114!!

Something caught my eye the other day. My heart, too, I suppose, because it followed me around for days. The Oldest person in the world had passed away. Perhaps you heard? She was 116. 
Well, that happens. Not the dying--of course that happens. But the living a long time---now and then that happens. Occasionally. We are always amazed, impressed for a minute or two and then we are back at living at half mast and never even noticing the difference. 
This time I noticed and I began to think about this lady and her experience. She got up that morning and went and had her hair done.
!!!!
That made me laugh with delight for her, with her. I know 40 year old women who "don't bother with that anymore!"
She cared. For some reason, she got up that morning and maybe she thought, "Oh, thank God I have an appointment for my hair today....I am going to feel so good about so many things when that's done!" Because I have heard this from many women, too!
Then I kept coming back to...what was she doing so differently from everyone else that she would live 116 years let alone caring about her hair of all things? Eating peanut butter from a spoon? Dancing in the moonlight with garlic around her neck? Hey, it's a question worth asking!
 Especially after I did the math. If I double my age right absolutely now, I am still only 114 when I am get through. And if I knew...KNEW!...I was going to live to be 114, what would I do differently? And what would I be thinking about if I knew this was to be?
This is 2 parts. One has to do with attitude. The other with physical health.
First. How much time could I stop wasting by adopting the sorry state of growing older with such open arms? 
"Well, I'm not as young as I used to be!"...
"It's just harder on us older folks..."
"I just can't remember names (or dates or my birthday!)as well as I used to..."
You get the drift. Everything sideways or haywire becomes a person's excuse--blaming the fact that aging is happening to you--a process everyone experiences everyday. Celebrated with markers and pics for babies, dreaded by anyone over 25. What gives?
As for health? 
"Aches and pains are to be expected--after all...."
"I just move slower than I used to....(moan, moan, creak)" 
"Oh, young people, I just can't keep up...."
May I remind us all that every time we use Age as an excuse, or fuss about the natural course of the planet around the sun, like no one else is having to deal with that as well...that 3 trillion cells full of your own genetic information are listening? And they have no ability to detect humor or mood (most likely) quite like they do something that is said with such conviction as fact. 
This is no small thing. I would think we would want all those guys showing up for work and not deciding to be no-shows cuz the boss said in their hearing that the place was shutting down soon! You know. Just in case!
On a side note. Or not so side. How much time do we waste with the 'negative' comments? How much do we believe our own mantra when in all truth it might be blarney (and probably is) and makes less than stellar use of the time and opportunity given to us by God for this really quick and very few laps around the Sun? 
I would think cherishing the time and not belittling it might be wiser.
So....I have decided to keep this lady at the forefront if nothing else, in honor of her example. If I am only half-way thru my Journey...and how do I know I am not? Then, no more 'running out of time' statements. No more, 'I missed that window' and 'that ship has sailed'. And no more, "well, I'm old so I probably can't learn that..." because you know, as long as you're here, you may as well make the best use of the Time given you. Learning is what this trip is all about, I wager. At least a large bit.
And without letting that press the life out of things:) surely, we've learned or are learning by now that taking those moments that come swiftly one right after the other are quite worth living right smack dab in the middle of every single day!                                

So, I'm outside getting a breath of fresh air and feeling the life it infuses into my thinking and I am back at Ann's book. Wondering....
What if when we 'get home' if we discover how precious this whole thing has been? The journey itself. The things. The people. The magic moments. The ups and downs. The tough runs and the miracles.
What if He intended for all of it...or...it actually IS precious...?
Each and every single thing, each and every leaf, blade of grass, star in the sky, moment with any other breathing creature--family, friends, pets, every up or Not relationship, the hard stuff, the easy stuff, the hard stuff...um, I said that. Anyway, what if it's ALL special; Precious?
I mean. My word, folks. We pay big bucks for 1st person Everything video games so we can try new personalities, be brave in 2-D, find our imaginations fired up by 'safer' possibilities....read books, watch movies, tell stories, learn new things, re-learn old things....
But it is ALL part of our Journey thru Time and Space...
And every experience, idea, thought, feeling, is a unique one for each individual...and it is a One-time shot.
And what if every single tiny, big, or ordinary thing is and was intended to be Precious in terms of the Gift of being here?
The cool breeze on my face blows away the angst of the long day. I take a deep breath, breathe gratitude.
I go inside.

