Questions within

Again, in my days of late, I’m realizing mostly questions, and few if any answers. This quote resonates:

"Frequently, we are restlessly looking for answers, going from door to door, from book to book, or from church to church, without having really listened carefully and attentively to the questions within...

When God enters into the center of our lives to unmask our illusion of possessing final solutions and to disarm us with always deeper questions, we will not necessarily have an easier or simpler life, but certainly a life that is honest, courageous, and marked with the ongoing search for truth. Sometimes, in living the question, answers are found. More often, as our questions and issues are tested and mature in solitude, the questions simply dissolve...

God does not solve (all) our problems or answer all our questions, but leads us closer to the mystery of our existence where all questions cease."

- Henri Nouwen...Spiritual Direction

Gotta admit – being with grandson Noah and knowing deep within that God loves me even more than I love that grand child, helps me embrace living in some questions. Maybe I’m – I hope I am – getting just a little bit closer to the mystery of existence where questions cease.

Disturb us

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly -
to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery;
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
We ask you push back the horizons of our hopes,
and to push us in the future with strength, courage, hope and love.

– Sir Francis Drake

On focus

“Cool breezes and a clear sky. This day will not come again.” -Thomas Merton...Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander 45

From a research brief from Scientific American MIND Mar/Apr 2011 issue:

“Lose Focus, Lose Happiness: A wandering mind may bring you down

Daydreaming may boost creativity, but a new study from psychologists at Harvard University suggests that letting your mind wander may also lead to unhappiness. The researchers had more than 2,000 study participants use an iPhone application that randomly asked them to report their current activity and state of mind. The results indicate that people’s minds wander an awful lots… and the more people reported being distracted, the lower they reported their mood. There may be something to “living in the moment” after all. – Erica Westly”

At this source researchers Matthew Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard University, and lead author on the study Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert assert: “People's minds wandered almost 47 percent of the time, and were more likely to think about pleasant topics than unpleasant or neutral ones. Yet thinking pleasant thoughts made people no happier than focusing on what they were doing – and unhappiness spiked when thinking neutral or unpleasant thoughts… Mind wandering took up at least 30 percent of the time during almost every activity, including playing, exercising, praying and taking care of the kids…So what was the only exception? "Apparently people focus most intensely on making love. [Making love] was 10 percent [for mind wandering], which was the lowest," Killingsworth said in an e-mail. "The highest was 'grooming, self care' at 65 percent."

(Study is detailed in the Nov. 11, 2010 issue of the journal Science)

Spring will come soon to our part of the world and I’m looking forward to that. But I don’t want only to look forward, I want to also be present in this day and in this moment (even when it’s COLD outside? Even when some situations feel cruddy? – well, I’ll try). Sounds like we’ll be better off “all in” whatever it is that we’re doing. Attentive. Intentional. Focused.

And it helps me to come back to the idea that there is a Loving God who has gifted me with this moment, even when it’s harder to find the gift under all the clutter, or the grass under all the snow.

May you be present in your moments, and may those moments hold good and gift. Best, Dee

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:17