Hi, I'm Larry...This Is My Brother Darryl and This Is My Other Brother Darryl"

So, I have been contemplating my life. Where I am now....where I will be after our house closes on the 9th of next month...how on God's green earth we have come to be at this place where we find ourselves. You know, things like that. Just for the record, I have no answers. But I do see that I am going to need a little more flexibility in my life. So rather than have a regular posting schedule here on my funky little blog that is read by tens of people three times a week come rain or shine, I will instead be posting whenever the heck I feel like it. So there.

I feel so rebellious, so dangerous, so....naughty right now! The idea of living life with no schedule!!! Okay, seriously, I need you to know that I will only be posting when I have something fantastic to say that is entirely fueled by my passions and not by a posting schedule even though this violates all the rules of growing a wildly successful blog. Fortunately for me, this blog of mine is not yet wildly successful so I can afford myself this freedom. If you do not already subscribe to this blog via e-mail or in a reader, please check out the right margin and do that now. You know you do not want to miss a thing here and I am just making it easy for you. No need to thank me.

And by the way, the title has nothing to do with this post. I just like "Newhart" from the 1980's. Big perms, ugly sweaters with shoulder pads and Bob Newhart...what's not to love?

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9-11-01...If We Were to Ask God

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." -Ralph Waldo Emerson


All of the ceremony of a day like today stirs us to pause and to remember...

Where we were.

What we were doing.

How we felt.

And all the needless loss of life that day.

On this day each year, some will be overcome with thankfulness, forgiveness and hope.

Others will still be nursing hatred and judgment and fear.

If we were to ask God how He feels about what happened, I wonder what He would say.

Because He is "I Am" and not "I Was" or "I Will Be", I think He would ask us to look within and see how we have allowed the tragedies of yesterday and the heartbreak of today to change us and make us look like a truer reflection of His Image. And although I am certain the events of 9-11-01 broke God's heart, I imagine that today He is more interested in whether or not His children are looking more like Him and if we are allowing His image to be reflected on the lost and the broken, the sick and the poor.

These are the things I am thinking of today.

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Most People are Crappy Listeners (or A Question We Should Ask God)

Most people, it would seem to me, are crappy listeners who are excellent at talking about themselves and completely oblivious to their inability to actively listen to others. If this is a gross generalization, then please forgive my painting with such a broad stroke. I am sure there is a huge colony of people who are excellent listeners, expertly utilizing correct body language and conversational cues, that live in some remote corner of Montana and I just haven't had the pleasure of meeting them.

And if most of us are poor listeners when it comes to our fellow man, then how must we behave when we enter the proverbial prayer closet? Pretty much the same, I would wager. So I ask you this: Have you ever gotten alone with God and asked Him this: "What do you want to talk about today, Lord?" (cue the sound of crickets chirping)

I decided to challenge myself with this and I have been asking Him to take the lead in our time together. It is astounding what comes out of this type of interaction with God. It won't lower your cholesterol 20 points or shave ten pounds off of your waist, but it will increase your vision and improve your hearing. And your heart? Well, it will be more tender than you could ever imagine. Go ahead...ask Him.

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Friday Jumbles

--From the Department of Completely Useless Information, I am happy to inform you that if you have had or are considering having your dog neutered, there is help on the way so that his self esteem need not suffer. Click here to read about Neuticles if you are as concerned about your neutered pet's emotional health as I am about mine. "It's like nothing ever changed!"

--Tim Sanders (oh, I do respect this man) has written another great post on scarcity thinking in regard to the current recession. Take a minute to click over and read his words of life and encouragement.

--I'm not saying that extended periods of transition and trying to sell ones house are stressful, but yesterday I gave one of my high school age sons his younger brother's math test by mistake. He was NOT happy with me, but I am happy to report that my ninth grade son is, in fact, smarter than a fifth grader.

--And speaking of stressful circumstances, my dog Kramer...you know, the little fuzzball that throws up everywhere in my house? He had a seizure recently and , once I figured out he wasn't break dancing, I rushed him to the vet where he immediately returned to his normal state and peed all over the examination room floor. It's all good though...the doctor assured me that if this keeps up, I can purchase pills that he will need to take TWICE A DAY FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE.

--Hope you people have a blissfully happy holiday weekend. I won't post on Monday because, well, if the postal employees don't have to work, then neither am I. I will be back on Wednesday. Holla!!

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In His Lap

When I was a child and it was my weekend to be with my daddy, I couldn't wait to get in his lap and feel his arms squeeze me close to him. Nobody could hug me like he did. The smell of his aftershave and the prickles of his whiskers on my cheek were medicine to my hurting little heart and I drank deeply every weekend that I spent with him, wishing that I could hug him every day. Little boys and girls need the lavish affection of their fathers.

These past weeks, I trimmed away some of the distractions in my life for a while so I could pull in, narrow my focus and curl up next to God. I don't mean this to sound spooky- spiritual or religious. I just mean it for what it is...a little girl who needs more affection from her Daddy and the only way she knows to get it is to cuddle up next to Him.

Somehow many of us become so swept away with the distractions of life that we forget how badly we still need to curl up in our Heavenly Father's lap and drink Him in. And sadly many of these distractions, some of them good things or, even worse, ministry things, become poor substitutes for what our souls desperately need...lavish affection from the only One who knows who we really are.

When was the last time you sat in His lap?

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Hi...Remember Me???

Yes, my friends, I am alive and well. Rumors of my untimely demise have been greatly exaggerated. I have, however, enjoyed a wonderful month of solitude...well, as much solitude as one can enjoy living with three sons. I have really missed all of you wonderful people though, and I am glad to be back. I can't wait to share all of my highly important and life-changing thoughts with you. I am sure you have slept little over this past month in breathless anticipation of what I might write. Okay, seriously, I really do have some things to say...just not today. I might possibly have let September slip up on me. Don't hate me for it.
I will be back on Wednesday, as usual. Have a splendiferous week!

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In The Stillness

Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.
Meister Eckhart

Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God."
When I consider what it means to be still and to know Him as God, I think of the mysteries of the cocoon and the resulting transformation that takes place after a season of isolation, of darkness and of stillness. And none of this "cocooning" takes place quickly but over the course of time. To the casual observer it would seem that nothing is happening. Some may regard being still as idle, unproductive and wasteful, but nothing could be further from the truth. To be still before God is to silence the myriad distractions that life has to offer and to focus on the extravagance of simply enjoying His presence. It is possible in this unhurried exchange that our pressing questions might be answered, our deepest hurts healed and our priorities become realigned, but more often than not, those things just fade into the background and the nearness of God becomes all that we see.

I believe we must be intentional in setting aside seasons to seal ourselves into a "cocoon" where we are forced into stillness and away from distraction. This doesn't have to happen in an isolated retreat setting. It can simply mean cutting out so much of the "excess" activity in our lives for a season. The sole purpose is to spend longer quantities of unhurried time with God, soaking in His Presence and becoming preoccupied with Him and Him alone. This is such a time for me. For the month of August I will not be spending time on Facebook and I will not be posting anything on my blog. I sincerely hope this won't kill my blog traffic and that you will all be here when I return in September, but regardless, this is what I need to do. I am really looking forward to the stillness and when I return, I hope to have some tasty things to share with you all.

Happy August!

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