Life is like training camp…
When it’s your turn to run with the 1’s, y’all best know your assignment and be ready to perform. It might be a long time till your next chance at some reps.
Remember, cutdown day is right around the corner.
Category: Spirituality
Run Away!
The picture above is Illarion Pryanishnikov’s famous painting of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Miserable story, miserable war. But that’s not why I posted it. When you say “retreat,” this is what most people think of. Well, I’m on retreat this week. No, I’m not fleeing the Russians, but in a way, I am fleeing something, or more accurately, I am fleeing to something.
All Sunshine Makes a Desert
Another sunny day here in Chicagoland. Say what you want about San Diego, this place is sunny all the damn time! At least it seems that way to me. Moving from the lee coast of Lake Michigan to the windward side some years ago came as a bit of a shock.
Less cloud cover, less precipitation, that “sickly orange barf-glow” (thank you Lisa Simpson) in the night sky obscuring the stars. Well my nice green lawn is going brown. The wild riot of color from the flowerbeds has turned to a drab, drooping, bleh!
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The Happiest Place on Earth
My apologies to Walt Disney. I’m shamelessly stealing the idea for this post from 
Lisa at Keeping Pace, but I have a different take on it, so bear with me.
The Compact O.E.D. Second Edition defines “happy” as, “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.” Another definition I found states that “happy” connotes a feeling of satisfaction that something has been done well. In my association with St. Procopius Abbey over the last several years, I have had many occasions to feel happy, but never more so than when I attend a wake. This requires a little context.
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This isn’t What it Looks Like
When I was a kid, my friends and I played a lot of basketball. In the summer, we played lots more basketball, 10-12 hours a day, everyday. The day would start with games of “21” in the driveway, followed by more 21 in someone else’s driveway followed by pickup games on the courts at the Little League diamonds until it was too dark. At which point we’d go play in someone’s driveway that had good lights. You get the picture.
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Grrrrr…
In a recent interview about his new book The Tyranny of Clichés, NRO’s Jonah Goldberg told Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie when asked why he wrote the book that,
…the best muse there is, is being annoyed.
This post isn’t a review of the book, although it sounds very interesting, (click the link above to watch the interview) it’s about that quote. It struck me in a completely unrelated way. Let me explain:
Frustration
A good friend told me recently that, “I think frustration mostly stems out of knowing where you want to be but have no idea how to get there.” Maybe that seems pretty commonsensical to you, but it struck me rather forcefully.
I’ve been struggling for a few days with a depression bordering on despair. When my friend said this, a light went off. Yes, I want to do something, to get somewhere, but when I try to think how to do it, to get there, I find I really don’t even know where to start and this is the source of the problem. Continually approaching the problem from different angles has only resulted in more frustration at my impotence. My inability to make headway adds to the depression. Almost as if walls were being thrown up in front of me at every turn. What to do? John Keats said:
I am in that temper that if I were under water, I would scarcely kick to come to the top.
And there it is. What to do? Kick and keep kicking till you break the surface. Sore muscles may go with it, but it beats the alternative.
Sometimes You Just Have to Stop and Watch the Squirrels
This past weekend was hot here in Chicago, but I couldn’t resist sitting out on 
the patio in the shade for a little while. By this time of year, all the backyard critters are raising their young, or more accurately, trying to get them to move out. Hmm…that’s probably true of human parents too, but I digress.
Watching the goings on in the yard was immensely entertaining. Papa Grackle was still feeding his fully-fledged young who flew around with him wherever he went. The rabbits were ignoring the new generation of bunnies who ignored them right back. But the real show was Momma Squirrel and her wild offspring. Three young squirrels were zooming around the yard, chasing, playing tag, and hide-and-seek. One squirrel would hide on the branch of a bush while the others scampered hither and thither trying to find him. The hiding squirrel sat very still, even as his siblings were sniffing around under his bush. Eventually he was discovered and they all tore off after each other squeaking with joy.
One little squirrel in particular was impossible to ignore. He hounded his poor mother everywhere she went. Quite the momma’s boy. She’d be searching for seeds under the bird feeder, or looking for the peanut she buried under the lilies a month ago, and there he was at her heel. She’d go to take a drink in the pond, and there he was. She even tried running away and hiding herself, but he was always right there. He played with his siblings too, but he seemed to be especially attached to her. Once while she was snuffling for seeds under the bird feeder, he climbed one of the trees overhanging the area, crept out on a branch directly over her, and then with a squeak that I could swear sounded exactly like, “Geronimo!” he dropped on her back. Hilarity ensued.
She got him back though. Since it was hot, the squirrels stopped at the pond pretty regularly. While she was taking a drink, Junior decided to sneak up and pounce on her. She saw him though and ducked. Sploosh! In he went, quickly emerging looking sad and silly, and resembling a half drowned rat. The rabbit who was sitting nearby, twitched his nose at this undignified display.
So by now you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, great, you’ve got animals in your yard. Big deal. So do I. Is there a point to all this?” Well yes, there is a point. It is very, very easy in our hyper-fast, busy, crowded, technological age to become numb to the world around us. We become alienated from our environment to the point that we forget we are also part of it. Sitting and watching the squirrels, I could positively feel God’s joy over His creation. After all, God’s creation is an act of His love. When stopping to appreciate the beauty and diversity of all that God has made, one can only conclude that He must really enjoy making it. As a writer, I feel a tiny glimmer of that joy whenever I turn out a well-written paragraph. I’m sure you feel it too, when you complete some project that comes out well.
If God can be so happy over the very smallest of creatures, image what He must feel about you who were made in His image and likeness.