Quiet City

This last week I had the opportunity to go away for two days and spend some time on beach. The human heart seeks stillness. I tend to make my life loud enough to drown out the yearning of my heart, but it is there, quietly calling for solitude and peace. How can we bring that message to the city? Henri Nouwen says that, "silence is the home of the word." Which on the surface doesn't seem to make sense, and that shows me how busy and loud I continue to keep my life. Before a word is spoken there must be silence. Our world and culture are continually trying to shorten the amount of silence that is necessary for words to get to our ears. Which is why it is rare for us to hear anything intelligent today. What if we thought more before we spoke? Would we be at war? Would gas cost $4.29 a gallon? Would the world think better of us as a people? Would kids get hurt? Would families stay together? I think a good law would be to think quietly for 5 minutes before we speak. How uncomfortably glorious that would be.

Today

I don't know how to describe it. When I am stressed out about planning and other not so important things I get mean. I don't like it. I can feel myself being short with people and saying things that I don't mean or can be taken badly. Why do I get like that? Maybe it is because I am going gray, or maybe it is why I am going gray. I don't know, but it made me think of Matthew 6:34 when Jesus said, "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."
How can I live like that? After all Outlook and I are intimate, I can't just break up with Bill Gates like that. He won't understand, and I won't be able to plan out my options for when we might get back together. It is the worship of self to be lost in the future while with someone in the present. I fear that I have missed what the Holy Spirit has for me because I am too focused on what might or might not happen in the future. I believe that Jesus wants me to focus on the moments that I am in so that I don't miss opportunities in the here and now. We can't think so much about being Jesus in the future that we forget to be Jesus right now.