life experience
I have been typing away for the last few days… and today I happened upon the avenue I’ve been searching for.
Your interaction with this will help me express what’s on my heart.
As folks interact, I’ll edit and add stuff to the following page;
So each time you open that link (by clicking on it i mean) be sure to click on the refresh button
of your browser to get the latest version. Its usually up there, just left of the URL
I don’t like plans. Cuz my plans don’t work out. My expectation and my experience is that plans fail. I live in that reality. It’s like being lost in the wilderness, but I have a map! I can’t move beyond where I am unless he calls!
But that’s me. I am submissive to God’s plan.
Bonhoeffer said this:
John 15… gets it done.
The direct effort is to hook up to, to plug into GOD.
Pursue being a part of what John 15 describes!
Fruit! God makes me fruitful!
When I retired from my career of 32 years… it was in response to his calling me to get out of the boat!
Amen
But more on this question you’ve asked. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone could ever say to me.
This question is always on my mind. And probably THE reason I write. For example, I began this blog on November 5, 2020 with my first post being, “Its Over.” I’d been reading books (aka listening to audiobooks) by Malcolm Gladwell. His happily ever after formula was such that I found myself feeling that I’d missed my chance in life. That I was a failure. I started writing, and I began to draw with words the image in my mind. I was in a grave, awaiting burial… I’m now as good as dead… but as I wrote, God came along into the picture, to disagree with the picture I was in the midst of accepting.
What I did accept is that I am in Him, and He in me. Forsaking all externally imposed goals.
I find myself today struggling to get out from under this same burden. Is it a coincidence that my brother, Andrew and I, always put that Pink Floyd song, “Time” on to play when we’re in my truck, with its awesome sound system?
Back in the early 90’s I found these words in my journal:
“God is my only obstacle”
Laurence Brand
When young and hopeful, we look at our vocation and calling with the freedom of nothing to lose… dreaming and starry eyed we venture forward.
When I write I tend to follow tangents, like paths that emerge before me as I wander through the woods trying to find my way home. So it gets hard for you, my reader. So I’m working my way through what I wrote yesterday, and making separate pages for those tangents.
Who am I now then? Here’s one aspect of my life. Here’s the career I just retired from.
Well… to answer the question, “Has anyone ever told you that you should be a pastor?” I’d just like this person to continue asking the question.
“Could you rephrase the question?” I’d like to say.
The email address for this Blog’s interaction is:
walkingdownvimy@gmail.com
I remember absolutely years ago, somewhere around 1990-1992, I’d just concluded a home bible study with the church youth, where the Holy Spirit’s presence was so keenly felt, and things had gone so well. While basking in that moment, one of the youth asked me, pretty much as a sort of rhetorical question, “Why are YOU a bus driver?”
Disillusioned by “trying to become” I went to a pastor for counselling. He shifted me to the reality of my needing to get a job to pay the bills, supporting my wife and kids.
I became a bus driver. And then volunteered at church.
I believe that my ministry and spiritual gift is that of a pastor. “Pastor” as in spiritual gift.
Forgive my flashbacks here… but fast forward from that young lad’s question (he himself became a pastor I’ve heard) to the declaration made by a special needs passenger, – out loud – on a crowed rush hour bus I was driving, about 25 years into my career.
I was not there to proclaim Christ.
I didn’t have a pulpit in front of me, it was a steering wheel.
I had access to the handle that operated the operation of the doors to let people on/off the bus.
But as John 15 puts it, I was abiding in Christ, and He in me. So in all that I did, I could and would glorify him.
Still now, all that I do is in obedience to the simple calling to “Please The Father”.
So… how I reacted to an elderly person who needed me to wait for them to get to their seat before putting the pedal to the metal, or when I waited for folks running for the bus, or any other of the many times to demonstrate compassion and care for “the least of these” that rode my bus. By that I mean:
“The true measure of a man is how he treats those who can do nothing for him”
author unknown
See Matthew 25:31-46
Treating my passengers with respect. I often wondered… because some times I’d see a certain glint in their eyes. A quiet thank you to me, as they get on and recognize its me. The opposite of “Oh! Its you again!” I could feel the love. And sometimes I know they’d like to ask me, “How come you’re different?” And we could talk LOL. Well, one day while driving a bus run, daily, a lady in her 30’s who was some level of high functioning special needs, yelled out, “You’re that Pastor! You’re that pastor…” then she began to tell me which church I was a pastor at. I denied it a few times, for indeed I was not a pastor informally nor formally… but eventually I had to tell her, and the whole dang bus, that was indeed my calling, that I am a pastor, and that’s how I drive my bus, serving God and my community in this practical way. I shared my testimony in words I can’t even recall now. But anyone on that bus that had ever wondered got their answer that day, and because of the clear simplicity of this sweet young lady, there wasn’t anything any hater could do about it LOL.
