Doing Dishes

Practice the presence of God while you're doing dishes. Each dish in your hand can become the love of God. Everything ordinary can become spiritual practice, the ultimate goal of which is love of God in every detail of life.

Questions

What God-oriented questions are you asking? No question is too silly or strange to ask. What's on your mind these days?

Food

The array of choices can be overwhelming.


Fish from Thailand, berries from Mexico, peaches from Georgia. We live in the middle of a food-web that I feel estranged from. Estranged from my food. Where does it come from, who handles it, how much gas does it cost to get it to me, how is the farm labor treated, what would life be like without the global network that makes it way into my local grocery store?

Whatever happened to seasonal, local food? Whatever happened to food-simplicity?

Turn It Off

We are besieged by noise. Even in the relative quiet of an unoccupied room with only a computer as your friend. Even there the computer hums.

Sometimes you just have to get unplugged. Turn off the phone. Mute the tweets. Let facebook exist without your status updates. Turn the ipod, TV, and Wii off.

In all of my years of spiritual searching, in all my time groping for a sense of God's presence I have never found a deeper way to be touched by the Spirit than through silence.

What?

What is most important to you?

It's never too early or too late to ask this question. In fact, I think this question should be a constant point of reference for us. This question can weed out the garbage in our lives. This question can help keep us focused. This question can help bring meaning to our days.

What is most important to you? Are you living it?

Gratitude

We have so much to be grateful for. Sometimes we forget. Other times we ignore. And still other times we deny that we have much to be thankful for. But look around you. Look within you. Look at the people in your life.

If we all started appreciating what we have more than worrying about what we don't have, we'd all be better off.

Painting and Repainting

I've seen them working on again and off again for weeks. Scraping the paint, sanding, painting a fresh coat, then another. Attentive to their work, patient as the sun is hot, the three men keep at it.

Their work on the church steps and wheelchair ramp remind me of how we ought to approach our relationship with God. Slow, patient, and attentive. Nothing too fast. Steady work. Keep at it; keep praying, studying, thinking, serving.

Unlike the painting job, though, our spiritual work will never end. We must keep painting and repainting, sanding and scraping, even as God sands, scrapes, and repaints us.