So, if a life's experience is continually speaking thru the behaviors, speech and mannerisms of the owner, we are being....Being. Verb.
We try to teach our children even things that we fail at, keep trying, discoursing about and one day they grow up and look at us and realize the truth. We aren't perfect. For a time, everyone is almost relieved. The children because now they can stop with the Approval-thing. The 'rents because, well, the cat is out of the bag. So to speak.          
But His truth unerringly continues to nail me to the wall with it's directness and eloquence. It won't leave me alone and tho I don't want it to--a little taste goes a long ways and then too, nothing else ever satisfies....
But we know in our heart of hearts that they carry memories of us not as we would have them remember us. We would have all beauty and light...
But we say (if we are honest), with David in Psalms 73:22, "I was so foolish and ignorant--I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you."
Does His light ever shine past us into their lives...past who we were in tired, unyielded moments of brokenness? Will they see Him any clearer because we belong(ed) to Him? Will they remember us Choosing to be grateful and then our finding tiny places of joy that changed us on the inside? Will the tiny victories or small revelations be a part of the chink in the armor that breaks the whole thing wide open for them dazzling them with His Light?
Because that's what it's all about. 
If we live to have the space (again or maybe for the first time)to speak into 
their lives, will the light be able to peek out? Can they see it or feel it without forgiving us? Can we find a place to "be" and speak to each other? 
It seems like there is so much more going on here than meets the eye. It cannot all be for naught...If we are trusting that the Word does not return void from wherever it was sent, then there have to be workings of more depth going on than is humanly possible to see. Time is the 'dough rising' and cannot be rushed. The yeast is necessary; as is temperature and kneading. How can we know just what is needed and when....
I think parents grow up when they reach that point where they know or realize that having done our best, we are a guidepost that He is using. They are His workmanship. Not ours. 
I prayed for the strength (etc., etc.) to raise up the arrows in said quiver. (Oh yezohyezdidiever) Now for the grace to let the arrow fly gracefully with power out into the world where He will not let go of them...The grace to Let go and Let God...

I found myself thinking today--prompted by a phrase or two in an exceptional book I am happily in the middle of--about being loved. Now don't run off just yet. My whole reflection on StarSong is to move myself from one point of of looking at a thing to a complete other. And without changing subjects...
It spoke of approval so deep and complete that one would 'shout for sheer joy'. And of being known so completely (with no disregarding or 'humoring')--all strengths and flaws--without being intimidated or ashamed.
As I sat and played with the phrasing in my mind, I had a brief moment of real comprehension--there and gone!--of the comparison of the love of a friend or a spouse to the perfect knowing-me-in-all-these-ways love of a perfect Being. It was a moment of revelation--clarity!--for me as I sensed in it how much better, more, indeed, completely and perfectly He loves me. And tho He loves everyone like this, I can't think in big numbers and spaces near as well as for just moi so I set it aside to explore later. And here I am.
 I don't think it's near as amazing that He knows us so completely and still loves us as it is that with His perfect 'knowing' He isn't jazzed, moved, weakened, upset--or even saddened--by anything about me. His expectations in this framework would be perfect, hence unchanging and immoveable...He can never be surprised or caught off guard by anything I think, say or do. His knowledge covers it all and still affords me every kind of freedom of choice in any given moment.
I think it's incredible to consider this perfectly complete, full, excatlyallthetime Full... (think glass never half empty, but always full no matter how many are drinking from it with straws!) Person never struggling to love me or 'get His attitude right' or drum up some affection for me or fighting the urge to quit or cut and run cuz I've finally driven Him Too crazy.
And you know, the only way this would even BE like this would be because something had to happen to make this possible. The playing field had to be leveled somehow. Otherwise, how could He be this way? If He is perfect and this impacts His love--ability, willingness..., something just had to have happened...
I think He wanted things to be okay so badly that He just came down here Himself to show us the deal...and I'm not covering the apologetics side of things here. I am just reflecting on things we hear, that we say and trying to put new spins on them to make them more real to me.
If He is loving me like this every day, 24/7, 365 days a year from Way back when til all the way thru forever, then Wow.
Just wow.

