Keep Imagining

Hey all the hiatus was brought on by the deer hunting season. I am back and blogging. 11 hours in a deer stand does give one time to think. His still small voice says much in that silence. Most of it was for me and it would be inappropriate to speak of it in this manner but some of it filters through.
What follows are some notes I made 30 feet above ground - in the deep woods.

I really wrestled with staying the extra 1/2 day, two days of thwarted effort has felt all too familiar given what I've just been through at the old church - but I had to perservere. I had to just keep persisting. The sense of failure I've been wrestling with, as a result of this summer, has been a lurking phantom always pouncing when I'm least able to mount a mental defense.

I was out earlier than the sun to hunt - doing all I could to succeed - but I was foiled before I started. Forestalled because I had held up "harvesting a deer" as the measure of my success. (There is a reason they call it "hunting" and not "getting.")

But I realized that all I, or anyone else, will ever have is the fixed reality of our own attempts. My free will is all I have control over. That gift allows me my choices and actions only, so "being and trying" is all anyone has. It is when I give up - I become fruitless. No matter how many times I am undone by circumstances (or others) barreness only comes when I try to extend my control beyond what I truly can control.

God will honor - I believe - the sincere effort born out of circumspect and humble living. Any life devoted to God and His will - is the life that prospers. My wife is so fond of reminding me that it is all about the process - another way to say that is "being while trying". Until now I had not seen the two as equals. Perhaps it is because I felt (at some subconscious level) that "process" sounded too airy-fairy or perhaps too mechanical or intangible. But "being and trying" are two things I know well. Then as I looked for a way to express what I wanted to say in this post - I came upon a good word for it "Kairos."

Kairos is a way of acting in regard to an opportune moment in time, it is about me "in the now." As long as I apply myself to the moment and keep seeking fruitfulness in it - I am living sincerely. This hunt I could prepare for, get up early for, even get up the tree but then all I could do was wait . There is where my control ended. I had to sit in the darkness and listen. I was being and trying all at the same time in each singular moment that passed.

So too with the rigors of life - they will do what they may - "the being as trying," this kiaros, is the thing. The whole of life is trying and trying again and being present in that. When I thought of "being as trying" in the same manner as "the journey," it resonated deeply with me. It sounded so much more gentle and forgiving than the driven format so popular today. Just be here and now - lean on Me and keep on persisting - I'll give you the rest you're after.

Each breath a moment of kairos - a crucial moment - for acting as disciples of Jesus, taking risks to proclaim that our ultimate concern is love, truth, generosity, forgiveness and so much more. Kairos, as an act of devotion - the art of presence while "keeping on." Growing and bearing fruit not in the sense of always "doing" but in "life as a whole" being a big opportune moment to be with and in Christ.

So I'll go forward today - and try to be a disciple, and with God's help I'll bear fruit in the kairos that is today. May God grant us all the life more abundant.

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Wow what a trip!

I can't even remember when we left! Anyway that's all well and good. I had some really great experiences while we were away some just surreal. Like the calendars at the bowling alley in Cobelskill NY that read "Jesus still hears and answers prayer John and Lynn Woodward."

I think the intent was that the wonderful verses that were superimposed on the obligatory "Anglo Jesus" Art were meant to inspire the users of the calendar with the Words of Life. (Not be a public reminder to the Woodward's that they should talk to God more.) But when I saw it- I laughed. (Remind me to tell you about how the service industry is doing in the Cobelskill not so Super 8 Motel)

Another bizarre moment was when I found the "church" scented incense. (I am not kidding -just look at the picture) Somebody decided that the church has it's own distinct scent (no pun intended) and decided to formally capture it in a smoldering stick kind of way.

The picture

It's taken in low light with my little Vivicrap camera but it's there.

I read this today on Blumhardt's website:


Becoming truer is really hard.  I find that I am all too good at fooling myself, convincing my ego of one fantasy or another.  Magical thinking (the idea that because I believe everthing will be "OK" it actually will.) seems to predominate in certain areas.  Getting comfortable in who I really am and how far away it is from who I want to to be - profoundly hard.  The more I get to know myself - the less I like what I see in some parts.

It's not the start of a depression, it's the answer to a prayer.  I really want to know the truth about me.  How I am perceived, what I am like - without all of my contrivances, masks and make-up.  Ugly or no, I want to have the clear truth - to "become truer."  How else can I move forward in a flexing flux filled world?

Shakespeare said "to thine own-self be true."  What a jerk.

So today marks the eighteenth year we have spent as husband and wife.  There are not words for being together like that.  I am convinced of her beauty.  The fleeting days of our youth have given way to something more deep and more rich.

Many would have you believe that those kinds of words are spoken by people who are not young anymore.  Like we have to cling to them despite our hidden feelings that they are not true.  But my wife really is beautiful - inside and out.  My appreciation for what she has become is not a consolation prize for youth.  She wholly is beautiful inside and out.  And with a richness of self that is unattainable in only 20 or so spins around the sun.

I can't find the location, but in New York there's a brass monkey fitted to the end of a handrail.  It was added as an architectural flourish.  It gleams today bright and shining because people go out of their way to touch it - to connect with it.  Despite the ravages of the weather and pollution it shines brighter now than when it was first installed. My wife is like that shining brass. (Not at all like the monkey - unless she’s feeling playful)

My Heidi shines - she gleams, burns bright, lights my fire.  I am in the midst of a lot of uncertainly right now but I am certain of her, of who she is and is becoming, that she loves me and that I so love her.  And that makes all the other stuff so much easier to bear.