37 posts tagged with "thoughts"

I have one
Career goal—
To have the ideal
Career goal.
It doesn’t
Pay much.

The toil of mankind,
The sweat, the cash, the prestige
Or a cold, wet, drink

The flowers I pick
Die in my hand,
But flowers I can’t
But pick.

Photo’s my own.

Awake. Bladder. Keep the eyes slitted to suggest to brain I’m not awake yet. Think as little as possible. Frankenstein-movement to suggest to brain still very sleepy. Pee. Back under quilt. Duvet because it’s cold now. Sleep.

I said sleep.

I just had a moment where I thought, “If I’m not a writer, am I anything?” meaning “anything of value.” I have an attachment to being a writer, or being a something, and attaining my idea of life. If I am not a writer, a thinker, an artist, a good father, someone who can control his addictions and his time, someone who can think without worry, who can find what he “should do,” who can understand, who has some unique skill or calling or benefit, who succeeds and is known for it, who doesn’t care about success or praise, who has useful and profound and beautiful thoughts, who hasn’t been found out as a failure in all these things—

Give us this day our daily bread.

I was taught that this refers to what we need to learn. But isn’t it what we need in order to live? Not bread alone but every word of God’s, and Christ, himself, fully embodying and revealing that Word. But surely this also includes

wait for it

bread.

Sustenance, air, water, clothing, friends and family: whatever we need, as determined by God, just like the birds and the flowers, who don’t have storehouses or barns. At every moment, they depend on God’s provision (or withholding).

How different is modern American security? We idealize careers, we develop our CVs, we invest. All cultures sell their own flavors, but we sell Independence. “Need no one.”

But don’t go off to the woods just yet. Our assumptions need changing. Give us today whatever we need—food, friendship, capacity for love, ability to learn from our mistakes, changed assumptions…

Don’t we depend even in those things that secure us? Investments require stable markets. Careers require healthy minds and bodies. Commutes require that the gravitational forces that keep our tires upon the ground remain constant. We depend upon a sovereign and graceful God, who holds all things together.

And after praying for our bread, do we believe that he’ll give it and that, after the day’s provisions, we can say, “We received what we needed?” Do we depend even for that? Don’t we? Doesn’t Christ provide all things for life and godliness, so that all provision has as its core the death and resurrection of God? And while we were still sinners, did he not already give it?

Indeed he did. Give us this day our daily bread.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

A conversation in response to 12/3/2016, 1/19/2017: On Perfectionism and Creativity

*In early 2017, a friend had some questions about a post. My response ended up summarizing my whole soteriology at the time, which of course is built with the humble and talented bricks of so many profs, books, and pastors and mortared together with my own thought and experience.

Lord,

I believe.

Help

My

Wisdom.

I woke up in the best way today—a bit stark raving. Every thought is a letter.

I drink from a red mug with a chip in it. Wabi sabi, the Japanese might call it. There’s a glory in the fractured. You won’t find it, in this world, in the perfect. This is, right now, my favorite mug. I didn’t like it especially yesterday, and I probably won’t tomorrow, having returned to that erking and ever-present worry that I might not be perfect.

I wish I could find it, but I read a meme earlier with a pic of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer that said something like, “Standing out only leads to benefit if it can also benefit other persons, in which case it becomes extortion.” And that’s quite like the idea of the story, though from a cynical slant.

And while I think the idea needs some counterbalancing to be true, I think there’s something to be said about how worldly success works. Every person is intrinsically out for his own good. Such was the effect of the fall.