LIVING WITH OPENNESS TO WONDER

Life is surely curious, huh?  It keeps repeating itself.  This is the final April that I will be 69; well it's the only April really.  In June I'll get to be 70.  Life is a unique realm of humanity.  While it's supposed to be really lived, the living often control it as if it has already passed.  We reach a given point and then we want to embalm it; keep things they way they are because this particular moment (age of children, opportunity at work, moment of success) is what we wanted for all moments.

That isn't living.  That's more like a breathing death.  A breathing death?  From this perspective one is always traveling; but going nowhere, always thinking; but producing little, and always reaching; but never grasping satisfaction.  I was always so engaged in liking tomorrow that I had overlooked the beauty and awe of loving right now.

On July 16 we will have a big celebration at Memorial Drive as I will be promoted to a new level of ministry.  How it goes, what it looks like, and where it is effective, I'm not really sure.  The hours required?  I dunno.  The measurement of success?  I'm clueless.  Do I feel a bit lost and vague in destiny?  Uh...pretty much.  But, I also know that this is precisely the kind of scorecard God uses to pull us into His moment of impact for others.

People!  We are all so weird!  We want what we don't really want.  And we don't want what we really do.  I reversed my perspective on receiving personal criticism when I determined that a lot of deaf would love to hear just a twenty-four hour discourse of complaint.  They would regard such as a miracle when I was bemoaning it as abuse.

How many parents wish that their child could move off to college; but their precious one has a debilitating disease and is confined to an oxygen bed?  Yet, so many of us thought we would die when we dropped ours off on that first day.  The former would give anything to have such an experience of wonder.

If not careful, my friend, we will develop a life of persistent complaint within the very center of what is really a grand wonder.  Being in demand is a compliment; not a curse.  Yes, it's permissible to say no to barking schedules.  And, yes, it's alright to admit to being overwhelmed.  But in doing so, try to note the evident glory handed you that others restricted and confined would love to have such pressures for just one day.

You and me?  We walk in the Garden of Wonder.  I encourage you to be open to it.

Can you drive?  Can you at least ride?  Can you see?  Can you read?  Can you eat?  Are you a success when in the bathroom?  (Well...maybe I shouldn't have made that point, but many have testimony of remembering the good old days which we may be taking for granted.)  Are you able to turn the channels, see the broadcast, and cheer on your team?  Are you able to imagine, to dream, to hope, to desire, to accept opportunity rather than bemoan a stuck sort of lifestyle that goes nowhere?

Then maybe you are having a very privileged sort of day.  Don't.  Waste.  It.

Living with openness to wonder really is for the living.  Really live!  If you go to a cafe today and the meal served is unacceptable, stop for a moment before you blow your stack (insert short-stack right here).  Think how many millions of prisoners wish that they, too, could have gone to a public cafe and been served a bad meal...and they haven't gotten to do so in decades...and many won't ever again.

Like life!  Love life!  Like and love....yours!