I had no identity crisis when it came to being a bus driver. I had so many commendations from passengers that my supervisor would hand me the letters in a sort of bored, “here’s another one” sort of way, while he talked about the weather. I’d get my hour’s pay, and it would go in my file. The LORD God and this my supervisor, both, knew I didn’t do it for the recognition nor the money. But for him alone.
I had, from time to time, endured objections from other bus drivers who claimed I was making them look bad by being whom I am. I had one guy LITERALLY say those very words to me. Which left me speechless.
It’s no surprise to anyone… I’m unusual. When I showed my 61st Birthday card from sister to people they laugh involuntarily at one particular word she chose for letter U when turning my name into an acronym.
These are words from a lady who loves me deeply, and knows me well.
In the outside world we have the eclectic freedom to do whatever we want to do. In the church; however, there is a prescribed tradition of the way things are, and any variation from it tends to be viewed as heretical. Even though close inspection of it – honest appraisal – would reveal that it isn’t working. Experimentation and / or deviation from the tried and true traditional method is however available to us.
Just now a brother of mine, who is reading one of the books I gave him – Life Together – paused his reading to send me this excerpt:
Having not been in the position of leadership in a church, neither as part of a church board, nor as a pastoral staff member, I find the liberty Bonhoeffer expressed true for me also.
Through my experience in the secular world I found out that I am a self starter, a leader. Very early in my 32 year career as a public transit driver a Supervisor called me out as a candidate for supervisor. He saw in me what I could not. That I was different, in a good way, from the others. After 25+ years I started to make note of which new hires would make good supervisors, and I’m not going to tangent fully into this by making a list of characteristics…
I’m a little bother, fourth born of five. My part has always been to join in on what’s already going on. To identify the leader, and introduce myself I order that I might volunteer myself.
But after having moved into a 44 unit Coop, I found the work load to be enormous, and the leadership worn out maybe. Only a small percentage of folks here actually participate in its running, because there is no dollar value benefit to participating.
I wanted to take part, and it was fall. There were leaves 🍁 on the ground, and I went to the shed to see if there was a leaf blower. Both were not in working order, and when I tried to find “who’s in charge” it was a bit drafty….
There’s this sound I make of the sound of blowing icy wind whenever I or my wife get a ZERO crib hand.
It seemed nobody was in charge of landscaping. As I pressed forward for funds and permission to get the various pieces of equipment in working order, I was offered the position of “Head of Landscaping”
I found that funny, and still do.
If you have any idea what I mean, check this out:
There’s a movie called Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and there’s this one scene that describes how I feel about leadership roles in general. I call it the “President of the back seat” effect: <click here> and smoonch to 2:46 in the video. For better context… see this one also <click here> the big guy wearing a diaper that jumps up to help is iconic. Brilliant movie.
Organizing a Spring Cleanup day at our Coop gave me pause. I found myself in a situation that felt so strange. I had 10+ folks, my neighbours, who all stood before me, asking me where I’d like them to start helping out. At the time it must have been my own fear of hubris maybe.
But there is another kind of truth we tend to evade. Not only do we hang on to our psychopathology, but also we tend to evade personal growth because this, too, can bring another kind of fear, of awe, of feelings of weakness and inadequacy. And so we find another kind of resistance, a denying of our best side, of our talents, of our finest impulses, of our highest potentialities, of our creativeness. In brief, this is the struggle against our own greatness, the fear of hubris
Abraham Maslow, Towards a Psychology of Being
My gut reaction was to think, “isn’t it obvious? (I didn’t say it out loud) I assigned various parties to the tasks that lay all around us. Then I went around and made sure they had supplies like recycling bags, water bottles, brooms and dust pans. I wore myself keeping them all encouraged and directed. As I look back on it now, the person in leadership is the one who takes all of the folks willing to help, and supervises their contribution, harmonizing them so that there is no redundancy, no fighting for resources. If everyone chose the same need, then some needs would go unmet.
