Kirjahaku

Joining a gym certainly has its merits. Going in and pumping iron and wearing out treadmills has benefits. The real long-term benefits of finding your place in the likes of our YMCA have little to do with exercise. Those benefits have everything to do with social integration and connection. I've made many of my best friends in our Y. As my stories have shown, I've found my quality of life greatly enhanced and I'm one hundred percent certain I've gained no less than fifteen years of life expectancy because of the people I've met there who have been used to show me a better way of living. I never cease to be amazed at the connections we members have in our Y. We exercise, travel, dine, and even visit each other in hospitals. I find a magnitude of fellowship and support far beyond what I've found anywhere else. It's important enough to me that I moved and bought a place to live within walking distance of the Y. When someone takes away my car keys and license, I want to still be able to get there.

We're all working to complete a complex puzzle with the pieces of our lives, something of eternal value. Unlike the ones made by toy companies, the ones we're working to complete do not come in a nice box with a color picture on top depicting the finished puzzle. With an average life span of 78.8 years, we each get just under thirty thousand irreplaceable days which will come together to create the unique picture of our lives. Some get more pieces, some way less. I was never told as a child that much of life was not going to make sense, that many of the pieces of my life would have sharp edges, deep pain, grievous loss, and severe limitation attached to them. It's was easy to scream at the silent night sky, "Why me?" when staring down a dragon. We desperately want to put some pieces back in the box. Those of faith believe God orders their steps, numbers their days, brings together thousands of pieces to create a rich and meaningful life. We claim radiant promises such as, "For I know the plans that I have for you, ' declares the Lord, 'plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." We know our Creator has put exactly the right number and mix of pieces into the boxes of our lives, that when we let Him have His way with us, the resulting picture of our lives will be out of this world. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor has the heart of man even imagined all that God has prepared for those who love him." Suddenly, all the pieces fit together. Inside are some puzzle pieces of my life, some colorful, some dark gray, even black. I trust God is not finished putting me together yet. May it be so for you.

I've often wondered what kind of wisdom and knowledge was archived in the great library at Alexandria. Was there wisdom and knowledge in the library comparable to what Solomon possessed? How would the troubled arc of history have been altered if such knowledge had been preserved? We shall never know. Last year, I stood in the ruins of the magnificent Celsus library at Ephesus. What happened to the 12,000 scrolls once housed there? Would Ephesus have thrived if the wisdom and knowledge in those scrolls had been preserved? Provided guidance to the affairs of the Ephesians? Despite the best efforts of many over the centuries to outlaw and extirpate the Old and New Testaments and other writings, ancient Jewish wisdom literature found in Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, the Book of Wisdom, the Wisdom of Sirach, and to some extent Baruch has been preserved. The greatest libraries of antiquity have been lost, yet this priceless wisdom is still informing and guiding the lives of hundreds of millions. The world has become my library. As I wander around the world, trusting assorted jet pilots, ship captains, bus drivers, and others to take me to interesting inspirational places, to be a student of the world, I'm reminded all these places are merely intermediate stops on my journey. Yet, there are lessons and experiences awaiting me at every stop. Wisdom has often been described as the alloy of knowledge and experience. When I allow the knowledge and wisdom of those going before me to be conjoined with the sometimes very challenging experiences of my own life journey, I have a chance of growing up, with increasing faith and resilience. These essays are brief glimpses into challenges, tests of faith, and insights I've recently had in places as diverse as Dublin, the Negev Desert, Istanbul, Manhattan, and the bike path across from my house. My goal is to incorporate this wisdom of the ages into all the affairs of my life. I hope it shows in these essays that I might even have had a modest bit of success. .

We have long been taken with patterns in our lives. For centuries, the great religions of the world have attempted to describe patterns in our lives, our world, our universe. We have a compelling need to understand, what to expect from the gods, from ourselves. We don't do well with uncertainty, and many have found a comforting certainty in their religious faith and practices. For centuries, scientists have searched for the patterns in nature explaining everything from orbital mechanics to nuclear fusion to neuro-immuno-psychiatry. I have found certain patterns yield amazing changes in my life. Being honest, open-minded, and willing to embrace new thoughts and new practices allows me to be rocketed into a 4th dimension of living. Suiting up, showing up, and asking God, "What's the next right thing? What are we doing next?" The most important patterns in my life include daily meditation, consistent prayer, regular exercise in the morning, being nice, helping others, giving more, taking less, and living in the present. These patterns increase my chances of living a purposeful life filled with meaning. I will trust God's spirit to show me the patterns of my life and how to experience God's promise of "old things passing away and all things becoming new." These essays are but tiny facets, chips, resulting from the process of being made new - not always easy or pleasant, sometimes painful and scary. I am regularly reminded that "All things work together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purposes." and to "consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

It s been said, I won t remember what you did, or what you said. I will remember how you made me feel. We live in our feelings. How we feel colors all our life experiences, good or bad. How is it one person will embrace something with rapturous delight while another experiences the same thing with absolute life sapping dread? How have I sat through intense turbulence on airplanes planning my funeral while others around me sleep soundly? Attitudes we bring to an experience in life will determine if it s one of catharsis or deadening fear. Attitude is everything in life. Life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I respond to it. When gratitude becomes the dominant emotion in our universe of feelings, we move from states of discontent, anger, frustrated perfectionism, even depression towards serenity, acceptance, peace, tranquility, well being. With gratitude, everything becomes a gift to be celebrated, a bonus. Daily doses of gratitude might even help you find your own hidden treasure.

