“Joy’s a function of gratitude. And gratitude’s a function of perspective. Counting gifts changes my perspective – & my LIFE” (Ann Voskamp, #1000gifts)

Yeah, I think I’d forgotten that. It’s easy to do.

We’re constantly being told to count our money to make sure we have enough for when we retire.

We’re told to count the number of toys we need to satisfy that inner longing and to finally make us happy.

We’re told to count how much our neighbor has so that we can keep up with those Joneses (and maybe surpass them someday).

But what we really need is to count our blessings and name them one by one, as the old song goes. Counting the myriad of daily gifts changes your perspective and makes joy possible in every kind of circumstance.

Yeah, I need to get back to doing that.

Maybe we all do.

Perhaps the world would be a little nicer place if we spent less time complaining and criticizing and more time counting blessings.

Just a thought.

I can’t believe it. I’m nearing the end of my quest to watch all the episode of the classic run of Doctor Who from 1963-1989. At least all of the surviving episodes. Ok, all of the surviving episodes that Britbox has rights to.

Anyway, I’m up to the 7th Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, and his oh so perky companion, Mel. Apparently, the production values and the budget took a bit of a hit during the last few seasons of Classic Doctor Who (and it shows from time to time), but it’s still a fun watch.

I still love to see how each incarnation of the Doctor brings out different nuances in his character and how each of them interacts with the various companions that come and go throughout the seasons.

I do wish that Peri had a better sendoff than ending up as a Warrior Queen with a King she didn’t like (but apparently somehow fell in love with in the space of one episode).

I may have to continue the quest on to the newer incarnation of Doctor Who that started in 2005. I’m having too much fun with this.

I can’t remember when I’ve ever been so glad to see Friday afternoon. I mean I was more than ready for 4 pm to get here.

I didn’t have a bad week. In fact, in many ways, it was a good week. A good but a long week.

Some weeks are like that. It feels like you’re driving a car with half the cylinders firing. You get to your destination eventually but it takes longer.

Rest is God’s prescription for those times when you’re worn out. God took the seventh day to rest and commanded that we do the same, not because He wanted us to add one more rule to memorize and follow but because He knew we needed someone to tell us to rest.

I fantasize a lot. Lately, my fantasy is turning off the alarm and sleeping in on that glorious day of the week called Saturday. I get to sleep until it’s actually daylight outside.

They say that you should go out and chase your dreams. Tomorrow, I plan to do just that by rolling over and going back to sleep.

“I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen for me (Henri J. M. Nouwen, Finding My Way Home).”

When I let go of my wishes and expectations, not only does something new begin to happen for me but also in me. I am transformed.

I saw recently that one of my favorite movies ever, The Princess Bride, hit theaters 31 years ago.

Wow. That was both amazing and depressing all at the same time.

I don’t necessarily feel like I should be that old. I mean, I get around pretty good and I remember what I came into the room for, mostly.

Still, those anniversaries of movies and songs really remind me that I’m not 16 anymore. Or 26. Or 36.

Then I remember that growing old is a privilege denied to so many. Too many people I know won’t get to grow old because they passed away far too young.

I still believe that every day that God lets me wake up is a gift and that nothing beyond today is guaranteed when it comes to this earthly life.

Still, I wish not everything I liked was old. That’s starting to get old.

“To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness” (Brennan Manning).

I love taking the Eucharist, especially at Kairos. The way Chris Brooks leads us through the liturgy from The Book of Common Prayer has a profound way of centering my thoughts on the elements of the bread and the wine, and the sacrifice they represent.

When you receive the blood shed for you and the body broken for you, whether you believe that’s symbolic or the actual body and blood, you remember. You give thanks not just with your words but with your actions.

