Moving

My blog volume is low this week because we moved into OUR house this week. We are calling my disability leave "retirement" There is so much to do! I look forward to getting back to the blog in a few weeks.

Graduation Thoughts

(This is a brief version of a graduation talk I gave in 1997.)

Nissan reminded us that life is a journey and that we should enjoy the ride. Not bad advice but it fails to say that speed, good looks, and attitude is irrelevant if we don’t have our wheels on the ground.

Remember driver’s education? Or for some of you more recently defensive driving? Remember the discussion of hydroplaning? It was enlightening to learn that on wet pavement it takes only a moderate speed and the tires are no longer touching the pavement. Life is like that sometimes. A little speed and a disregard for the dangers in the journey and our wheels lose contact and life becomes a perpetual skid.

To decrease the risk of a skid, and the sudden stop at the end, it is important to learn how to keep our wheels on the road. There are four wheels to keep on the ground in life if you want to have an enjoyable journey into young adulthood.

The first wheel is to balance work and rest. God created us to work six days and to rest one. Sabbath, the seventh day, rest is the art of creative idleness that renews the whole person. It includes rest, relaxation, worship and renewal. However, the day of rest is for persons who have worked six. To benefit from Sabbath keeping then working throughout the week is part of keeping your wheel on the ground. God commanded us to rest because once we were a people in bondage but now that we are free we have a day of leisure to renew ourselves. That is as true of the children of Israel in their Egyptian slavery as it is true for our sin and us today.

The second wheel is to stay connected with a positive community of people. Relationships shape us in ways that we don’t always realize. Life is too short to waste time with negative people. Negativity is more than just attitudes. Negative people are cultivating habits of self-destruction and it is easy to be brought down by them. Seek out the company of people who work hard, laugh often and encourage you to do your best.

The third wheel is to practice one or more spiritual disciplines. Prayer, Bible study, worship, and service are among the most common of the spiritual disciplines. There are many others. The key is to find the discipline that helps you strengthen your relationship with God. Friends and family relationships are important. But even the best of human relationships will sometimes hurt and disappoint you. It is your disciplined relationship with God that will sustain you in the trying times of young adulthood.

The fourth wheel is to practice hospitality. The world is too fragmented. We have become too comfortable with individualism The value of living and working together for common goals has largely been lost. But unlike Humpty Dumpty we have the hope that one-day community may be put back together again. Hospitality is to look for Christ in others and to greet them with warm respect as sons and daughters of God. It is also placing value on cooperation over conflict, teamwork over personal success, and building others up over constantly putting others down.

Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride. Keep your wheels on the ground!

Quote Details: Meister Eckhart: If the only prayer... - The Quotations Page

: "If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice
. Meister Eckhart

Thomas Merton Quotes

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. Thomas Merton

Perhaps I am stronger than I think. Thomas Merton

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. Thomas Merton

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it. Thomas Merton

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. Thomas Merton

YouTube - Prince Caspian - Official Trailer

YouTube - Prince Caspian - Official Trailer