So here I am with my blog, trying to figure all this out. I like to write here, because I’m not bothering anyone with long emails that they don’t know what to do with.
Perhaps this person and I will have that conversation face to face, soon. And I’ll let you know how that goes, but it will only to be mutually encouraged by one another’s faith.
See Romans 1:11-12
Goodbye for now.
There’s this memory that is coming to mind as I write out Isaiah.
I was the very youngest of 4 boys, but we had a boarder staying with us, who has a little boy who was younger than me. At supper time he was misbehaving… my father dropped his fork onto his plate (fear gripped all but one of us) then the dreaded pointing of the finger (if you were there to see it, you’d see my Dad’s steely eyes fixed on the little man, food crumbs sticking out of Dad’s tightly clenched lips) and this little guy imitated Dad exactly… I just remember shuddering in fear for the little fellow.
I for one don’t look towards the things that are happening in the world and then turn and shake my fist at God. My lack of understanding about what is going on doesn’t lead me to demand God answer to me as his judge.
Doxology
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.To him be the glory forever! Amen
Romans 11:33-36 NIV
Desiring to understand is a different story. That is more in the realm of emotion. We seek to understand in order to cope with the fear of “what comes next” so where there is uncertainty, we have trust in God, the shift is from our own understanding to belief and trust.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight
As for worrying about that little bro…
After all, who are you to criticise the servant of somebody else, especially when that somebody else is God? It is to his own master that he gives, or fails to give, satisfactory service. And don’t doubt that satisfaction, for God is well able to transform men into servants who are satisfactory.
Romans 14:4 J B Phillips
48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”
John 1:48-49 NIV
We are told nothing more than this special moment between Jesus and Nathanael. But there’s enough there. Jesus was speaking directly to Nathanael, with others present. He didn’t let anyone else in on the details… and Nathanael answered back in the same way. It was private moment between the two of them… and it changed the skeptic into a worshiper… we see this again in John 4 when the woman at the well realizes she has met the Messiah… and little later, the entire town that came out to see for themselves declared that they also, knew for themselves that this was the Messiah.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4:42 NIV
This little boat that arrived today… is a special thing to me, I remember playing with it at bath time. My sister is the one who remembered its existence, and where exactly it is in the world. This one in the photograph is the exact same thing, because they were mass produced and sold by Avon. Our Mum was an Avon sales lady.
In “The Sin of Certainty” Peter Enns describes a moment at an Arizona Bar B Q where God and he had an “under the fig tree” moment. He had his veiled, and yet undeniable assurance given to him. Wanna know what it was? The book is available on Audible.ca and I’m sure you can Google the title to find a paper copy of it. It was published on April 5, 2016. Faith, Enns writes, is not a “what” word, but a “who” word.
I’m suffering lately, as in so many years now. And I long ago laid aside trying to figure out the why. Verses like Hebrews 12:7 help me to deal with that suffering:
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
Hebrews 12:7 NIV
That verse tells me that God is in control, no matter what, and that I can trust him, since he’s my father.
So, what happened today? Diana sent a picture to me, to commemorate the passing of our Dad, 12 years ago today, January 19, 2023… its a picture of one of our father’s last moments on earth, being cuddled by our Mum:
A few days ago, as we remembered that little boat, she and I agreed that I’d send for it… and it came today in the mail, no so randomly, not so coincidentally.
My brother, Andrew, safe and sound, phoned me today, to tell me he’d read my Blog post, “Is It Safe?” And we talked about it, we interacted. My family… long hard battle that he’s fought, to give me back my brother. I told him, “I want my brother Andrew back…” and he’s working hard at doing that for me.
