Breadcrumbs

Friends-Steve and I were talking a couple weeks ago. Somehow the subject shifted to Christmas and Steve described this image he has of Christmas Eve. For him, Christmas Eve is a concentrated and dense event. There is this one point to which the church spends weeks building up and and then it's over. But it's not really over... We spend the rest of our lives living into/out of that event. The church celebrated the Baptism of the Lord the same week I had that conversation with Steve. Again, this is an event that is full of meaning, but that the church moves past so that there is little space to unpack the meaning behind it. All of this leads me to think about time. I know that my life, and I suspect yours, is governed by time. We mark our days with hours, minutes, and seconds and those demarcations dictate our activities, location and relationships. Even now as I write this I am at the mercy of time. I gave myself an amount of time to get this done before I have another me

Friends-I hope your holiday was as enjoyable as mine. It was wonderful to spend time with friends and family, as well as having some time off work. Even better, there were no books I had to read or papers to write. I even got to worship rather than lead for the last Sunday of the year. Truly a good holiday. However, today marks a return to my routine. In my morning meditation I was greeted by this poem: Things to Think Robert Bly Think in ways you’ve never thought before If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message Larger than anything you’ve ever heard, Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.  Think that someone may bring a bear to your door, Maybe wounded and deranged: or think that a moose Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.           When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about            To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,            Or that it’s not necessary to