Advice given when buying plants or trees is "Don't expect any blooms the first year. Fruit trees may require three years." I planted a slim brown stick in my yard and got nothing the first year except a thin brown stick with a few leaves on it. During its second season of growth and beyond, that brown stick grew to 7 inches in diameter and now produces wondrous 20 foot pink clouds each spring. In an ideal world we learn lessons the first time around. So often, as with daffodils and cherry trees, we need more time to get it. Winter, incendiary summer, a few storms, and unexpected late frost toughen us, giving us confidence to face whatever life has for us. We can then bloom where we are planted. We often don't have choices about challenges life gives us, but we have free-will in deciding how to respond to them. We can embrace the One who gives Wisdom to live life abundantly. May these vignettes inspire you to find pearls of learning and wisdom to be harvested from the depths of your own life.

In the Old Testament, God used Balaam's donkey to speak to him and protect him from great difficulty. I think in the Atomic Age God has used a small cat to speak to me many times. I don't hear a voice like Balaam, but the messages are just as loud. In a complex age fraught with distractions and dangers, we are in need of reminders of those times when we are about to stray into the abyss. I hear Puderd telling me spiritual life is found in simplicity and knowledge of God is found in quietness. Contentment is found in good friends, not good products. Trust and safety are really beyond our control and we can only have these if we trust in the One who is in control.

I've long found writing scratches places just out of reach somewhere in my psyche. Amazingly, I often have friends, acquaintances, even total strangers tell me my words somehow scratch hard to reach places for them as well. Each of our lives is a wondrous tapestry in the making. The most satisfying experience I have is seeing people embrace God's plan for them, to begin to see something beautiful emerge from all the disjointed knots and loose end of their often severely troubled lives. I've collected a number of my own knots and threads here, often frayed ends becoming part of the tapestry of my life. Some dark. Some brilliant. Some fuzzy. Some gold. I trust all will become something beautiful in the end.

Often, our lives feel like a disjointed collection of drab glass, stone, and ceramic pieces. We wonder if there s any purpose or plan to our lives. Has the artisan stopped working on our project and tossed us onto the shelf to collect dust? We think we ve been thrown into the landfill as rubble. Sometimes our introspection thickens and we find ourselves in depression or a dark night of the soul. There s no gold or color any more, just a monochrome palette of black, white, and gray. We sense great loss and despair of ever regaining that which has been lost. Miraculously, it s in the midst of such times, we often find God doing amazing things in our lives. If we are yielded to Him, looking for His ways in us, we discover He s building all sorts of things into our lives; He is creating a wondrous mosaic from the tesserae of our experiences. These essays represent some of the tesserae being assembled into my life image by the Master Artisan who makes no mistakes.

Months ago, my world went on full-scale pandemic lock down. I'm now at the end of my eighth week of what feels like a solo flight through deep space. Eight weeks can be a long time for someone who gets cabin fever after four hours. Yet, life is abundant and meaningful. Many have seen this unprecedented disruption of daily life and the imposition of limitations on personal freedom as a hidden agenda by power brokers to take over our lives. I see it differently. It's a vast opportunity to slow down, get still, listen, reset priorities, and do some of the things I've neglected for years. I feel like I have been granted an open-ended personal spiritual retreat. These past two months have proven some of the most useful days of my life. All of the distractions, amusements, and dissipations of my usual life have been stripped away; the literal and figurative silence has been a source of serenity and productivity. In pandemic, we're all students in a course of study we don't even know the name of. We have yet to master the skills required to be successful at this new way of living. Paradoxically, the way to maximize this unplanned time out is to create our own structure. I still use a color-coded daily planner as I have done for decades. I have places to "go," people to meet with, projects to complete. If you want each day to really count, "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed." Do it well; do it early in the day. Getting up at first light, making your bed, performing the prayers and meditations your faith journey calls for, getting dressed, grooming, washing the dishes, putting them away. Simple stuff done well, consistently, will change us because we will have grown into disciplined ways of living. We will be ready to do the big things right. Life really is that simple. We make a thousand choices every day, ones that can change the world, if we choose right. One of my choices has been to write musings each day while in quarantine. I was in several coronavirus hotspots overseas as this pandemic was first emerging. I spent a month on a cruise ship as this pandemic was gaining unseen traction in many lands. I came home with all the right symptoms to be a statistic. It has given me a different perspective informing my experience of lock-down and disruption. At the end of the day, the thing getting us through the uncertainties of pandemic will be faith and trust in the one who has ordered our days since time began.

Each of our lives begin as a giant canvas covered with a flawless coat of white primer. At birth, it awaits us on an easel in a fine studio. A new set of sable brushes, thinners, and an assortment of the most glorious pigments are waiting for us on that first day of life. Several palettes allow us to mix our colors and explore our creativity. We spend years learning how to paint life: form, color, tension, texture. We get ever better - landscape, seascape, cityscape, still life, abstract. We find the distinctive forms of expression God has put into each of our lives. Time, experience, challenge, gain, loss, pain, disappointment, elation. These all add color and contrast to our ever- growing composition. We run out of some colors; we find we have more than enough of another. We compensate, mix, and adjust. Some days I have little or nothing to put on canvas. Some days are spectacular, brilliant luminous experiences inspiring me to use up a lot of paint; I use a lot of brilliant colors on those days. Some days are singed with deep eviscerating pain: loss of dear friends, health challenges, the loss of serenity when our lives face complete disruption. I use dark colors on those days. Each of our lives is an epic painting in the making. The most satisfying experience I have is seeing people embrace God's plan for them, to see something beautiful emerging from the seemingly harsh disconnected strokes and streaks of paint on their canvases. I've collected a few of my life strokes and streaks here, these small pieces of my life are becoming part of the larger canvas of my life. Some dark. Some brilliant. I trust all will become something beautiful in the end.