Another oh so wonderful thing happened that I’ll add later, much later. But a very precious part of my past was given to me also. The promise of it anyways. And so timely. An friend from long ago, painted a painting, that evoked so many memories for me. But it was the image that it created in my heart that mattered. I saw the Misericordia Hospital of Winnipeg in it, as well as the Assiniboine Park bridge, on a winter’s night, with the snow lightly falling. Like a dream, because all of the images flow in and out of one another. That was a long time ago, but recently she took the inspiration of that reaction of my heart, and painted a new painting, just for me. Just like Jesus did for Nathanael, and just like the Arizona Bar B Q for Peter Enns (read the book)
For the record. I feel loved today. By God, my father, by my brothers, my wife, and friends. I’m not so lonely anymore.
Amen
My friend and brother, have I been praying without ceasing since we sat across from one another? Yes. I’ve been holding you in my heart, like one holding his wounded brother on the battle field, and bathing you with my tears. Today God has crystalized the word he gave me for you that night.
Remember when you spoke about how it feels to know the movement of the Holy Spirit in your own heart? When you “speak” or “write” was that how you put it? His unction? Put that into words for me, I dare not touch it further.
Pursue that! Long for that! Like a soldier who has been lost in the desert, staggering home… shedding first his back pack, then gun and ammunition, outer clothing, and when the water flask has had its last drops squeezed out, that is tossed to the sand…
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him
Hebrews 11:6
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…
Hebrews 12:1
Light The Fire Again
Refiners Fire:
I discovered Carl Jung… stumbled upon him like one discover a little cafe when out for a walk and realize hunger… is it weird to say I fell in love? I guess so. I was glad though 🤔
But it’s interesting that when I started to refer to him or quote him, I found out that there are those against him and those for him. That identifying myself with him puts me with them and I am written off. I was once scolded for talking about him to an impressionable youth!
But let’s get back to one of the wonderful things about Jung… I wonder if I can put it into words.
There’s this test called the Myers Briggs Personality test. If you click on that it’ll take you to the test, and you can see for yourself. A couple of the questions were like this (true or false)
But my point is that Jung looks at the personality trait as neither good nor bad, but instead it is just part of who you are. He takes the SIN of it away. The best aspect of this is that some abusive folks I ran into described me as a chameleon or used car salesman, telling you what you want to hear in order to schmooze you… well, ok, so what’s your point LOL… but Jung’s definition is that I am a teacher or counsellor type. That I can hear you out, and not judge you in the sense that I write you off or dismiss you because your beliefs don’t line up with my own. We can have different world views, and I’ll still hang out with you!
When you live your life according to SHOULD… or OUGHT – the problem I have with it is that what you want to do is still there. It’s been paved over, waiting to poke itself out through the cracks at some unguarded moment.
Click here for Chapter one of Resurrection for that allusion. In that first chapter Tolstoy describes in poetical voice, the world in terms of nature that has been paved over. And then nature reclaims its own again. That’s what the book is about. The main character, Nekhludoff, is confronted with his past, and reacts as one might expect. He hides, he seeks towards self preservation, then various things that look like repentance, but eventually he gets to real repentance. What we see develop in this book is evidence of how God can work in the lives of men and women who are reaping what they have sewn in their lives.
Unexamined that should can be living according to someone else’s conscience. You have disconnected yourself from that little room poorly described.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to make me like Christ.
That’s not what I mean by running away from “should” first admit, and confront what you are thinking!
To deny you’re angry just buries it, suppressing it doesn’t heal it.
I wrote about doing rash things with a clock.
So heaven help me do I have to accept a person who cannot be on time?
Go ahead and be late, but you’ll miss the bus. If the next bus is tomorrow morning, stay right there you’re now early.
Procrastination is the dog and cat of the person who is always late.
So here we are… I’m wrestling with this cuz I want to talk about what you SHOULD do… but I don’t believe in should, so I’m kinda stumped.
I did 32 years of shift work as a bus driver.
My shifts were precise time and location:
Example:
23/401 RTC 04:02 – 11:06 Brighouse Station
(RTC: Richmond Transit Centre: The Bus Barn: Home Base… I think you got it… do you got it?)
If we were late signing in for our shift by more than 3 minutes another operator (fancy name for bus driver) is placed on your work and you get a “sleeper” 3 sleepers and you get a suspension, and I guess if this keeps up you’re fired… I never went past one sleeper in close succession… so I don’t know… I digress.
Every morning there are 3 standbys (operators who are there standing by – and the depot clerks place them on work of sleepers.
When you get a sleeper you miss a day’s pay.
