If This Grace Were Ours

Samuel Howard Miller

It is the rare person who, looking back over his life and seeing what he has done to it, hasn't sighed for a chance to redeem what he has cheaply used or carelessly ruined. If only somehow, somewhere, there was a way to live again the days we have darkened with our blind haste - the innumerable occasions when our indifference trod on all the pearls of God’s graciousness; the times when our pride, or our fear, or our meanness poured the acid of contempt over the fair countenance of another’s soul! If this grace were ours, how we would leap to the chance!

Source: Samuel Howard Miller, "The Life of the Soul" (Harper, 1951)

Too Big To Put Behind

Rachel Naomi Remen

Disappointment and loss are a part of every life. Many times we can put them behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. But not everything is amenable to this approach. Some things are too big or too deep to do this, and we will have to leave important parts of ourselves behind if we treat them in this way. These are the places where wisdom begins to grow in us. It begins with suffering that we do not avoid or rationalize or put behind us. It starts with the realization that our loss, whatever it is, has become a part of us and has altered our lives so profoundly that we cannot go back to the way it was before.
The thing about the many strategies we use to shelter ourselves from feeling loss is that none of them leads to healing. Although denial, rationalization, substitution, avoidance, and the like may numb the pain of loss, every one of them hurts us in some far more fundamental ways. None is respectful toward life or toward process. None acknowledges our capacity for finding meaning or wisdom.
Source: Rachel Naomi Remen, MD. "My Grandfather’s Blessings"

What Really Happened on Father's Day...

OK pics of the fair will be up soon but here is how I spent part of my Father's Day...
Co-experiencer's were my sis and bro-in-law, Beth and Kevin, plus kids, my sis-in-law, Misty, up to practice Phlebotomy on our sheep...yeah...and David our recently returned from China friend.
Beth and I were shopping in town when I get a call from my neighbor that there was a fire near our homes, but the fire crews were on it and were hopeful to have it contained soon.
After calling Christy to verify what was going on and being reassured that everything was fine we finished shopping and headed home. As we were driving home we noticed faint smoke in the direction of our home but nothing significant...I could see the helicopter with it's bucket making rounds and the air TAC flying high, calling the shots, but it looked like the fire was all but out. By the time we reached our dirt road we could see black smoke....not good.
Got home just in time for the helicopter to fly over our house dip its bucket into the neighbor's pond and start dropping.
My neighbor drives over with a CDF crew chief who was telling us to get ready to evacuate...which translated to getting 5 children, 30 sheep, some dogs(plus puppies), a horse and a donkey, 11 chickens and two cats in various vehicles and a trailer...luckily the fire was stopped at my neighbor's driveway...it was close

Father's Day and the Picture

My ultimate presents for Father's Day are my kids.
They give me immense joy and sense of purpose, they are a present daily.

The banner picture is of my Pop and my uncle...I think it is a great picture of a couple of cool guys.
Happy Father's Day!

Get Out

Henry David Thoreau

Staying inside the house breeds a sort of insanity always. Every house is in this sense a hospital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand - and then I must go outdoors.

Source: Journal, 1856

As We Love Ourselves

Alvin Alexsi Currier

Jesus took the command to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and pushed the definition of who is our neighbor, out, out, and still further out, until it reached to the ends of the earth and included all of humanity—all of God’s children.
Because Jesus' teachings are so challenging and radical, it is much more comfortable to focus on a quiet, private, personal relationship with him than it is to follow his teachings that call for a public prophetic witness.

Love

Ivan Turgenev

Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death.
Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

All Will Be Well

Eberhard Arnold

Difficulties should not depress or divert us. The Cause that has gripped us is so great that the small weaknesses of individuals cannot destroy it. Therefore I ask you only one thing: do not be so worried about yourself. Free yourself from all your plans and aims. They occupy you far too much. Surrender yourself to the sun, the rain, and the wind, as do the flowers and the birds. Surrender yourself to God. Wish for nothing but one thing: that his will be done, that his kingdom come, and that his nature be revealed. Then all will be well.

Once They Deny Themselves

Meister Eckhart

People who seek peace in things, places, people, and activities - or in world-flight, poverty, and humiliation, whatever the avenue or degree - look in vain, for there is no peace this way. But once they deny themselves, then whatever they keep, be it wealth, honor, or anything else, they will still be free from it all.

The More You Give

Dorothy Day

To attack poverty by preaching voluntary poverty seems like madness. But again, it is direct action....To be profligate in our love and generosity, spontaneous, to cut all the red tape of bureaucracy! The more you give away, the more the Lord will give you to give. It is a growth in faith. It is the attitude of the man whose life of common sense and faith is integrated. To live with generosity in times of crisis is only common sense. In the time of earthquake, flood, fire, people give recklessly; even governments do this.

When We Share Woundedness

M. Scott Peck

How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded! Community requires the ability to expose our wounds and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be affected by the wounds of others...But even more important is the love that arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness.

Source: M. Scott Peck, "A Different Drum." Peck died on Sunday, September 25, 2005. He was 69.

Each Choice

Jigme Lingpa

As the eagle soars in the endless blue,
Its shadow races after it, far below.
Yet space does not divide: bird and shadow
are linked. So too each act—each choice
and consequence.

Source: Tibet, 18th Century

Pickled Martyrs?

Søren Kierkegaard

Here is proof that the clergy are cannibals. As in the farmhouses at the slaughtering season provision for the winter is salted away, so the "minister" keeps in brine tubs the martyrs who suffered for the truth. In vain the deceased witness cries out, "Follow me, follow me!" "That's a good joke," replies the preacher, "No, keep your mouth shut and stay where you are. What nonsense to require that I, or anyone else, should follow you. I keep you alive precisely by eating you, and not I alone, but my wife and my children! To suppose that I should follow you, perhaps myself become a sacrifice - instead of making a living off you, or eating you, is ridiculous."
Source: Provocations

God's Palette

Eberhard Arnold

God does not work by only one method, paint in only one color, play in only one key, nor does He make only one star shine onto the earth. God's mystery is the rich spectrum of color that is gathered together in the purity of the sun's white light. The symphonic harmony of all the stars is built up on precisely their manifold variety. But all this is gathered together and will be gathered together at the end of time in the unity of the Kingdom of God.

Source: Eberhard Arnold: A Testimony from His Writings

Killing Him Softly

C. F. Blumhardt

Nothing is more dangerous to the advancement of God's kingdom than religion. But this is what Christianity has become. Do you not know that it is possible to kill Christ with such Christianity? After all, what is more important - Christianity or Christ? And I'll say even more: we can kill Christ with the Bible! Which is greater: the Bible or Christ? Yes, we can even kill Christ with our prayers. When we approach God with our prayers full of self-love and self-satisfaction, when the aim of our prayers is to make our world great, our prayers are in vain.

Source: C.F.B, "Action in Waiting"

Dig Redux

Humble Love

Jean Vanier

My heart is transformed by the smile of trust given by some people who are terribly fragile and weak. They call forth new energies from me. They seem to break down barriers and bring me a new freedom.

It is the same with the smile of a child: even the hardest heart can’t resist. Contact with people who are weak and who are crying out...is one of the most important nourishments in our lives. When we let ourselves be really touched by the gift of their presence, they leave something precious in our hearts.

As long as we remain at the level of “doing” things for people, we tend to stay behind our barriers of superiority. We ought to welcome the gift of the poor with open hands. Jesus says, “What you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”