Something for you guys to read

Finding yourself expecting bad news…a feeling of helplessness and frustration as things continue to go wrong in the world? We have power in our personal connections…and one of those connections is with God. Keep asking Him and bringing Him your concerns and desires for the people you know and know about. God delays bad things when people ask him to sometimes. Faith and obedience to Him matter, even in the little things. And the little things matter in your other relationships, too. Encourage your family, be patient and hopeful and kind. Ask God for more of those fruits of His Spirit. He is so gracious and generous. Keep asking Him.

The tiny things we say and do are where we have power. Because we are tiny And God is big. He show his magnificence in the way He grows our tiny gifts into more than enough—like the fish and the loaves that fed all those people…with baskets left over. And like the oil that kept filling the jars. There’s no shortage of His goodness and power, so there is nothing we bring that is too small. Think of the size of a human egg. He is the one who makes it grow. And He is the one who made it exist, just like He made every small thing you have and do, and Just like He can make them grow. We never know what a baby will accomplish, and we never know what an act or word done in faith and love and hope will become. He is amazing! The grower and beginner of things…the finisher. Don’t be afraid of your smallness in this world. Don’t be afraid of your impotence. It is God who makes and grows and we get to believe in him and obey him.

mental etchasketch

Funny how in front of the tv seems to be my spot to write.  I used to think I’d never own a tv when I was an adult.  Television watchers are wasting years of their lives volunteering to be told what to think.  That’s what i thought.

I dont know know if I still think that or not.  There’s the art in television and the information that can be pondered and thought about.  But if something designed to influence is passively observed day after day, hour upon hour, doesn’t that wear upon you?  Even if I am aware of it, the images and phrases become memories that I look back on.  The pattern of mind’s thoughts alter.  And they alter in a way that is directed by some one else.

Or, maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe we draw to us what is already in us.  Like magnets laid in a shape, our minds create a the same shape on top of themselves, scrived in images and catchy movie lnes:

Nasty blue moon ipa beer

i am sipping beer which i do not love.  The tv draws the top of my gaze, influencing me whether i will it or not.  My mind, like a butterfly net, is always catching thoughts.  It is better in the garden, when I’m digging a hole for a new plant, or sniffing the fragrant mix of dying leaves, mums, roses and sweet grassy smells.  There it catches better thoughts…sweat and sun and sky make it truer and less destructive.

inside, near devices, enclosed with false lights, i wither, i pine, i founder like a sick dog i whine.

the thoughts of my quiet dark room as i nurse my baby are free and spread like vines.  Where do they go and where will they take new root and cross?

The aftertaste of the beer keeps me coming back for more.