11:06 – 4:02 + :20 travel time = 7:24 minutes x 36$ an hour = $266.40 loss
So… needless to say being late was beaten out of me during that 32+ years. Strategies were developed to avoid a sleeper. When I had my coffee? None after 12:00 noon because then I wouldn’t be able to sleep. To wake up to get to work for 4:02 am meant :45 minutes getting ready (coffee, shower, dress, pack a lunch…) 20 minutes travel time from home to work plus 15 minutes contingency (car needs gas, traffic problem…)
4:02 minus :45 minus :20 minus 15 = 2:42 am wake up
I still have this app on my phone! I’m retired now.!
I’m usually 10 minutes early for where I have to be.
I guess, as I ponder the final word for now from me about this business of being on time or not, its about LOVE. Loving my neighbor as myself. I don’t want to be late. And by saying that I mean I do what ever I want to do, within the limits of this that is so eloquently described by M Scott Peck <click on it>
Loving others, putting myself in their place, I feel its more loving to be on time or early. Being late for a meeting means that I’ve placed more importance on my time than on that of the person I am meeting with. I’m wasting their time, while maximizing my own.
My sister and I were chatting/musing about going to get that stuff. It’s locked away in a Barn.
My Mum and Dad were both diagnosed with dementia back in 2011. They were 2500 miles away… but that’s a long story for another time.
One of those things is a boat just like that one! While we were talking on the phone I started Googling around, and it turns out so was she 😝
We each found one!
I ordered it! It’ll be here soon 🥰
Speaking of time…
Lately I’m feeling it.
The world isn’t a safe place.
A fellow I work with never lets me get away with saying stuff like that.
It was hard to hear, so recalling it isn’t so easy for me, lots of resistance on my part… but he pointed out that I don’t have any control over the evil in the world, and to accept that fact. But he quickly added that I can choose to be the difference I want to see in the world. I hate and love this man LOL.
Jesus said “…in this world you will have trouble…”
In his arms I am safe. I’ve known his care and provision my whole life. My trust is in HIM alone. My heart, mind and soul is so full right now, of his assurance.
I spoke of this to my Auntie Barbara, and she told me about Habakkuk’s final verses. I turned to it as we spoke on the phone, and noticed the first verses of Habakkuk 3, is a song I play on my guitar (when alone and absolutely positive nobody can hear me) Its a Vineyard song from many years ago.
I read the whole chapter, to get the context. Its poetry to the world, but in Bible talk its prophecy. By that I mean, you have to work at understanding it. I’ll upload a page explaining how I read/study my bible, and put it here sometime soon. For now I’ll say that I just write it out in a book – pen and paper – and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. Last night I had dear friends over, and I mentioned the passage. A moment later I saw that the fellow was uncharacteristically absorbed with his phone screen… turns out he looked it up and was reading it… so I felt bold enough to read it aloud for all four of us there. The words that gave me pause were these,
verse 14: With his own spear you pierced his head
Here’s the context, verses 13-14,
You came out to deliver your people,
Habakkuk 3:14
to save your anointed one.
You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness,
you stripped him from head to foot.
With his own spear you pierced his head
when his warriors stormed out to scatter us,
gloating as though about to devour
the wretched who were in hiding.
I don’t mind consulting commentaries. But I trust in these pauses because I know it is the Holy Spirit telling me what he is commencing: “I’ll be teaching this to you in the coming days…” which at times, most times perhaps, ends up being for the rest of my life. Simply looking at Eugene Peterson’s version is a good start. But I know that God is answering my prayer, so I need to keep listening, this scripture being only a part of it. Hey, you! Your input is also a part of it! 🥰 Write me!
Walkingdownvimy@gmail.com
I drive for a living. And that leaves me, for the most part, to muse, ponder, meditate on the contents of my mind. Today’s musing took me to Habakkuk 3, and all of the above. And then to an audiobook I recently finished listening to again, Les Misérables.
Les Misérables is a giant book, written by Victor Hugo. I looked it up! It’s 545,945 words long. As an audiobook it’s 67 hrs 53 minutes long. He takes a long time to say it. Lots of details. Amazing thing is that its one of those books available at Gutenberg.org (click on that to see what I mean there) Amazing cuz its out of copyright, nobody owns it anymore. Its public domain. I opened up one of those files to see the original details and found this:
LES MISÉRABLES By Victor Hugo Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.No. 13, Astor Place New York Copyright 1887
The latest movie that came out is 2012 and is 2 hours 38 minutes long.
