posts, layout pages, comment links, and so on. However, after a good deal of procrastination a bit of prodding, I've decided today is a good day to do something new in order to preserve something that is quite old. It's so easy to become so completely engrossed with the activities of the world (one's job, school, errands, whatever) that the simple things like a blog post seem like an impossibility.
While I've learned this lesson more than once in my life, I have to be constantly reminded that my daily journey is more than any collaboration of worldly activity. Each day I'm reminded that life is short and precious and there are richer and deeper things in this world than the next goal to be achieved. I've been thinking about a column written by the humorist Erma Bombeck (she died in the mid-90s), which I had read a long time ago. I finally tracked it down in Brennan Manning's The Ragamuffin Gospel, which is where I must have encountered it in the first place. It's a bit long and it might not have the same poetic weight without R.E.M.'s Daysleeper playing in the background. So, if you read this and say "This sucks and I really hate this guy for posting it," put a song on and try again. I can only assume this was written near the end of her life.
From "If I Had My Life to Live Over Again"
"I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded. I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains. I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime. When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, 'Later. Now get washed up for dinner.' There would have been more I love yous, more I'm sorrys, but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it, live it, and never give it back."
Blessings friends.