Have the Time to think about Time....

Reading Ann's book. Still. And I figure that until I totally exhaust it, understand everything in it, or get a handle on living in the 'Gratitude Space', I will plod on. It's not that I am not reading anything else, it's just that her words still prompt a depth of thought, ponderings and an openness of my own spirit that I seem to hear Him more clearly and more often. Now before anyone gets jazzed over 'that' please remember than I am talking about my relationship with Him. Not me trying to tell the Pope that I heard from God and know the Final Answer. (Well, actually that's in His Word but that's another story)
One thing that I think Ann's book inadvertently addresses almost without meaning to is Time. 
I don't mean 'how to manage it' or bucket-listing for however much we have left. I'm talking about the fact that we can't hold more than one thought in our heads at once...and you have to latch onto something to run the muck off. Gratitude does this nicely. And it's very In the Moment-ish because while you may be addressing things that have happened on some other point of the Time-line, you are addressing Him who is not subject to it. He is in fact, referred to as "the Ancient of Days", the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I mean, really. He created it but He doesn't have to come under it's 'ruler-ship'. So to focus our thoughts, indeed, choosing which ones we want to camp on as well crafting Thank You's, can center us and all the fragmenting that Life extracts from us on a moment to moment basis. 
God called Himself to Moses, "I Am"--present tense. Always present tense; not sometimes. Truly omniscient and omnipresent. In any context, any day, any point of any day, any place, any time (or date!), past future and present, He IS. He covers completely the entire Space-Time Continuum and Then Some on either end. 
The implications of a relationship with such a Person for me is Staggering! Not only does this mean He has total and instant Recall (enough to impress anyone!), but He is actually IN that moment or memory. Whereas time constrains us, it has absolutely no control over Him or His thoughts or attitudes. Because He doesn't live under those constraints, He is always completely sympathetic and understanding of anything we ever have to say to Him. He knows every possibility, implication, attitude, side-thought, of every single thing we can possibly Think to bring to Him. 
Maybe this is why He never seems much concerned about being late or being early but being 'right on Time'--because it's not a variable that He Ever considers. He already knows the past present and future and manages to give us a free will anyway! Yes, this is over our heads--I apologize ruefully to all the degreed, important educated more-than-me folks out there but honestly. Who wants a God that they are never surprised by? I don't want a lateral relationship with Him. He's the one who thought that up! (And I'm still working on whatWasHethinking, anyway?) 
So if there is to Him, no time---and "he knows the way we take", so He 'gets' it--indeed, He created it! He was and is everything He always will be and all of Him exists in Him (I'm thinking Colossians here) so Time was kind of like His closet where He could hang everything neatly in order for US to get a clue about Him. Not the other way around.
So the space of time that we choose to 'name' and bring recognition to His presence in our lives is a choice to express love (and that choice) to Him. It takes the little things--or big--on our time-lines and connects them with Him who is not existing only on or in the time-line. We line up with the Forever side of things and our eternal relationship with the Creator of the Universe as well as ourselves and then He came for us.
I've always wondered if He knows everything, etc., why does He ask me to pray ('pray without ceasing')? Obedience comments aside, Why would I talk to God? And busy us. We 'don't have time' to pray or talk to God. When the real question with this kind of love extended to us really should be, why would we talk to anyone else?

Cosmo-Thot # 1

Here's my first mind-blogging thought: If light-years are "real"...then everything we say, or blog...just keeps traveling thru the Universe jumping a ride on the lightwaves going by at the time we say. Or hit send. Hmm. Maybe words are forever...
We should all be more careful!!!