Sunday, August 23, 2009

Grateful thoughts

Ten grateful thoughts to close the weekend:

1. Nine months of hard work, five days of quality course delivery, my client is happy, and now I can rest.

2. Fresh cucumbers... yum.

3. Homemade guacamole... yummier!

4. Whiffle ball with my son.

5. Crazy dancing to Bee-bop-a-lu-la with my boys.

6. Church (ideally) is not a gathering place for the perfect, but a rest stop for the weary, a haven for the outcast, a balm for the broken, home for the homeless, family for the orphan... and a challenge for the complacent. Mine is.

7. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

8. Story time!

9. Learning new forms of poetry, immersing myself in words.

10. I am loved. Life is a miracle. (Yes, that is one thought.)

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Family and friends

A few Sunday evening thoughts as I close a full, long weekend away...

I have an enormous family, as large as life itself. They extend from sea to shining sea. My family makes me glad to be alive. They also get under my skin, challenging me to be more alive, alert, and growing.

I don't need many friends, just true ones. The truest are extensions of my ever expanding family, adopted brothers, sisters, cousins of my spirit.

I'm grateful for the times of fellowship and the times of missing that make the fellowship more sweet.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Yours, Mine, Ours

Sam was keeping me company last night as I was folding clothes in the bedroom. We chatted about this and that while I piled up towels and t-shirts and socks. At one point, I realized that my son was using a word repeatedly that I hadn't heard him use before: "Mine."

He would grab some clean jammies while I was trying to fold them and say, "Mine," before throwing them on the floor. "This is not going to work," I thought, for many reasons. It seemed as good a teachable moment as any for a 3 year old. I talked to him about sharing and how a nice word to use is "ours" to describe something that we work on together, like the laundry.

He nodded solemnly and said, "Ours." I was pleased.

He then grabbed a pair of his recently folded Lightning McQueen big boy underpants, rolled them up in a ball, giggled, tossed them on my head, and said, "Ours."

Lesson learned. Sigh.