Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Set Before Me
For the last several days, I've been meditating on this one phrase from Psalms: " I will set the Lord continually before me." I should qualify that. My first statement sounds like I've been thinking of that verse all day long when in truth, I've just read it in the morning and then promptly forgotten it. That's how it is with me and loftier thoughts. My day takes over and I barely remember there even IS a God.
But today one of my students reminded me. I'd taken the kindergarteners to the playground because the day was just too beautiful to stay inside. The children were joy incarnate. I stood next to the slide and literally soaked in both the sun and the way these little ones were tumbling together both up and down the slide like so many puppies at play. It makes me so glad to see them so happy, electric with health and energy.
Walter is a natural athlete; small, but muscular. He can swing like a monkey, scramble up and down poles, do flips. He wastes no time when on the playground but is in constant motion. Today he was part of a pack of four kids scrambling up the spiral slide. They'd ascend a little, then fall down on top of each other, laughing all the while. Suddenly Walter stopped, pointed at the sky and yelled, "Mrs. Bernardini! Look! That's Jesus!" He was pointing at the sun, the sun shining bright on his eager face.
The other kids, then I, too, corrected his theology, but now I regret that. What harm is there in a little five-year old boy thinking Jesus is the sun? High and bright in the sky, brilliant enough in the dead of winter to cause a little boy to stop his play and declare for all to hear, "Look! That's Jesus!"
Indeed.
But today one of my students reminded me. I'd taken the kindergarteners to the playground because the day was just too beautiful to stay inside. The children were joy incarnate. I stood next to the slide and literally soaked in both the sun and the way these little ones were tumbling together both up and down the slide like so many puppies at play. It makes me so glad to see them so happy, electric with health and energy.
Walter is a natural athlete; small, but muscular. He can swing like a monkey, scramble up and down poles, do flips. He wastes no time when on the playground but is in constant motion. Today he was part of a pack of four kids scrambling up the spiral slide. They'd ascend a little, then fall down on top of each other, laughing all the while. Suddenly Walter stopped, pointed at the sky and yelled, "Mrs. Bernardini! Look! That's Jesus!" He was pointing at the sun, the sun shining bright on his eager face.
The other kids, then I, too, corrected his theology, but now I regret that. What harm is there in a little five-year old boy thinking Jesus is the sun? High and bright in the sky, brilliant enough in the dead of winter to cause a little boy to stop his play and declare for all to hear, "Look! That's Jesus!"
Indeed.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
New Year Resolves
My son-in-law explained that the reason I'm no longer craving sugar is because of cell-receptors. It seems that our cells multiply receptors for whatever we've been consuming. I must have had millions of receptors for sweet things and that's why I always wanted more. But now that I'm limiting sugar, I really don't even want sweet things. It's not even a matter of will-power.
This phenomenon of "wanting what you've been having" has implications in so many areas of life. Whether good things or bad things, whatever it is that we're giving ourselves to is what we are going to desire.
If I rarely pray, I probably won't feel much inclined to pray. If I'm watching TV every night, that's what I'm going to want to do every night. If I'm eating healthy food, I will develop a taste for that and vice-versa.
This phenomenon of "wanting what you've been having" has implications in so many areas of life. Whether good things or bad things, whatever it is that we're giving ourselves to is what we are going to desire.
If I rarely pray, I probably won't feel much inclined to pray. If I'm watching TV every night, that's what I'm going to want to do every night. If I'm eating healthy food, I will develop a taste for that and vice-versa.
I approach my New Year's resolutions with more confidence than in years past because of the success with giving up sugar. I'm counting on this principle of "wanting what you've been doing" to help me:
Rise 15 minutes early for prayer.
Jog 30 minutes a day.
Continue to limit sugar.
Don't eat while on the run; that is, sit down like a human being and eat food from a plate or bowl instead of nibbling, tasting, and snacking.
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