Family: love 'em like crazy and try not to be crazy. We have and recently have had lots of folks we love in from out of town over the past few weeks. This week is particularly busy with our youngest grandchild here from outside the country with a baptism in our near future and lots of laughter and choosing to be calm and cutting folks some slack and asking for a little slack too. Two weeks from now we have a beloved granddaughter with us for a week that turned out to be Vacation Bible School week. I thought summers were busy when my children were small, but keeping up with a gaggle of grandchildren is proving delightfully diverse and busy.
The family of God also is very diverse, from young men in prison working to become ordained ministers to the university PhD whose face as it looked in kindergarten tends to make me giggle even as he does important work well. We all do some things well and some things poorly. When we realize we are doing them poorly we have a chance to be more intentional in the choices we make, the hope of achieving a better outcome for the future.
I have no sufficient desire and am of a sufficiently advanced age and girth that I do not expect to ever again go to the batting cages with the hope of being less gangling on the softball field. But I am glad to report I am getting better in some ways...I don't think I've burned a pan trying to relearn cooking with gas--for several weeks at least!
And I have come to appreciate the good...the good in people, including struggling people, the good in the natural world, even while picking up from the aftermath of high winds, the good in healthier eating and activity choices. I am enjoying the habit of seeing the good. Plenty of things still leave me with sadness or concern or a longing to do better as a person and a church and a community. But I have learned that focusing only on what I want to change does not give me the energy, the perspective or the wisdom I need to reach out.
So today I'll walk the dog, rock the baby, enjoy the conversations flowing around me and the memories stirring and thank God with such a full heart for my abundant blessings and opportunities, and resting in God's most tender and generous care.
The family of God also is very diverse, from young men in prison working to become ordained ministers to the university PhD whose face as it looked in kindergarten tends to make me giggle even as he does important work well. We all do some things well and some things poorly. When we realize we are doing them poorly we have a chance to be more intentional in the choices we make, the hope of achieving a better outcome for the future.
I have no sufficient desire and am of a sufficiently advanced age and girth that I do not expect to ever again go to the batting cages with the hope of being less gangling on the softball field. But I am glad to report I am getting better in some ways...I don't think I've burned a pan trying to relearn cooking with gas--for several weeks at least!
And I have come to appreciate the good...the good in people, including struggling people, the good in the natural world, even while picking up from the aftermath of high winds, the good in healthier eating and activity choices. I am enjoying the habit of seeing the good. Plenty of things still leave me with sadness or concern or a longing to do better as a person and a church and a community. But I have learned that focusing only on what I want to change does not give me the energy, the perspective or the wisdom I need to reach out.
So today I'll walk the dog, rock the baby, enjoy the conversations flowing around me and the memories stirring and thank God with such a full heart for my abundant blessings and opportunities, and resting in God's most tender and generous care.
RSS Feed