My Snow Globe Life

So it's snowing again outside my window today. But it's a different kind of snowfall. My favorite of all.

It's the type of snowfall where each snowflake is quite large and visible; each falls slowly from the heavens. It's almost as if God is dropping each one individually. There seems to be this sense of serenity which is eluded during this snowfall. It's is quite tranquilizing. The sun barely shines today, but it shines enough to catch each snowflake and cause there to be a glittering sensation as they fall to the ground. It looks like the world outside is the inside a snow globe. As if someone has shaken everything up and now the flakes are slowly drifting back towards earth. I wish I could capture the snowfall in a picture, but this is something that must be seen with someone's eye. A picture would mass all the snowflakes together and loose the individuality of each. Each as it comes to rest upon the ground, a park bench or a parked car. Each as it accumulates into the masses of snow already fallen.

It's finally become winter in MN, I suppose. We had a strangely warm winter until New Year's Eve; barely a scratch of snow. Now it snows regularly. At least it keeps me going through the cold, right?

Hope your day is brilliant and sparkles all around you. :)

Words Should Come With Love

There is such power in ones tongue. The words one speaks…determine who one is. If one says something, it's out of one's heart. Whatever is in their heart will eventually come out. William Shakespeare said, "He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks." And the man who created electricity, Benjamin Franklin, tried to aide us with, "Better slip with foot than tongue."

One must stand in awe of the power a tongue holds. Such power that it can shape the world that surrounds it. It can create friendships and it can dissolve them. It discloses feelings, it holds things back, it stretches the truth and it kills. "One reason a dog is such a loveable creature is his tail wags instead of his tongue." We use our tongues to determine our world. It can build up and it can tear down. "The tongue like a sharp knife...Kills without drawing blood." Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta knew that words could bring one to tears or even cause one to die of a broken heart.

Even Hollywood understands the power of words we speak; Iris on the movie "The Holiday" said, "I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives." If we speak love towards others, it will alter our lives…for the better. "…you have kindness in your voice. I did not expect that," was said by Ivy when she escaped to find help on the movie "The Village." She did not expect to find a security guard who would be willing to help or that was kind. Due to her blindness she had to allow herself not to judge another person, but to be vulnerable and hope for the best. That is the problem; our expectations, or more so presumptions. One may presume how someone is before they even know them, but when the other person opens their mouth to speak a different person can be shown. Someone can walk in kindness and love yet look quite frightening and abrasive or even to seem pose a threat to you. Only when no other choice is available or fear governs does one embrace and widen oneself to another person without judgment and presumed ideas concerning the person.

"It does not always pay to have a golden tongue unless one has the ability to hold it," Paul Johnson said. If one can be mature enough to hold their tongue does that then mean they truly are mature? When one begins the process of holding their tongue it continues on to become a habit. This habit creates a much healthier world around them. "Before the tongue can speak, it must have lost the power to wound," was said by Peace Pilgrim. She knew one must hold their tongue and guard what they speak. If one speaks in flowery words and verbiage does that make one smarter or more educated? No. But when it becomes apart of who one is, one becomes more educated due to the knowledge that must be assimilated for those words to come out.

"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'" John Greenleaf Whittier knew exactly what judging someone prematurely meant. It meant one might have been friends, one might have known some other person, one might have gotten a job, one might… But now it means one never will have been. Jose Billings said, "The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust." Isn't it better to hold your tongue, take a walk and wait before you speak ill words? Is it not better for you to speak love and kindness; even if it is addressing something unjust, than to spew hatred, anger or words that may kill another person?

As someone who loves Jesus I believe that we should elucidate love and life more than those around us. We have a great responsibility to speak the words to build up, create life, inspire people in our world. If you can say one word of kindness over five of unkindness should you not do it? How could a man who sacrificed His life for others still forgive those who murdered Him? Should we not follow in His example as well? With His last breathe of life His words were forgiveness. As He die He still spoke words to give life to those around Him. Can we not give life with our words daily?

World of Snow

Snow falls once again. This white fills the world with wonder. Have you ever noticed how the snow tends to fall in the late afternoon or during the night? The night sky seems to radiate light when during a snow storm. It can't become dark any longer. There seems to be this glow, this beam of light coming from...coming from nowhere. A cold chill fills the air, yet the cold seems warmer when snow is falling. It is as though the snow brings warmth. Then there is a stand still. The stillness of the snow falling. It almost seems as if the world, as if life holds its breath, holds its breath in awe of the new snow. Waking up and looking out to a whole different world, a different view outside your window is magical. There is this unbelieving moment of awe, the change that happened when you weren't looking. One moment a world of brown ugliness, quite depressing in fact. Then another moment in time there is the brilliance that shines from outside. Almost as if the world is washed white, a cleansing from the dirt, darkness and harships is seems to have gone through. Trees have become dormant, grass has died and the flowers have fallen. The death is no longer prominent, but this white covers it all. Life seems to radiate among the deadness of winter. Bunnies run and bounce about in the snow. They seem to find as much fun as a young child in the white that surrounds. Birds fly around once again chirping and enjoying the beauty below them. Just for the few moments as I stare out the window, I see that life can be transformed. Much like my life which twists and changes in mere moments of time. Life can be cleansed, changed and renewed in a few moments of time. Snow can create a shift in the atmosphere, a metamorphosis from dull to bright and from dead to life.

