Late Night Musing

I sit here after midnight deprived of nocturnal refreshment because I had such an amazing day with friends.  My mind is in “cheetah” mode … run, run, run.

Recently, life has been very full.  Many challenges and a punishing schedule caused some around me to become concerned for my health and mood.  But I’m amazed that after one inspiring day that I can sense such a lift in my spirit.

Nothing in my situation has changed.  In fact, I’m loosing hours of sleep right now.  But the state of my heart is good.  My mind is more engaged than ever.  Maybe I tapped into an input today that filled me up.  What are my inputs?  I’m learning quickly what my outputs are.

Maybe it’s not the circumstances that matter most but the approach we take to those circumstances, the way in which we care for ourselves in the midst of those circumstances.  God has made us with an amazing capacity for challenges but I’m seeing that unless our souls are full that capacity is never realized.

Life Before Death

Another funeral today … I hope that no matter how many funerals I officiate in my life that I never outgrow the realization that life is fleeting.  There is something about officiating another person’s funeral that makes me consider my own.  What will people be saying?  How will I have lived?  What will really matter then?

Colleen and I love weddings because they remind us of our commitment to each other and give us a reason to look good and dance the night away (There is not necessarily a logical connection between our looking good and dancing.  They are sometimes mutually exclusive).  While I don’t love funerals, I love the affect they can have on people’s lives.  I like the affect they have on my life – I love more freely and suspend taking myself so seriously.

Next time you attend a funeral, allow yourself to remember why it’s important to live before you die.

Friends = Richness

After a full weekend of hanging out with friends that mean a lot to us, Colleen and I were reflecting on the richness that relationships add to life.  I think God really intended for community to add “life” to our lives.  It’s the separation that business and self-absorption create that steals the joy from our lives.

As I was sitting with some friends at a coffee shop this past weekend, I took a moment to look around as each of them were engrossed in conversation.  I inhaled deeply and reveled in the sense of God’s presence.  Jesus said that He would be present when two or more were gathered in His name – Does that mean we have to be doing something religious in order to invoke this presence.  I don’t think so … I experienced it while gathering with a few committed Christ-following friends at a coffee shop.  Go figure.

The Blog on Blogging

I have resisted for years the idea of blogging my innermost thoughts.  I am freaked out by the idea that anyone could read my mind, so why would I post for the world my most personal thoughts?  Then I realized that I actually can control what I choose to post online.  In my limited exposure to blogging, I picked up the idea somewhere along the way that one could not be a ‘good’ blogger unless he made his blog a cathartic expose that revealed every gritty detail of his issues in life.

So … empowered by the new-found knowledge that I do indeed have control of what rolls from my keyboard onto this blog, I no longer have to fear diarrhea of the fingers that will result in public embarrassment.

But I still cannot shake some haunting questions that I must ask of those reading this blog.  How do you find time in your life to keep up on all your friends’ blog spots?  If you are a blogger, where in the world do  you find enough margin in your life to develop a meaningful blog that represents you as multi-dimensional person while living out meaningful relationships with real people and holding down a job?  Am I missing something or is it now vogue to live without margin?  Maybe I am simply a s…l…o…w processor/typer, and the rest of the high-performing bloggers are able to process and type a blog before I’ve created a meaningful thought.

This first post represents my ability to put all of the fears, misgivings, and insecurities I’ve mentioned above aside long enough to succumb to the immense peer pressure being leveraged on me from the well-meaning bloggers of the world.

I have either entered an amazing new world of self-expression or been infected by an egotistical electronic self-love that is sweeping our culture.  The jury is out.