How do we nourish our souls?

An elder told his grandson, "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.  One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego.  The other is Good.  It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth."

The boy thought about it and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?"  The old man quietly replied, "the one you feed."

This story speaks to the core of our being. It does not matter who actually spoke this story.  It raises a question that has resounded through the ages.  Do we feed evil or do we feed good?  And where do we find our nourishment?  I believe only God can fill us.  The two Scripture verses for this week are just a brief selection of the deep wisdom that comes to us through God's Word, as written in the Bible and as lived in Jesus Christ.

Called by our name

Walking past a local elementary school, I watched a smiling little five year boy leave his mother's car and start running toward the school.  However, after a moment, he turned his head back toward his mother who was standing by the car door, and shouted "I love you, Mommy."  She turned and got into the car as he kept running. But then he turned around again, kissed his hand and blew the kiss to her. All the time he was smiling, running, loving. How great it is to be so loved and loving.

As adults, we often forget the time when we were so deeply loved and known by our parents. Or, we never experienced that love in the first place. And thus we feel lost and unattended in the vastness of the universe. Reuben Job provides wonderful insight that as people created by God, we are not orphans in an impersonal world. Rather, he writes, "the Biblical record clearly affirms the fact that God knows us and calls us by name...We belong to God who claims us as beloved children and holds us close in the embrace of strength and love. Listen and remember today the God calls your name and be transformed and sustained in all that awaits you."

What an incredible relationship!  How often do we blow kisses to this our God?

Peace and Quietude

Long ago, in the fifteenth century,  a German monk, Thomas á Kempis, wrote, "if we would cut off all vain worrying, thinking only of  things that are profitable to the soul, and placing our hope in God, what great peace and quietness we would then possess."  

In our world today, the quantity and the quality of noise has changed, but the path to relief is the same á Kempis wrote long ago. The challenge--and the advice--never changes.

Living waters or cracked cisterns?

In last week's post, I thought about how hard it is for me to give up "control" and instead seek the stillness God provides me when I slow down.  Oswald Chambers, in his January 21 reading for "My Utmost for His Highest," discusses how our enthusiasm for God ebbs and flows. He cites Jeremiah 2:2. As I read chapter two in its entirety, I was struck by verse 13: "My people have done two evil things: they have abandoned me--the fountain of living water.  And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!"

As I share these pictures today, I think of how we and the Psalmist praise God for His magnificent creation.  Yet, despite acknowledging our Creator, who out of His love placed us on this earth, we still follow our distracting, destructive idols that keep us from giving our entire selves to Him. We allow our selves to become "cracked cisterns that can hold no water." I am grateful for his unfailing love and never ending forgiveness that allow us to return to His living waters.

Quieting our lives

Our minds are always bee hives of activity.  We want to be in control.  Yet when we still and quiet our minds, and move into prayer and the quietude of our hearts, then our souls recognize God really is with us.

Here is the way Henri Nouwen puts it:

Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, "Prove that you are a good person." Another voice says, "You'd better be ashamed of yourself." There also is a voice that says, "Nobody really cares about you," and one that says, "Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful." But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, "You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you." That's the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. 

That's what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us "my Beloved."

Winter at the Oregon Coast

Meg and I took Jasmine, our Chinese student, back to Eugene this past Saturday.  She is doing well, studying for her Masters degree in Accounting at the University of Oregon.  Meg and I then traveled west to the beach town of Florence.  From there we went north, stopping for a wonderful sunset at Seal Rock.  We spent Saturday and Sunday nights in Depoe Boe, a delightful small harbor on the central Oregon coast. The water spout pictures are from the breakwater at Depoe Bay.  You stand in the parking area, where just below the waves crash and thunder against the rocks. You could not be any closer to the power of the Pacific Ocean than this. In January, the angle of sun at mid morning creates a rainbow in the spray of the blowhole, as the storm driven, high tide waves, crash into it.  Meg and stood transfixed in awe for most of the morning watching this synthesis of power and beauty. 

How can we not praise our Creator!

I took the Isaiah image of Mt Emily at sunrise on January 2.  What an incredible way to begin the new year--reminded that even amidst the turmoil of the world which we mortals have created/modified, God's glory reigns supreme; his justice and mercy are eternal!