How Would You Fare in This Scenario?

My friend sent this photo in a forwarded email several days ago:

I am so proud.

That is, if indeed the person clicking the shutter on the camera is the owner of this living room. (We hope it's not the babysitter!) I'm sure a person can count all the way to ten while locating a camera, turning on the flash, focusing, telling the children to say "cheese" and then shooting the picture, right? Perhaps the photo was taken to accompany an insurance claim.(I hope they bought disaster coverage!)

We don't know the particulars here, but can only hope that these little munchkins got all cleaned up and sent to Grandma's for the day while Mom and Dad return to normal. These guys can count on this story being told and retold at family gatherings long into their adult years.

Teach a Child to Fish...

From last week's Baby Blues newpaper comic strip:


Give a child a fish, and he'll eat for a day.
Teach a child to fish, and you'll end up with a hook in your ear lobe.

[I always wondered why my dad stopped taking me fishing...]

Best Celebrity Quote in a While

Picked up this quote from the March 2006 Reader's Digest magazine:

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of doing so they can see that it's not the answer.

Was surprised by who said it: Jim Carrey. I'm curious as to what's behind the line...

Enough Already

e nough', n. satisfying the need or desire; adequate; sufficient.

According to the American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, enough (along with its synonyms sufficient and adequate) has the connotation of having what is needed (or being what is needed) without excess.

This dictionary entry suggests to me is that enough is very desirable. As I consider my deepest longings I conclude that they mainly consist of simply having my needs and my desires satisfied. That makes enough the answer to many of my bigger life questions. While I was away from my routine on vacation, this theme kept recurring. I began to wonder:

How much is enough rest?
How much is enough activity?

How much is enough play?
How much is enough work?

How much is enough sleep?
How much is enough wakefulness?

How much is enough solitude?
How much is enough togetherness?

How much is enough silence?
How much is enough talking?

How much is enough learning new information?
How much is enough reflection on this new information that I can understand how it applies in my life?

How much is enough spontaneity?
How much is enough structure?

How much is enough worship toward God?
How much is enough service toward others?


Discerning the balance between these polarities isn't always easy for me. I believe that the answers become easier to figure out as my attitudes about things are examined and recalibrated. Doing this provides a pattern for the deep heart to reference when considering all the other needs and desires (I'm talking legitimate desires here, not indulgence).

Our culture is both fragmented and fractured in its insane attachment to things. The unabated lust for affluence and consumption in contemporary society renders us out of touch with reality. Our appetites become distorted, inciting cravings for things we neither need nor want. The increasingly outrageous portions restaurateurs serve us provides a excellent symptom of the sickness.

As we slough off the toxic tendency toward seeing how much we can produce, amass and consume, a freedom to choose simplicity emerges. This is not a tendency toward asceticism, which is perhaps imagined to be the opposite of materialism, but rather the enjoyment of things without having one's heart set on them. Balance. Centeredness.

As I reset my attitude toward things -- both those things I have already acquired and those I might desire to have, I find that it becomes easier to step back and say "enough" in regards to other tendencies. Where heretofore I might have kept on talking, or sleeping or working, I'm finding it a little bit easier to pause and view the circumstance more objectively. It's then that I realize I've actually had enough -- my genuine desire or need has been delightfully met.

I am increasingly drawn to the attractiveness of this liberty to eschew excess. A strangely expansive and powerful feeling accompanies my enough. It's as though I'm being incrementally unfettered as I exercise newly utilized options regarding my own appetites. Quite naturally (perhaps axiomatically), the shifting internal realities manifest in external behaviors.

It all reminds me of this scripture passage:

But seek first [the Kingdom of God] and His righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

-- Matthew 6:33

It beckons me to an inner reality of joyous simplicity graced with freedom from the tyranny of anxious self-absorbtion. No need to grasp to have or experience enough -- whatever the need or desire, it will be adequately and sufficiently satisfied.

Have I said enough?

I Like Ike

Toward the end of our week-long vacation in the Rockies, we realized that as we left the mountains, we would be heading straight into western Kansas during the hottest portion of the day. The high that day was predicted to be 106F. We adjusted our itinerary slightly to put us into Abilene, Kansas, at about noon so we could climb out of our somewhat crowded car (our very tall teens aren't little people any more) and spend the afternoon at...

The Einsenhower Museum.

We had visited this museum sixteen years earlier while staying at my husband's folks' in Lawrence, Kansas. There was much that I had forgotten. And a lot more that had been added to the displays. It was such an enjoyable afternoon. (Well, I admit, my youngest complained that her dad and I took waaaay too long...)

What struck me during this visit was the very grave weight resting on this one man's shoulders as he alone made the decision to invade Europe on D-Day. There on display was the handwritten note he penned on the eve of June 6th, a draft of his message to the world taking full responsibility for the mission, had it failed. His secretary later retrieved the crumpled piece of paper from a wastebasket, imagining that it might become a significant historical artifact one day. He was right.

I stood there, straining mightily to conjure the incongruity of dread mixed with hopefulness after giving those orders. There was no way for General Eisenhower, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, to know whether or not the assault on Normandy's beaches would be successful in driving the Nazi army inland. Contemplating the possible failure of taking those beaches, he must have groaned inwardly. He anticipated the possibility of facing the Western World filled with deep remorse, assuming full responsiblity for a grim outcome.

No one else in the world could have felt the magnitude of relief as reports of the Allies' success filtered in. No one else had borne as crushing a burden of responsibility as this man, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He returned stateside a hero. He had demonstrated a rare degree of diplomacy in bringing the Allied Forces together as one unified front. He commanded a rare degree of patience, tactical intelligence, and steely nerves in waiting for just the right moment to give orders. A leader's leader.

I admit it: I like Ike. As President of the United States, this man presided over a period in our nation's history when not even one American soldier saw battle. His wartime experiences had convicted him that the nations of the world must pursue peace. In his own words, from a speech given before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1953:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Another display in the museum delved into the meaning of the name Eisenhower. It said that long ago, the name Eisenschmidt would have referred to a black smith -- eisen meaning "iron", and schmidt meaning "smith". However, Eisenhower would have referred to a person who makes ornamental iron works -- hower being from the same root as the English word "hewer".

As I considered the significance of this world leader's surname, my thoughts turned to the following verses spoken by the prophet Micah:

Many nations shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Micah 4:2-3 NKJV

Colorado Was Great

My husband, daughter and I spent the first four days of our vacation in Estes Park, Colorado. Then two of our sons flew to Denver to join us for a week in Steamboat Springs. We enjoyed one another, our surroundings, our accommodations, our activities, and especially having no schedule!

I discovered that a week and a half at altitudes of 7-8,000 feet can clear one's thinking. I'll share some of my "mountain top" thoughts with you in the coming days and weeks.

We sure did take in some spectacular scenery.

On Vacation

I am on vacation in Colorado untill July 17. Check back then.

Summer Entertainment

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Thinking About How We Use Our Mouths

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver;
The heart of the wicked is worth little.
The lips of the righteous feed many,
But fools die for lack of wisdom.

-- Proverbs 10:20-21