Eucharist at times is like singing the doxology in darkness. In the midst of your worst week, Eucharist reminds you that the worst won’t last but that the best is yet to come. It reminds us that nothing that comes at us, whether it be loss or pain or death, can ever truly separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Eucharist reminds us all that none of us are entitled or worthy to receive the broken bread and spilled out wine but that Christ makes us worthy. Communion says that those who were once outsiders, enemies, and strangers to the promises of God have now been brought near through the Cross and are now sons and daughters of God, friends, and partakers and heirs of all the promises of God.

“Hey Soul? yeah, it’s really kinda miraculous, if you think about it: Whatever got botched or bungled yesterday — Today’s a full 24 hours of a completely clean slate. Fresh mercies, new hours — 
given to you because you are loved more than you realize, 
because you are carried further than you know, 
because He is for you more than you can imagine. 
“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,*His merciful love couldn’t have dried up*.*They’re created new every morning.*How great your faithfulness!” 
Lam. 3:22-24MSG
The mercies of God cannot & will not fail 
& His faithfulness is not merely great —  
*it. is. unwavering.*” (Ann Voskamp)

Yep. What she said.

Whatever happened on this Monday, whether good or bad or indifferent, Tuesday’s got fresh mercies and a clean slate. Whether you feel you triumphed over the day or feel defeated by it, you can rest in the unwavering faithfulness of God.

Let your fears fade into the full and perfect love of God that casts out all anxieties and phobias. Rest in the knowledge that God’s promises aren’t bound to our remembering God but that God remembers us.

Nothing that happens in the next 24 hours — absolutely nothing — can separate you from that love in Christ Jesus. You are loved. You are held. You are safe.

“Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life–be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others…I am alienated from my true self. My identity as Abba’s child [a child of God] becomes ambiguous, tentative and confused” (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out).

We all could do with a little more tenderness and compassion these days instead of self-righteous anger, condescension, name-calling, arrogance, and plenty of other -isms out there that divide rather than unite.

You can disagree with someone else without them becoming the enemy. You can have opposite opinions on a topic without the other automatically becoming evil or stupid.

It all boils down to remembering that we all bear the imago dei, the image of God, and are all created lovingly by Creator God. There’s no one for whom Jesus did not die. 

That’s not to say that you should never speak out against injustice and wrong in the world, but that there is a loving and compassionate way to do so that maintains the dignity and worth of all human beings.

At the end when we stand before Jesus, He will not ask if we won every argument or showed the other side how stupid and wrong they were. He will not ask if our side “won” and we were proven right.

He will ask what we did for the least of these and for those with no voice. He will ask if we loved others the way that He loves them and the way that He loved us when we were at our most unlovable.

So, try a little more tenderness and compassion.

I on occasion will post something political. Most of the time, I’m not a fan of politics or political posts of any kind.

I think mostly that’s because they end up being a lot of diatribes and rhetoric that sounds a lot more like talking at people (or better yet, talking down to people) than talking to people.

More than ever before, I believe that we need less rhetoric and more respect. We need less diatribe and more dialogue. We need most of all to talk less, listen more, and find a common ground of understanding.

It does no good to belittle your opposition and call them names. That does nothing to solve issues or address injustices. All that does is create and sustain a wall of division.

I also believe that you gain the power and authority to speak into the lives of others only as you listen to others. Really listen, and not just hear to respond. After all, you have one mouth and two ears for a reason.

I think we find when we listen and communicate respectfully with a view to understanding rather than to being proven right, we find that we are more alike than we originally thought. We find that we are all human beings searching for peace and purpose in a sometimes very chaotic world.

I’d also add that a dose of humility would do wonders in our quest to find understanding. My point of view isn’t necessarily better than yours, just different. I might have something I can learn from you, as well as you from me, by engaging in a dialogue rather than yelling and slinging epithets at each other from a distance.

I love the prayer of St. Francis and I think it seems a very appropriate way to sum up everything I’ve said previously:

“Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

“The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

My prayer for every single person reading these words is that they might realize the purpose for which God created them and to know and enjoy God in Jesus forever.

There is no greater joy than to come alive to the knowledge that you are sons and daughters of this great God and to let His love transform you more and more into the image of His Son Jesus.