Fwd: AM with Merton (To Be Yourself)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "wayne burns" <wayneburnsB@webtv.net>
Date: May 28, 2010 4:32 AM
Subject: AM with Merton (To Be Yourself)
To: "wayne burns" <wayneburnsB@webtv.net>

"It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not.  It is
as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you
ought to be.  How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey
if you take the road to another man's city?  How do you expect to reach
your own perfection by leading somebody else's life?  His sanctity will
never be yours;  you must have the humility to work out your own
salvation in a darkness where you are absolutely alone....

And it it takes heroic humility to be yourself and to be nobody but the
man, or the artist, that God intended you to be."

(NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION,  page 100)

Who am I?

Wayne

http://community.webtv.net/wayneburnsB/WayneBurns

"Gracious Lord Jesus Christ, I am thanking you in my lying down and in
my rising up, in my waking and in my sleeping, in my speaking and in my
working.  May my life and the lives of all I meet be filled with your
radiant presence. "  Amen!

Jack and Poppa eating

Jack at zoo

Jack pushing strollers. Do you see the girafes?

Israel archeology

I grew to appreciate the I A A and the BAR during my visit to Israel last year.

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=3&ArticleID=9

Burnout

http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=5843829&ct=8384405&notoc=1

Fwd: AM with Merton (The Lord)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "wayne burns" <wayneburnsB@webtv.net>
Date: May 11, 2010 4:18 AM
Subject: AM with Merton (The Lord)
To: "wayne burns" <wayneburnsB@webtv.net>

"In all His dealings with men on earth, the Lord acted and spoke in such
a way that He appealed always to the deepest and most inviolate recesses
of each person.  Even those who met Him in the most casual contacts, who
cried out to Him from the roadside, asking His help, would be brought
before Him and addressed directly, without hedging:  'What dost thou
ask?  Canst thou believe?'"

(DISPUTED QUESTION,  page 110)

How is The Lord responded to my needs?

Wayne

http://community.webtv.net/wayneburnsB/WayneBurns

"Gracious Lord Jesus Christ, I am thanking you in my lying down and in
my rising up, in my waking and in my sleeping, in my speaking and in my
working.  May my life and the lives of all I meet be filled with your
radiant presence. "  Amen!

After the Storm

Well things are quieting down. It is raining today but hopefully not enough to flood things again. The most exciting thing this weekend was Mother's Day and the perfect game by Dallas Braden.

Beginning the Prayers again

Do you ever get to the point where you cant pray?

Endurance

One of the complications of growing older is to calculate endurance. One goes on as usual but discovers that tiredness sets in sooner. The length of the journey increases. The detours become more prelevant. Ones actions suffer. Our speed has slowed and we not only wonder why but can't forgive ourselves for the lack of enthusiasm we once exhibited.

Time is of the essence at this point and a small point of realism. We have to slow down and we will be slowed down by physical or mental frameworks that were unexpected if we do not listen to what is happening. It is the disaster waiting to happen. It is a fragile time in our lives. A fragility that means suffering can not be solved. People's sins can not be taken on. One is not the center of the universe, just a molecule flowing and waiting to be submerged.

No the journey is not easy, nor the way. Where does one go from here? Day 2.

Israel to Montana-Morning-The First Day

One needs time to write about the future, or the present for that matter. I am sitting in the midst of a storm ravaged city. Hundreds of homes have been demolished by water, some have lost all they have, others have died.

It changes ones perspective. One searches beyond the present to the past or the future, wavering with every step or every word.

I have chosen for my narcotic for the moment a book covered in dust from my library, The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich. I paid 96 cents for it on October 9, 1987. I have read it before, quickly, picking up a few tidbits of time, and forgot it. Its chosen place now defines a new place of being for me. At 66 years of age, time is running out and a question remains, "How do I make the most of what is left?"

There is no quick or easy answer, their are only comparisons of a life lived and events that changed ones life. It is neither desert, nor storm, but both. Conflictual moments that somehow play on the memory with ultimate importance. For instance, two words ring in my mind today: Jerusalem, Israel, and Red Lodge, Montana. World's apart in every way. A hurried, fragile existence in one, a quiet frozen winter in the other, both traps of my imagination during the last year.

The Solace of Open Spaces has a different meaning now. It is a rehearsal perhaps, or a prophetic vision of meaning. Having recently spent several days in the openness of Montana, I seem to have begun to understand Solace, the brillance of silence, the quiet hum of wayward mountains, the depth of sorrow in accidents of long ago that are not forgotten.

Jerusalem was a captured city, dominated by the Dome of the Rock, the ediface of another generation. A place for a cross, a tomb of David, the desert regions surrounding Qumran and En-gedi surrounding it with the glare of historical significance. There was much less of that in Montana. A fire that occurred when Willie Nelson played in the area is remembered as, "Willie's Fire." The dominance of moment rearranges the depth of time. It is morning, "The First Day."

Day 3 flood zone

It is day 3 after the flood. Many are still in shock. Where do we go from here is a big question. Build again? Probably not for many. At least the sun is shining. Construction has begun again. Some are burying the dead.

It causes one to reevaluate our lives. What is really important? You think about that!

Storms

What a weekend.We have had 13 inches of rain this weekend. Lots of roads around us are closed. We are staying in today. Our church service has been canceled.

Watching rescues on channel two in nashville. Guess the weather channel will be watched quite a not of the day.