Bedraggled Winnings - Part Two

Your bedraggled winnings have eaten away at you. They've caused you to question and wonder why you won, why didn't someone else fight against you. You might be satisfied with having the gain attained, but you can't quite settle on the path which you attained it.

What if that revolting article has become revolting only due to your selfishness? Maybe you just despised that prize possession because you selfishly wanted to win it the way you wanted. Life changed and well, a new situation came about for you to win.

Maybe you should count it a blessing that you gained so easily or in a new manner. Maybe God reached out and touched you. Maybe, just maybe you were on the up for once.

Can you not just smile and keep the prime article on the grand stand? Is it going to eat away at you, the winning.

Happiness, very conditional. You loose happiness because you haven't fought the fight you'd like to have fought. Why must there be a battle? Can you not just be satisfied?

Bedraggled Winnings

Have you ever gotten exactly what you wanted, just not the method you wanted to gain it? The change of circumstances completely nulifies the original desire.

You set out on a mission, to obtain this goal, a great desire or maybe even a need in your life. You have this plan of action, a method you will attain this goal. You are on your way to getting just what you want. Then it seems as though, unthinkably fast, you have what you've wanted. Yet the path took a turn was completley off your map. It almost seems as if you have been tele ported from where you were headed along the path to your ultimate goal. Wow, what a great place to be!

But there was a great mistake in it all. Looking back and reviewing the events that occured, everything has gone awry; almost through a metamorphosis. It seems the path you once had chosen has been commpletely altered. Now the ambition you started with has become tatered, fadded and quite definitely degraded from the high pedastal it once lay upon.

The prize you have attained now disgusts you. It is repulsive and untasteful. You wish that you would never have won. Maybe if the battle for the prize had been stronger. Maybe if it had taken longer. Maybe then you would appreciate it more. Maybe. Then it might be...what you wanted it to be.

But you're the "big winner". You have what others have wanted. You won the coveted item, yet no longer wish it was yours to hold. One day you were desperate for it, now it is unprofitable. What can you do with the revolting article? Is it just to stay there upon it's unworthy pedastal? Will it ruin your objective in life?

The Threads that Hold Our Life (Not So Much) Together

Why is life held together with the fragile threads of trust, love, hope, endurance, vulnerability, strength and ambition? The threads are woven together to create the life we live and trail we leave behind.

What if one of those threads breaks? What if you no longer have the strength to endure through life? What if your trust has fallen apart and you don't know how to trust any longer? What if your hope for tomorrow has faded away and you no longer want to live to see the day? Then what...?

How can our life continue on when the threads of it are unravelling? How can we continue on when the utter components of our being are becoming a memory in our mind fading fast?

What keeps us together then? What holds us in place in this crazy contrivance called life? What if there are no threads in our fragile being? What if we've lost love? How then can we look to the future with hope? How then can we compare our life to anything strong and durable?

A woven fabric is the essence of life. The threads brought together create our world. Small pieces break and tear apart, small breaks cause large gaps in the fabric. Is it just our individualness, or are they flaws to our being? Could our anatomy come apart due to our own actions and choices? Could we cause our own failure to live this life we live?

How could you want a broken clock? Would you want a unrepairable car? Would you want a used tooth brush? How could you want a frayed cloth? If we are broken and used, then how are we to be of need? Is our life to fall apart because we are "falling apart at the seams"?

my reality doesn't seem like a REALity

Confusion. Ability. Apprehension. Joy. Aggrevation. Wonder. Fear. Strength. Awe. Life. Pain. Happiness. Endurance. Duty. Hope. Abdication. Love.

All on a whim...all to be determined...somehow. The future holds no certainty. Tomorrow is never promised, yet we are to plan for tomorrow? I confess this above all confuses me... I wish to know what is to come. I wish to know what you want from me, yet it seems just out of my grasp. I feel as though I am a fallen swimmer, having been swept by the oceans pounding waves outside the reach of the life preserver. Is my life not to be preserved? Am I to tread, plead and pray for an answer? No, I must wait. Patience must consume. But what then if I never get my answer? If my question is never heard?
Can one give without having been given to? Can one love without knowing love? Can loves strength be given when it has not been seen? Can one appreciate music, having never listened to music? Can one enjoy a food without eating it? Can I get somewhere without knowing the directions or having the way shown to me? Can one dance with never seen a dance? Is life a line of lessons taught? Or do we know how to live life, with out the life lesson? Must one go through a lesson to know the lesson? Can one learn from another's mistakes?
If I cannot dance with you, is it because you never danced with me? If I cannot give of myself, maybe it is because you have never given to me. If I cannot love you, maybe it is because you have not loved me. Maybe I do not know where to go because you have not shown me the way.

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theatre in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing yhou the way. I used to not like God because God doesn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened..." Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller