Loving Grace flips you upside right

Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement,
and death will be part of your journey,
but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors.
No evil can resist grace forever.
Brennan Mannin

(my favorite place on earth—the old Methodist Church in Cades Cove/
The Great Smokey Mts National Park / Julie Cook / 2021)

Have you ever felt that switch flip?

You know the one…

The switch which flips you from upside down to right side up?

As in all of a sudden, there is some sort of vast difference
between now and then.

Something new is now residing in your soul while the old has been
blessedly removed.
As an unseen presence now lifts you ever upward.

One day you’re one way…and then suddenly, the very next day,
you’re something else entirely.

You’re simply not the same person today as you were yesterday.
And thank God you’re not.

It is that odd juxtaposition of a before and an after sort of flip of the switch.

A profound difference begins to resonate within your inner core.
As in…there was first angst and emptiness…and then next there
grew a blessed peace and a sense of being sweetly content.

A huge difference happening all within a single 1 minute.

Marvelously, actually miraculously, you feel a peace that had been
nonexistent just one minute prior.
This new comforting sense of peace that, had been so elusive for such a long time–
longer than you could recall, now wraps you in a soothing embrace.

And so now you actually find yourself finally being able to exhale.
Being able to exhale the heaviness of forever,
while then breathing in a fresh new air of life.

The body goes weak.
The soul has been broken.
And now…we are the better for it…
as I think we call that loving Grace…

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul,
the golden link which binds us to duty and truth,
the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life,
and is prophetic of eternal good.
Petrarch

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom
to distinguish the one from the other.
Reinhold Niebuhr

The importance of being in the moment

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory..”
― Dr. Seuss

(little garden friend / Julie Cook / 2014)

Hindsight is 20 / 20
Oh the mantra of many an adult.
Almost anyone over 40 can often be heard to opine and lament over the days that were. Wistfully looking back over the events of our lives—you know the ones–the ones we rushed through in order to hurry on to the other things that seemed oh so terribly important at the time, which now in hindsight, paled in comparison to what we were trying to rush away in the first place.

Those of us with grown children understand all too well the importance of the value of the memorable moments of our lives they have come and gone. . . We were often so busy as young parents that we didn’t pay full attention to the really important little milestones of our children’s growth and development, but rather hurriedly looked past those on to what we imagined to be the more important and much bigger events. . . that we sadly bypassed those real moments for what we falsely presumed to be bigger and better.

We were so busy living a vicious cycle of rushing through life, or rushing from life, to some important meeting, or event, that we often missed out on what really mattered. Now that everyone is grown, we realize that we allowed those other less important moments to rob us of what was actually precious time, which is now sadly all but a memory.

How many older individuals are often heard to mourn “if only I had had more time, made more time, did things differently, cared more, cared less, worked less, played more, enjoyed more, rushed less. . .”
Maybe it’s all just a matter of age and the differences of the generations. . .
The folly of youth with their “devil may care” attitude verses the melancholy nostalgia of older generations.

Perhaps it’s time that we pause for a moment. . .pausing in order to take inventory, to take stock, to reflect—contemplating what really and truly matters in our lives and of the lives of those we love. Doing so before we allow any more precious time to pass us by, leaving us with only the memories and the regret of not having “been in the moment” during the time those memories were of the present.

No one is promised a tomorrow.
Yesterday is over and done.
Today is it.
It’s all we’ve got.

The question of today, of the moment, is “How do you want to spend this one day, the only day, which you know is the only one you’ve really got?
The answer will be of tremendous consequence—not only for today, but for tomorrow, if you’re lucky and have a tomorrow . . .and not only for ourselves but for the ones we love.
So go ahead and ask. . .How do you want to spend this one day?. . . Remember, it’s really all you’ve got.

Past, Present, Future

“Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

(the remains of an old telegraph pole found rotting deep in the woods in rural west Georgia/ Julie Cook / 2014)

Have you ever been so consumed by something that has either happened in the past or is about to happen in the future that you really have no thought or concept of today–of the very moment in which you find yourself?

I fear I’ve spent most of my life in a bit of a dither fretting over the future while dragging around chains from the past. I most likely look like something akin to Jacob Marley in the Dickens Classic, Scrooge. An ethereal being wrapped in heavy chains with my vision cast forward, wondering why it is I’m not moving–forward. Oh I can hear him now bemoaning with those wails of his to a wide eyed Ebenezer.

Sadly I must confess that I’ve always been a bit of a worrier— When I was in high school, I can vividly recall a beloved priest once telling me, as I was fretting over something that I obviously had no control over, that my worries were truly all in vain because I could very easily walk out of church in the next five minutes, only to be run over by a dump truck. . . putting all further and future worries on permanent hiatus.

Always looking back or forward but oddly never looking at now—or at any rate, not very long at the now.

Today’s image is that of a very old and long forgotten row of wooden telegraph poles. The rotting remains being reclaimed by a deep thicket of woods in a very rural area located in the mid north western section of our state. Out in the middle of no where, with only acres and acres of deep dense woods– the debris of a different time and era now lying long forgotten. The glass insulator you see pictured is from the Hemingway company. The markings on these insulators, along with our knowledge of this particular area, date this communication line to late 19th century.

A most odd discovery to find in the midst of an old growth area of land in the middle of nowhere rural Georgia. The news, information and communications once carried over the now long gone wires, very much important during the time, now all but forgotten. The statements, observations and requests, that once sped across these lines, most likely carrying word of reconstruction, impending World conflict and news of sickness as well as joy, all but forgotten to the annuals of time.

For dust you are and to dust you shall return is the foreboding observation taken form the book of Genesis, used by the Book of Common Prayer at the service for burial—the ominous reminder that we are not permanent fixtures around this planet. Reminding us that what was, is no more, what will be is yet to be seen, if ever seen, therefore rendering all that there is, as simply now. The only guarantee we have is this exact moment of now.

Even as I type this post, on the afternoon prior to the morning I intend to send it out, there is no guarantee that it will go out—something, God forbid, may transpire curtailing my ability to send it out on its way–all thwarted despite my best intention of action. So there is no guarantee that you’ll even read any of this. Odd thoughts to ponder. Just one more example of how we spend so much of our today’s preparing for tomorrow. Not that planning is a bad thing, but maybe we plan a little too much.

I am reminded, as we all are reminded, that as we allow ourselves to be consumed by the what “weres” and the what are to “bes” that we have only to “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your (our) heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life or single cubit to your height? (Matthew 6:26-27 NIV)

Worrying and fretting and regretting, all very human characteristics, do absolutely nothing to and for our betterment nor to and for the betterment of our fellow man. So on this new day, this new morning, if you are indeed reading this– if it did actually get to make the rounds, may we all be mindful that what was, is just that—simply what was. What is to be is simply that, simply what is to be—and the only thing we can be certain of is right now.
May your right now be filled with peace as well as happiness and contentment. . .because it is all either you or I actually have.
Hopefully, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow 😉