Posts Tagged: The Little Miami Bike Trail

“Lively and Lovely Stubbornness”

On November 20, 2020 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Phil. 4:8, English Standard Version)

Ugliness and death are stubborn and hard to eradicate.  Indeed, unless your name is God, ugliness and death probably can’t be eradicated.  But then, beauty and life are stubborn too.

This morning I was doing my “3-Minute Retreat” from Loyola Press.  Their retreats are free, daily, and excellent.  They have a pictorial background, some meditative music, a brief scripture, a couple of short, thought-provoking questions, and a closing suggested prayer.  And yes, you really can do them in about three minutes.  I usually take longer, but then that’s me.

The background picture this morning was as helpful to me as the words and music.  Maybe that’s because I paid attention to the picture.

It showed a tightly louvered, metallic-looking fence with a couple of flowers growing through a very narrow crack in the fence.  “Beauty and life are stubborn!” I said out loud.

And as a matter of fact, beauty and life are stubborn.  Good thing!  Because obviously so are ugliness and death.

We need to acknowledge the ugliness and death.  It won’t go away if we simply ignore it.

But we also need to focus on the beauty and the life.  As I am writing this post, the sun is coming up.  There is a lovely breeze, and it is already 50.  It is supposed to get up into the mid sixties today.  I will rake leaves and take them to the compost pile.  Then, I’m going to go for a ride on the Little Miami Bike Trail.

Beauty and life will be one of my mantras for the day.  You can use it too.  It’s not copyrighted!

, , , , , , , ,

“NOT ENOUGH TIME”

On April 26, 2019 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer


Here is my journal entry from yesterday.

“Thursday, April 25, 2019

I am feeling guilty because I am not as prepared to teach tomorrow’s Exegesis of Isaiah class I should be.  This is nothing unusual.  I live with a low-grade guilt about such things. Students think they have a monopoly on this feeling.  They are mistaken.

In fact, I never, ever, have enough time to do everything I want to do.  But is that necessarily a bad thing?

Perhaps not, though it often feels bad.

A friend of mine who spent several years in prison said that the worst part of prison was the boredom.  Lots of time, and nothing to do.

So, I can’t do everything I want.  I can’t prepare as much as I would like for the classes I teach.  I can’t spend as much time with my wife as I would like.  I can’t ride the Little Miami Bike Trail as often as I would like.  I can’t read as many books as I would like.  I can’t write as many blogs as I would like.  I can’t spend as much time weeding the flower beds as I would . . .  O, wait!  That may be overstating my frustration with time constraints.

Perhaps that too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time feeling should be celebrated, rather than mourned.  Maybe it is only when I chafe against my time constraints, that they handcuff me and cut into my wrists.  If I wear these time limitations loosely, as a reminder of my humanity and of my zest for life, then these limits may cease to be a curse.  Who knows?  They may even become a blessing.”

, , , , ,

“Balancing What I Need to Do and What I Enjoy Doing”

On September 23, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Have you ever said or written something, and then wondered what you meant by that?  I had that experience just now.  I was writing my daily e mail report and affirmation to send them to my sponsor.  Here is my affirmation for today:

“Today, by God’s grace, I am balancing doing what I enjoy doing and what I need to do.  When I do this by God’s grace, I am discovering that what I enjoy doing and what I need to do are the same thing.”

There are things I need to do—lots of them.  They range from cleaning the bathroom, to taking care of the dog, to preparing for a class I’m teaching tomorrow at the university, to helping my wife lead our community group this evening.

And there are things I would enjoy doing.  They range from taking a ride on the Little Miami Bike Trail to taking a nap this afternoon.  (I will try not to do both of these things at the same time.)

In this context, it was the second sentence of my affirmation that struck me, and that I am trying to understand.  Can those two things—what I need to do and what I enjoy doing—really be one?

I think that the short answer is, Yes!  However, as with most short answers, this “Yes!” needs to be unpacked.

Can necessity and enjoyment be one?  Yes, but the word “can” is crucial here.  The unity of “need-to” and “enjoyment of” is possible, but not inevitable.  We all know people (and some of us have been those people) who never enjoy anything—even things they enjoy!  If that sounds like a contradiction in terms, it is.  But we’ve probably all experienced that, either with other people or with our own selves.

In his book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has one of his characters (who is in hell) say, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”  I do believe that there is hell.  I don’t know if people are that honest and aware in hell.  But sometimes, I do suspect that some of us occasionally visit the suburbs of hell.  Any time when we don’t do what we need to do or what we enjoy doing, we are probably flirting with hell.  And rest assured that hell will always flirt back.

And perhaps, on the other side of the equation, one aspect of Heaven is that those who are there have discovered a way to make necessity and enjoyment one.  Perhaps the last stanza of Robert Frost’s poem, “Two Tamps in Mud Time” strikes the right balance, which is Unity.  Frost pictures a man (himself?) splitting wood when two unemployed lumberjacks walk by.  One of them stands to watch, and the man splitting wood knows only too well that the lumberjack is silently asking for work to make some money.  And the necessity of one man trumps the enjoyment of another man.

But Frost ends with the following observation:

“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”

So, today, by God’s grace—and only by God’s grace can I do this—I will balance and unify what I need to do and what I enjoy doing.  Writing this blog post is a first step.

 

, , , , ,
Follow on Feedly