{By Jeanne Damoff at The View From Here}

The first time I saw him he was walking on a treadmill. A blond starlet dressed like an old-west prostitute posed seductively in a country music video on the television screen suspended in front of him. But he wasn’t watching the video. He was looking around at whomever or whatever, not furtively, but with blatant curiosity.

When our eyes met, I understood.

Some might call the expression vacant. As the mother of a brain-injured son, I saw it more as open. Unmasked. He had dark eyes, and black hair curled around his ears, and I guessed he was probably somewhere between eighteen and twenty. A slender, silver-haired woman walked beside him. His mother.

The world has labels for people like him. Damaged. Deficient. Broken. Unproductive. More than anything I was struck with the stark contrast between his unaffected expression and the video starlet’s heavily painted facade, and I wondered with more than a hint of irony how many people in that gym would laugh at the notion that his contribution to society might be more valuable than hers.

The encounter touched a deep, knowing place inside me, but it was a seeing and moving along. I soon forgot.

That was several months ago, and I hadn’t encountered the pair again until last Friday, when I spotted them in an area off to the side used for free weights and upper body machines. There were plenty of other things going on. In addition to the general hustle and bustle of the gym, heart-breaking scenes from Japan filled a television screen nearby, and another a few feet away aired clips of a defiant Gadhafi, and on yet another some poor guy rushed through his busy day carrying around a beaker full of green liquid that I’m pretty sure represented the acid in his stomach, but my attention kept returning to mother and son. I didn’t mean to stare, but the more I watched them, the more everything else faded into the background. World events, whirring machines, even my own physical exertion. Soon I was completely enthralled with the interaction of the two.

Originally posted on Ponderings.
first appeared on Blog Nosh Magazine on August 12, 2008

I attended a funeral for the father of new friend of mine recently. In our understanding he died too soon. He was only in his early 60′s. Although I never had the opportunity to meet this man, his funeral impacted my life. The tributes and memories shared by family and friends were beautiful. We viewed a slide presentation set to music, tracing the journey of his life. The one thing that really spoke to my heart was that this man had truly lived.

He was an adventurer. Fear didn’t hold him captive. He lived out loud. He wasn’t afraid to follow the dreams God had placed in his heart, and yet he didn’t take foolish risks. He enjoyed life to the full. In many ways he has gone from living to living.

My life in comparison would be such a shadow. Many of us would be likened to “dead men walking” in contrast. Oh, maybe outwardly we’re going through the motions. Jumping through all the right hoops. We know how to play the “Game of Life”. For generations it’s been the same. We’ve read the rules. We know the expectations. Years go by, but our passion is getting buried deeper and deeper. We are allowing ourselves and others to dig our own grave…only we’re still breathing. We’re being buried alive.

I read recently of someone who, though living, described themselves as dead. Have you been there? Have you been to that dark place that numbs the heart. Apathy is your new normal. You feel indifferent…listless. You’ve lost interest in all your surroundings. Dejection and weariness characterize your existence. You are no longer a participant, but a spectator. You have eyes that see, without seeing. Ears that hear without hearing. A heart still capable of loving has become your prison. You feel empty, drained, alone.

Unbelievers are not the only ones held captive. Many Christians live life behind locked doors. Self-imposed cells. Discouragement, pain, rejection, insecurity, fear, accusations, past, present, future all build up walls. Gasping for breath you feel smothered, yet weakness and familiarity keep you hostage. It’s often comforting to stay in the security of this new normal. Realizing work and effort may lay ahead, awakening holds too many uncertainties. A strange part of you enjoys the attention, pity and compassion from others. Silence is your truest friend and your most consuming enemy.

The problem? Right now life seems too overwhelming. Negatives far out-weigh the positives. Somehow your focus has shifted from what can be, to what is. Often it’s a slow fade. Unfulfilled desires in a marriage, demanding children, a stressful job, painful, abusive memories, illness, …disappointment in God. Oh, you’d probably not come right out and say that, but somewhere along the line, you’ve felt God has let you down. You had plans. You had desire. Your life was filled with enthusiasm and drive. You’ve been robbed in the cruelest way possible. You don’t have to worry about being one step closer to the grave, you’re already there.

