Time Is On My Side

All around the big, big world (see the cow above for a picture of our big, big world) we all experience life differently. Young and old, male and female, haves and have-nots, northerners and southerners, easterners and westerners, me and you.
And one thing we all experience differently is time. We all have sixty minutes in every hour, and twenty-four hours in every day, and three hundred sixty-five (and 1/4 or in that leap year thing three hundred sixty-six) days in every year. But how we experience time is so very different.
And how we make use of time is so very different. I want to make the best use of my time, probably you do, too. However, I don't want to be a slave to time, probably you don't, either.
Here's a little contemplative routine that might help us work at making the way we experience time a bit more pleasant and productive. These questions are part of the spiritual discipline known as "Examen" as practiced by the Jesuits.
In a place of solitude and silence, ask yourself:
1) For what moment today am I most grateful?
2) For what moment today am I least grateful?
3) In what moments did I sense God's presence around me and in me?
4) In what moments did I fail to love?
Here's to a better use of the time that we have been given.

Silence, PLEASE!

The incredible tragedy that is the earthquake in Haiti, the poorest country in our hemisphere, deserves some awe, some horror, some human compassion, some financial and human-power assistance. So many lives lost. So much physical destruction. So many loved ones as yet unheard from. Might God help all involved and touched by this tragedy. Might the rest of us be prayerful and supportive and helpful.
And that goes for Rev. Pat Robertson, who blames this event on "a pact with the devil" he says Haiti made hundreds of years ago. He even recounted the actual conversation between those ancient Haitians and the devil!
And it also goes for Mr. Rush Limbaugh, who suggests that this tragedy will allow President Obama to look good because the President loves to serve those in misery.
Silence, PLEASE!

Its the first snow day for my daughter's school this winter. She is thrilled! I am happy she is thrilled...mostly because I started to remember the snow days (very, very infrequent) I experienced growing up in northwest Indiana...where the first words a child learns are "lake effect snow!"
I think I remember being happy that school was closed on a day it was supposed to be in session because it meant something out of the ordinary. Now that is an adult reflection on a childhood experience, but I believe it to be true. My daughter will be forced to go to the office for a few hours with me today, she won't see all of her friends, and my guess is that by midday or early afternoon I will hear her say something like "I don't know why we didn't have school today."
But the routine has been shaken up! That's the joy of a day like today if you are in the fifth grade.
Makes me wonder why I don't shake up my routine once in a while.