It's wet again: When the north moves down and the west moves over

For the time being, while our offices are under construction, my desk is situated next to an ancient looking white bordered window carved into a red wall. My new office won't have an outside window (or any window at all) so I'm soaking in all the sights and sounds I can while I've got it.

My window looks out over the deck of River City's youth building. Surrounded by oaks and laurels and mulch filled beds of greens and colors bordering the asphalt slab filled to capacity on Sunday's by cars and bikes and scuttling feet, my perspective affords me a view of the corner of the patio cover and the trees beyond. On a day like today, when the downpours range from non-existent to torrential I realize how much I enjoy grey days.

I've always thought that I'd love to live in the Pacific Northwest. Several years ago I was within days of moving up to live with several friends who had relocated there. I couldn't scrounge up the airfare/gas money to get there, and soon enough I abandoned the thought. It all worked out perfectly. Had I moved there, I would have missed all the things that have rolled my way since then. I don't think of it as an opportunity lost, I think of it more like a road not taken.

So when the grey days roll down I start to wonder if I could have taken the Northwestern greyness. Whenever a few rain days are strung together I wait to see if the blues roll in. They never do. I just don't mind the rain. Honestly I wish it would rain more often.

Part of me wonders recently if the moments spent looking out the window and thinking of places far away is the rearing up of the wanderer in me. I've never been in a state of homeostasis for this long. It seems I've got restlessness in the deepest parts of me. Maybe it's (relative) youth, maybe it's laziness, or maybe it's something different that defies labels. It just seems that when I sit still for too long, I start to twitch.

So here's to rainy days and being where you are at the present moment. Billy Joel says, "the good ol' days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems." In between both of the hypothetical yesterday's and tomorrow's is right now. It's all you've got. Make it sweet.

A Toast to Being Poured Out: the optimism of half emptiness

I started reading Augustines Confessions. Mostly because it's a classic and I think there's great value in reading books that have been continually published for 1500 years. As much as I"m intrigued and excited at the prospect of tackling a book like this, I fear that there's part of me that's hoping this will be the silver bullet that slays the dragon of emptiness. But all the while there's this sneaking knowledge that there's no shortcut to true fullness. You can't hurry it. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry to make a bottle for Jackson (usually in the wee hours of the morning) I turn the faucet on full blast and let the water jet into the bottle. Typically what I find when I pull the bottle away is that it's mostly just bubbles, and I have to go back for a second round. The bottle's not full because I didn't let it fill properly.

Those are the little lessons in life that will sneak by if you're not watching for them. I think it's the very process of learning how to slow down and see them that makes fullness happen. I won't be filled instantlyby reading a book, by saying the right prayer, or by doing the good deeds that pop into my head. I can only hope to be filled bit by bit as I learn to take life as it comes. And it comes slowly, and it fills slowly.

The other thing about being filled, is that I'm not starting from empty. I think if I were simply an empty vessel, I'd recognize the little increases and be satisfied. I think more frustrating is the process of unfilling, because that can't be done hastily either. I've got 30 years of habits and reactions to contend with, each one needing to systematically and intentionally unlearned. My frustrations aren't so much that I can't pray for 5 hours at a time or fast for weeks on end, my frustration is that I can't control my temper or manage my money as well as I'd like. The unlearning is the hardest part.

Jesus said that people don't pour new wine into old bottles because the old bottles would break and you'd lose all the wine (He said wineskins, but I don't have any wineskins). You have to get a new bottle for the new wine. This new life that He has for me can't just be superimposed on my old lifestyle. The venerable Chris Coggins used to say "if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

So I raise my glass to the process of unlearning. May we enjoy the moments as our empty glasses become full again.