I guess you’re a busy person, and aren’t all of us really busy? That’s why I listen to it as an audiobook, so I can do other things at the same time, like cleaning my house, or while out for a walk, or bike ride. But that gets you past the time commitment, the part that makes it so hard is the details. Victor Hugo uses the facts, true history to furnish the details. In one part he spends whole chapters describing the sewer system of Paris, and its history. He describes in detail the political angst of his time, the French Revolution, Napoléon aka The Emperor vs the Royalists. What does Les Misérables mean? The Wretched.
It’s much easier in life to escape the suffering, so listening to the book, or sitting down to read it, would be the opposite of that. It cuts in so many ways. You can’t help but see yourself within those pages. Its an exposure of all that is right and good, and all that is bad and horrible about our world. I dare not pray that God slay the wicked, for I’d be amoung them! Rather I pray Isaiah’s prayer, here’s how Eugene Peterson puts it:
“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Isaiah 6:5
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
Victor Hugo tells in gritty gory detail all about our depraved world and its victims. By God’s grace I see that I am with them. I am flesh and blood and part of that… but by his grace I’m saved.
I hear my salvation come to me. I resist the temptation to claim that I have overcome… God isn’t finished his work in me. He is sanctifying me. Heal me, Oh God!
See this theme scripture Isaiah 50:4 –
I mention it because I only wanted to say, today, that the world isn’t a safe place, but all this came after those few words… as his answer to my question. He told me,
HE is a safe place
He is my strong tower, my fortress. And when I say its mine, I mean its ours. Ours because there you are, take a hold of this truth, and apply it there to your wounded heart. If you kept reading up to now, take courage, take heart. Jesus has overcome this world. He’s understood it! He’s conquered it! He’s crushed the leader of evil! He’s pierced his head with his own spear! Another way the bible describes this comes to mind,
They triumphed over him
Revelation 12:11
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
I hear him say to me, Take up your cross and follow me. My friend said it to me slightly different, be the difference you want to see in the world.
It’s hard to do.
The temptation is to take out this angst on those around me. My talk and actions can all be used to spread the despair and horror that lurks within ready for me to take a bite! I mean… when I partake, when I become like that which I hate… I spread that hurt around. But when I take his word in my heart, and obediently do it… healing comes to the world around me.
The World isn’t safe, but HE is.
Lately I’ve been feeling heavier, getting out of bed is something I have to talk over each morning, a conscious decision, wrestling with my thoughts, but also just a mood to be pushed past.
“Yes, I see you there. You matter, but I don’t know what to do with you! So let me go by you, as I rise from my bed, come with me or stay right here but my life will go on… thank you.”
Then I pull on some clothes and walk into my day. Usually it’s coffee on, morning meds, and writing out my Bible, on a good day I’ve gotten up early enough that I can even do a little praying. What does that look like? Laying on the couch, lights dim, and speak out loud to God, ignoring how awkward it feels, most times I fall asleep – in and out of sleep – and this last time I noticed my heart has calmed, and that one that was there when I awoke isn’t there anymore. I find myself bringing my burdens to God like a child who’s found that his Daddy can fix all his broken toys… one by one I bring them to him. Laying down, letting go…
One anxiety always present each morning is what will become of my son. He’s Autistic, adult, whose many faults include being content with where he is at, God Bless him ❤️
Well, I’ve been accessing various local agencies that can come alongside our family to help his pushing past where contentment needs to yield to growth, and properly planning for future realities. We’re at the stage where he has a fellow who will personally explore his potential, whom we met recently.
Driving my son to work, Mom in the back seat, along for the ride, I asked him to describe this fellow to his Mom, who wasn’t there at that meeting, and so hasn’t met him yet.
“Tame, timid, and keeps to himself” I asked him tell me more about that. “He doesn’t talk about all his own secrets…”
I’ll just muse in that moment for now, Talk to you later… if you click on muse there, it’ll take you to my mode of writing, and an assignment for you, if you’re willing.
🩵
Running Down Vimy