Live the Questions

I would like to beg you . . .

to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart

and to try to love the questions themselves

as if they were locked rooms

or books written in a very foreign language.

Don't search for the answers,

which could not be given to you now,

because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is to live everything.

Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future,

you will gradually,

without even noticing it,

live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

Leisure Time

Thoughts Like Ants in an Ant Hill
Most of the time I have a bizillion thoughts going on inside my brain day and night. I have so many thoughts sometimes that I can't sleep. (Like several nights ago when it was finally around 3 AM before I started the zzzzz's.)

But when it comes to lassoing one or two of those thoughts and bringing them out in the open, well good luck to me.

One Thought Will be about Church Goers and Atheists
Someday I'm going to put Jimmy Dorrell's newsletter and an article from our newspaper on here. Jimmy is a lover of God and a prophet to the church. The newspaper article is a plea to stop hating atheists...written by atheists I think. That's coming soon. (And when I say "soon," that often means before the New Year if I'm lucky.)

My thought tonight will be a short one b/c I have more things to do before I lay down. So here's the short thought:

Leisure Time Rules
I like not having deadlines. I like not having to do position papers. I like my time not so dominated by things needing to be finished and done and finalized and mailed off. But right now, I'm back on the clock trying to get things written, emailed, snail mailed, and turned in for "the man." I thought I finished all that in 2009. Yet once again, I am back in a type of "school" in order to become more and do differently one day.

I like the kind of leisure that allows me to read, to write, to nap on the sofa, or to sit in my rocker on my deck and listen and look out into my backyard. I like having space and energy to say "yes" to a friend inviting me to have coffee or for  Mexican food or for a walk. I like having time to create. I like enjoying time to blog. I'm sacrificing several things that should be getting done NOW in order to lay down a few words. And so NOW will become tomorrow night which is already crowded with its list....

Leisure Time is Foolish to this Culture
I think leisure time is rare with most people for a variety of reasons.

I think leisure time is laughable for most of today's culture.

I think leisure time (and those who imbibe) is labeled "lazy" or "stupid" or  "antiquated" by today's culture.

The Kingdom of God and Leisure Time
Yet I think the kind of leisure time this blog is discussing is on par with the Kingdom of God.

That kind of leisure,  "wasted" time is like the mustard seed nestled in the dirt or like the one lost penny and a woman sweeping or like a farmer broadcasting his seed while he sings or like the Maker noticing a sparrow taking a tumble from a limb. That kind of time is like a woman's prized, hidden treasure of expensive never-used perfume in an alabaster jar. That kind of time is like that same earthy smelling ointment/perfume oozing and dripping from the tips of Jesus' curls on his head.That kind of time is like dipping bread together and drinking wine together before the big showdown just hours away. That kind of time is the aroma of fish cooking over an open fire on the beach by the Greatest Griller for his friends.

Jubilee
After I graduated from Asbury acquiring my doctorate (in five hard years), I took a year off and participated in the Kingdom of God. I call it my "year of jubilee."

And really at this age and stage in my life, I don't have time to allow anything else to interfere with God's Kingdom that lives in me and around me.

Coming Soon
I promise: Atheists and today's new prophet to the church to come soon . . . as soon as I have some leisure time.