{Originally published on Angie Muresan}

When older people get together there is something unflappable about them; you can see they’ve tasted all the heavy, bitter, spicy food of life, extracted it’s poisons, and will now spend 10 or 15 years in a state of perfect equilibrium and enviable morality. Irene Nemirovsky, Fire in the Blood

12th century church

I have a few friends who are well into their eighties; women who have lived their lives thoroughly and enjoyed the amassed daily moments to their fullest extent.  I love these women for what they are.  There is wisdom in their advice, a sense of humor in their actions.  They’ve come to terms with the destruction life has in store. Physical health and beauty deteriorating, husbands and friends lost to death or alzheimers, children and dear ones far away, their bodies betraying them daily.  But their kindness, their compassion, their love survived every treachery and evolved into a beauty transcending the physical.

I know they have fears.  Whenever I see them upset at their lack of control over their bodies, they fear for their dignity. For their self-respect and the respect, or lack of, others have for them. I like to remind them that their self-esteem need not suffer because their bodies fail. They are more than that. More than fragile bones and decrepit muscles. They are the light in the eyes, the smile on the lips, the love they exude.

{Originally published in Wisdom Pursuit}

I learned a great Hebrew word in my quiet time recently- Hineni.

Hineni means “I’m ready, Lord; I’ll go if you send me; I’m listening, Lord, tell me what you would have me to know.” It is the word Abraham used when God called to him and asked him to sacrifice Isaac; it is the word Moses used as he stood before the burning bush, and it is the word that young Samuel used in the temple when he heard a voice calling to him in the night.

It’s a powerful word. A word that brought life- changing events for each of the people who spoke it. And I bet not one of them would take it back. Not one of them regrets grappling with the fear, but giving in to the will of the God who is Good, who has plans to prosper and not to harm us.

The hard part comes for those of us who are a little more seasoned in life and have seen that God’s ways are not our ways, and that our lives are not always going the way we think He should have them mapped out. His plans to prosper us and not harm us may be in the next life, and not right now. So, to conquer our fears we need an eternal perspective, a reminder that this life is but a blip on the screen of time. God sees it all, and He has a great call and plan for each of us, both in this life and the next.

Since we are but temporal creatures, our job is to be willing, just for today. We are not called to know what God has in store for us in the next life, or even next year or next week. We are called to take one step at a time to seek God’s plan and to follow it with conviction.

Wrestle with the fear, and beat it down if you must. But, if you truly seek God’s call on your life, then offer to Him these words:

{Originally Published on Conversion Diary}

When I was an atheist, Christmas was my favorite time of year.

The huge haul of top-of-the-line gifts stuffed under the tree each year (the spoils of being an only child) certainly helped my enjoyment of the season. But that actually wasn’t the most important thing to me. There was something else, something that stirred my soul more than any number of boxes wrapped with shiny paper ever could. I could never quite put my finger on what it was, but I sensed it every year when December rolled around.

There was a change that came over my family, my neighborhood, my town, and even my whole country in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Things weren’t perfect, but they were better. And better in a certain way.

Kitchens that were normally empty, only waystations for frantic parents to rush home from work in time to pick up the children for private tutoring or soccer practice or violin lessons, were suddenly filled with laughter and the smells of apple cider and baked goods. School was out, lessons and sports were on hiatus, workloads were lighter, and kids leaned on the counter and chatted with their parents as they cooked dinners from the old family recipe book.

Neighborhood folks who usually offered little more than a terse smile and a half wave opened their homes for Christmas parties, showering neighbors with the warm welcomes, relaxed conversation and even some homemade cookies.

Airports were filled with the sounds of high-pitched greetings of loved-ones who hadn’t hugged one another in months or years; highways were dotted with cars jammed with luggage and presents, families driving for hours and hours just to be in the same room with the people they loved on Christmas morning.

