Back to Wonder

Wonder creates an attitude of hope, excitement, and enchantment with a desire to explore the unknown, to delve deeper into the mysteries of life, the mystery of God. How do we gain that sense of wonder in a world desensitized to the wonder all around us? In the routines of a world filled with the busyness and dispair of decisions and care where is the time for the solitude of wonder? How do we take the moments within to create the wonder within? Looking outside the confines of culture and mold, looking into the intricacies of nature and creation, looking beyond the garments of pride and self centeredness, looking through the facade of the day, looking and listening in solitude and silence, looking and listening among the battle and noise, looking to see the wonder slip in. How will my attitude to life create a sense of wonder in me and those around me as i journey on into today?

Dancing with Time

In life we experience change on the journey. Sometimes the path is clear, sometimes the path is hidden. Like a mist swallowing the landscape around us the future is there to swallow us on the journey. We are made to dance with time. As we become more adept at cultivating change, the dance changes. As we learn to keep step with the music of time our character changes. God is teaching us how to dance, molding us to the music of time. Change is inevitable. We are made for change.
Our attitude becomes vital to our dancing in time. Being out of step with the music often takes the form of not recognizing the purpose of time and of the dance. Being out of step with the music often means we are unable to adapt within ourselves to the changing beat. Our attitudes become out of step with reality. The journey can be miserable or it can be joyful all depending upon our attitude.
What does the dance look like? How am I flowing with the music? Am I out of step with time or is time a tool in my growth? What lies ahead of me on the journey? Am I prepared with my attitudes?

inbetween creativity

Life is often lived inbetween and this is where we create our attitudes. In our culture of busyness there is always a need for balance, for solitude, for silence, for time to digest and process our thoughts and meditations. When this is absent, we become obsessive, we become agitated by the smallest things, and we become stressed. There is a need to come away from all our busyness. We often think of the method of coming away is by entering into another form of busyness, such as, going to a movie, watching a video, playing some sport, going on a travel vacation or enjoying some hobby. This is good, but not as good as the regular practice of using the inbetween times for your own encouragement, thought processing and stress resolution. The inbetween times are the times or spaces we are inbetween our regular activities and programs of life. If we looked at it using the seasons it would be the space between the seasons of life. So how do we use these spaces for our benefit? We use them as spaces of solitude and silence where we can get away by ourselves for the purpose of defining the busyness around us and processing our emotions, the incoming information, our purpose in life, our spiritual being, our relationships. Whether it be walking from activity to activity, or driving, or washing dishes, whatever the space between looks like, it is useful space for our personal meditation and awareness of ourselves. This space throughout our day gives us time to get in touch with ourselves and where we are at. It is surprising how much space in a day we can use of these inbetween times to nourish and re energize our soul. It is these inbetween times which form our attitudes and help us walk in wholesome relationships. Learn to take these times and make them an essential time for processing the world around you!

Raindrops

Yesterday the rain fell. Yesterday the sun shone. Yesterday the rainbow filled one wholes section of the sky. Today the rain is but a memory playing on the background of my busy mind and i"m wondering what i learned in the rain. One question that keeps niggling is the idea of how many raindrops will get me soaked. One raindrop has hardly any effect on making me wet. Even a few do very little. But as more fall i tend to get wet. It seems there is strength in numbers. People are kind of a bit like raindrops. One person can have some effect on your direction in life. Several may have more of effect. When there are many it is a lot less likely for you to go any other direction because you will be swimming against the current.

mystery and routine

Mystery is a concept that we deal with on a daily basis and it takes hold of our minds. We are enthralled with every kind of mystery, the largest ones and the smallest ones. Mystery can lead us to choices that make us more godly or to choices that take us away from God. We always want to know, to find, to discover, to feel, to experience what is not known, what is mystery. In God's Word, He wants to take us into the mystery of His Being, to discover Him. He wants us to discover who we really are and what our purpose is in life. He wants us to be alive to His mystery. In our world we are faced with all kinds of mystery which draw us away from God when we choose not to follow Him. Our self centeredness takes us onto trails which lead to pride, excitement, and finally emptiness in losing the wonder of God. In losing touch with this wonder we become slaves to our own desire for mystery, whether it be in power, in materialism, in sexuality, in subterfuge, in obsession. Where God wants us to have freedom in discovering His mysteries, we choose rooms with bars in discovering the common mysteries of our lust. In not reaching out for the newness God gives every day we reach into the desires of our daily culture. In not reaching for the Word of God, we end up reaching into our selfish heart to take the world's offerings for building our foundation. How are we building into our character for eternity? How are we at journeying into God's mystery and leaving the world's routine behind? How are we becoming renewed in the mystery of His Kingdom? When you step outside your door today what mystery awaits your inquiring mind?

