The wall’s not crooked, the candle plate with the f on it is. But I didn’t want the shot with the foreground wrong, so I changed reality a little. I tend to do that. I like for the thing up front and here now to be right and hope that the thing later in the background works itself out. Sometimes it does. Other times, I regret my neglect of the crooked walls.
He could have had anything, but he asked for wisdom. And so it went that he was granted more wisdom than any man, ever. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes was his observations on how these earthly things go. There is a natural rhythm to life, an ebb and flow that we can’t bypass or ignore. There is no override button.
The thing about life is it was meant to be lived. Sometimes, that seems like bad news. I saw this chapter printed out on display in an office space last week. The middle of verse 8 was left out, so all it said was A time to love and a time for peace taking out the hate and war part. I like that better, too. But that’s not how things are.
As it is, I can’t read these verses without silently inserting turn, turn, turn (can you?), but that is the truth of it. Time turns and turns and rolls over itself, the awful and the lovely mixing in like colored play-doh. I can’t say that the awful makes the lovely more lovely, because I think the lovely would be just fine on its own. Somehow, though, it can be redeemed; even the hate and the war parts. As much as I’d prefer the lovely all by itself, beauty from ashes tells a more compelling story.
The nights have been late and the rooms have been loud. Tomorrow we leave Nashville for home. I look forward to de-briefing on BlissDom soon-ish. Unitl then, link up with Blessed Moon. She wasn’t there, either.
We celebrated the new year at 6pm tonight – midnight in Spain. My sister-in-law did it up right and had us over to celebrate the Spanish way. We watched the countdown in her native country, we ate 12 grapes in 12 seconds and shared a toast in fancy glasses. I think a 6pm New Year’s Eve is my new favorite: I was alert, the kids got to play along and still be in bed by 8.
Perhaps starting 2010 six hours early will be a good sign for the new year. Only time will tell. I have so enjoyed chatting it up with you in 2009 and look forward to another year of celebrating the gifts of the everyday, even in the midst of the crazy.
Last night, I stayed up too late watching a show about climbing Mount Everest. Let me first say that I balk at climbing the hill every morning on my way to walk the girls to school, so mountain climbing is like, the last thing on my list of things I want to do. Right below get a root canal and drill a hole in my head.
Still, it was fascinating to watch people who know what they’re doing make their way to the top. It was freezing and dark and they had all this stuff they had to carry. One man was battling a stomach virus. And at nearly 28,000 feet, they could hardly breathe. At one point, one of them said that the key is to look no further than your feet. Really? That’s the key? Because I thought the key might be take a crazy pill and wash it down with a glass full of Superman juice.
They reached the summit just before dawn. But when the narrator darkly announced that is only half the climb and the descent is more dangerous than the ascent, I turned it off. The only kind of mountain descent I want to see is on one of these.
This morning, I read in Habakkuk chapter 3, where even in the midst of great despair, the writer admits that the Lord is the origin of strength. He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights (v. 19).
Then, in one of my favorite devotional books, Jesus Lives, Sarah Young says this:
Awareness of your need for Me is what creates a strong connection to My Presence. My Power flows into you continually: It gives you strength to take the next step, strength to resist discouragement and despair, strength to know Me in intimate dependence…Though the way before you may be steep and rocky, it is nonetheless the path of Life. It is where you encounter My luminous Presence – radiating peace that transcends all understanding.
As crazy as those mountain climbers seem to me, perhaps we have more in common than I first thought.