Workplaces normally filled with politics and stress came together to adopt families in need; miserly curmudgeons uncharacteristically slipped a couple bucks into the Salvation Army bucket; longstanding grudges were more likely to be forgiven; people seemed to spend more time thinking about others than about themselves.

When people would ask why my family loved Christmas even though we weren’t Christians, these are the images we’d point to.

We’d explain that the kindness, togetherness and love that permeated the holiday season were what made it magical for us. “You don’t have to be burdened by religious superstition to appreciate love, kindness and goodwill toward men,” the thinking went. For us, Christmas was a season of love, and that’s what we were celebrating.

What we didn’t understand, however, is that we weren’t as different from the Christians as we thought we were. We atheists celebrated peace, love and goodness; our Christian neighbors celebrated the One who is Peace, Love and Goodness itself.

{Originally posted at Flowerdust.net}

Her name is Anne.

She has fallen victim to some bad curry.

Or maybe it was the pizza.

Either way.

She wears no makeup today.

She doesn’t fix her hair.

Her eyes are red because she’s been crying.

And her bed has been one of her two closest friends.

(I’ll let you guess what her other friend has been).

{Originally Posted at Domestic Felicity}

One day, we will all go home.

To a place where our earthly possessions, our looks, ambitions, frustrations, demands, petty fights and competition with one another won’t matter anymore.

Where it won’t make any difference how much money we had, how big our house was, how fashionable were the clothes we wore; where it won’t even matter how much we excelled in housekeeping, gardening, cooking, sewing, or any other skill we prided ourselves for.

Our blunders won’t matter, either, nor will the blunders of others. The clumsy child who was scolded by his mother for smashing a cup, and had his little heart pointlessly broken over this, will be finally healed. The woman who felt torn apart because of cruel gossip, will have her heart restored.

There will be no more place for misunderstanding, suspicion and offense, no negative assumptions, and no need for explanation. It won’t matter what we had wanted to say, what we meant, tried, and failed to express. It will be possible to look into each other’s hearts, into our very souls, and see the goodness in there.

And finally we can cry over all the hidden treasures of goodness, kindness, forgiveness and love – tears of joy because they were found, tears of sadness because we never discovered them here on this earth, because of our human limitations.

We will be enveloped in infinite love. We will be, again, beautiful, beloved, sweet children. We will be forever with the One Who shaped us in our mother’s womb, and there will be no need to part again.

{Originally posted on Vintage Faith}

***

***

Be generous. Always.

By Robin Pensieve | November 18th, 2008 | Category: BN Channel Religion & Philosophy, Featured 1, Robin at Pensieve, Tuesday 1, Uncategorized | 3 comments

{Originally posted on P E N S I E V E}

In its 15th and final season, hospital drama ER resurrected the dead: Anthony Edwards reprised his role as Dr. Mark Green last week in a series of flashbacks by Angela Bassett’s character, Cate Banfield.

When ER debuted in the Fall of ’94, I had an infant and a two-year-old, and I’m sure escaping into TV melodrama was a welcome respite from the “storms” my little ones ravaged. I remember lying on our sofa nursing my son–right side, left side, right side, left–through ER, the news and then late nights with Leno and Letterman.

During the episodes leading up to his death, Dr. Green takes his daughter to Hawaii, to teach her “important” life lessons–how to drive, how to surf…I really don’t recall much else.

Except a last admonishment to her, one that has haunted me in the ensuing years.

“Be generous. Always.”

It struck me as odd, then, that a parent’s dying words would speak to generosity. It was unsettling for some reason; I judged those words as somehow falling short. In my mind, as a believer, I felt like he should have offered some great spiritual insight, something with eternal value, something … more. Of course, I realized it was television after all, and the series had never before offered anything substantively spiritually enlightening; but still, I saw it as missed opportunity.

---

• 12
• Next entries