Sanctuary

Sanctuary, a place of refuge or protection, is sought after space in a world of confusion and activity. Who are the people in your life who provide a space of sanctuary? Who is it that you feel safe and protected around? Who is it that you can be yourself around and feel you are able to say what you feel, able to question, able to share your most intimate thoughts? Where is that place of safety, hope and love? Where are you able to express yourself most honestly and most openly? In the Bible the idea of sanctuary is expressed in the being of God. Psalm 46 states 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble...' In the New Testament God's presense is evident in His people, the Body of Christ. Sanctuary then becomes, not a place, but a people. This is where sanctuary is found, in the people of God. This is where there is safety and protection. This is where you can be who God made you to be. This is where you can share who you are and find acceptance and love and joy.

continuous rain

Bird voices pierce the sound of continuous falling rain and the echoes of yesterday haunt my errant way. There is intimacy in the rain. Rain clothes the landacape with a blanket of freshness, freeing the earth to breath anew leaving the dust of time to dilute and run off into the void. We often sit in silence and listen to the earth dancing in the music of the rain. We often sit in silence wondering if the dreams encountered in the rain are real or illusionary. We often sit in silence. What does the silence bring? What hopes are alive in the silence? What direction does the silence take? Who do we go through the silence with on our journey through time?
The rain is filled with purpose. Working together the raindrops unite and reveal the wonder of life. One raindrop has so little impact, but many raindrops working together change the world around them. What impact on change do we have on our journey through time, like the one raindrop or the rain?

aromas and questions for the day

How do we deal with the odours of the world? In our world we tend to hide ourselves a lot. We hide behind the latest fashions. We hide behind the latest perfumes, toothpaste flavours and deodarant of the week. We hide our thoughts behind the latest music fads. We hide behind the latest information that peeks out of the forest. What if everyone walked around naked in a lot of areas? How would we then percieve each other and is that important or not? Is image more important than substance? And what is the substance of our lives? Do we bring about with us an aroma of life or do we bring the odour of death? What do we give to others?
Does the Word of God have anything to do with this aroma of life? What are the inputs in our lives that make us real? What are the inputs in our lives that shrink us into hiding?

room as idea

Room as an idea flows easily through space as i sit in familiar surroundings waiting for the future. The rooms we inhabit usually have boundaries of some kind and we sit there and wonder what is on the outside or we rearrange the inside to suit us. The room as idea is a different kind of room we create for ourselves in such a way that the boundaries consist of our fears and our freedoms. with some of us the boundaries are very tight, with some of us there are less boundaries. It is our relationships that are most affected by the type of rooms we build. . .rooms built with fear are rooms which have very rigid boundaries, rooms built with freedom are rooms which people like to enter in.

drowning and dancing

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and there is a bird making its home in the side of our house. Our cats from inside the windows looking out are tweetering at the birds. The birds take no notice, knowing that the cats are enclosed in a safe environment. Sometimes we are like the birds where the worries of the world take us into freedom. Sometimes we are like the cats wanting what we can't have and with cultural visions always in front of us wanting those things all the more. i read a quote 'drowning in the shallows of space and time', which got me thinking about the depth of my life. Am i dancing in God's presense or am i drowning in a culture that is wearing down my soul.

Dust

Dust has settled on my computer keyboard over the last week and i'm not exactly sure how it gets there or where its come from. Its kind of like all these little particles get together and become a blanket of dust. They don't just come all at once but seem to get together over a period of time and just know how to get together to create a blanket. They provide a film which eventually becomes a complete blanket holding on to whatever they connect. They have different characteristics and consistancies but you always know what they are when you see them: dust.
Dust has an uncanny way of affecting the unused, the left behind, the stagnant. I'm not sure how this works on my mind, but a blanket of dustlike material has an almost eery effect on thinking. Things drop into my knowledge base over time and eventually gather together just like dust having an effect like that blanket to direct my thinking in certain ways, not necessarily always in the direction I would have my thinking go. Dust on the mind. A blanket of items which are almost like refuse from the myriad of information I take in each day from technology, from conversations, from fallout from the clouds of peripheral information.
Dust clogs things up over time. One skill to learn is not necessarily how to get rid of all the dust but to rearrange the dust so it becomes useful for the imagination rather than causing a stagnancy.
Dust probably does have some nutrient value for growth but needs to be placed where it can have a positive rather than negative effect. In the same way dust on the brain needs to be harnessed for a positive effect rather than left as a blanket of obstruction. What are the items in my mind that have a destructive effect rather than a constructive process and how can i rearrange this 'dust' of the mind.

odds

Sometimes in life things don't seem to fit together. The world often seems smaller than it is and when we narrow our boundaries we almost disappear. A tree will stay in the same place for years yet with all its changes it will seem to grow far more than we see changes in people. Time will seem short yet often endless. Fitting life into time seems difficult yet i fill life with too many incidentals and outside of our relationships with others not much makes sense. The cold seeps in through windows yet its the windows that open my eyes to the world around me. Today is a new adventure and God will use time to take me through to a new level of awareness in light of my rleationships.

anomalies

After being in Southern California arriving back in the winter is kind of a shock to the system. Its like being in a time capsul for some time and then being ejected into the outer environment and having to deal with the harshness of a new reality which you haven't experienced before. The challenges are great. The mystery is great. It is a little unsettling as the world isn't as known or as cosy as it used to be. When i adapt to the winter, i find it a great place for seeing inside. Solitude and silence create a great atmosphere for change, for internal readjustment, for new dreams and direction. Sometimes contentment breeds stagnation. Change is vital to life and to contiued growth and adventure in my character. When anomalies show up during my daily mediwalk i understand the value of changing directions. Anomalies occur for the enhancement of my psyche and for renewing the culture of my mind.