Skip to main content

Fated to Portend

Practicing feeling and listening prayer as prescribed by John Mark Comer in his How to Unhurry Workbook. That practice gave rise yesterday to no man is an island, and today to the following thoughts: 

I have so much stimulus in a given day, it can lead to confusion about what to do next. In the lounge room I joked with a teacher that I was funneling a ton of information (I must have looked deep in my own world) and she said, "make sure something comes out the other side". In Tim's workspace at Henry there's a whiteboard with the following capture: 

Problems

Priorities

Preferences

I consider that more and more. I consider near term vs long term problems. Focusing on the near term is important for a sense of accomplishment and efficacy. But if the long term problems be neglected, fixing near term problems doesn't much matter. See the funneling consideration for priorities (ie. make sure something comes out the other side). What are preferences? :)

And my last thought was on checking out. Yesterday, as we prepare for sleep my wife asks what time we will be leaving on Saturday for family camping. 5 PM. "What, that's too late, I was hoping to get their in the afternoon!"

Me: "I can take you on Friday and you can camp 2 days."

Wife: "No, I don't want to do that."

I picked up my tablet, put in my headphones, and turned on Star Wars: Clone Wars and don't speak another word. I was upset that I can't get 24 hours and that she is not flexible. But looking at it another way: 24 hours is a luxury, and she only wants a solution that's going to work. 

Our main conversational style difference is that she wants to respond yes and no to propositions and I want to arrive at yes and no propositions through dialogue. We're doomed. 

:)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Do of Potential Energy

James 4:17  New Century Version (NCV) Anyone who knows the right thing to do, but does not do it, is sinning. Romans 7:15-18 For what I want to do I do not do, but  what I hate I do . And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.   The tension between my wife and I is coming to a breaking point. And that breaking point is either going to turn out for better or worse . The formula for distance is as follows: Matt (mistake) = Jess (distrust). And so it has gone for these 10 years. Notice that the formula does not include mitigation; in other words; Matt (good things) = Jess (approbation/trust) seems to be of negligible effect compared to the mistake coefficient. Thinking in terms of Gibbs free energy, the state of our relationship seems to be much more governed by mistakes (enthalpy) than be any good (entropy)....
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditation as Rightly Concentrated Consideration | Contemplation as The Course of Right Action

Let us begin by saying that the basic difference between meditation and contemplation is that meditation is a human mode of prayer whereas contemplation is divinely infused prayer. This morning I consider, consideration. It's a term often used in the Bible, I believe in both the old and new testament. While you are going about your life, have you considered this... It's the entryway to the contemplative life. I use contemplation there, as a culminating thing, intentionally. Before I read a little bit, I might have considered using the word meditation instead, but that reveals my persuasion and error; also my inexperience. Meditation is man-initiated deep-thought. It's hope is to reach God. Contemplation, as exposed in the article below, is Spirit-breathed prayer inside of us, guiding us to right and holy actions. As I was searching consideration "vs" the other 2 terms, concentration came up. Presently, I see that as the course from consideration to meditation....
Post a Comment
Read more

Just Wait

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.  Isaiah 40:31 I'm thinking about picking up John Mark Comer's Loveology. I'm not infatuated with his style, but he does have an uncanny knack of navigating great depths breezily. And I'm in need of reconsidering love and my relationship with my wife. This morning, feeling we are on a drought of sorts, I'm thinking "what can I do?" And as I searched (with an honest to God search) I saw how men centuries over have navigated the mystery of the inner world of their wives. I've long shared a favorite image explaining the dichotomy of men and women, showing the intricacies of turning on a woman versus, well, a man.  So, what can I do? I hate to say it... wait. My wife needs to know that I can. After years of it coming pretty easy, I think it's time to get in there and turn a few knobs, flick a few switches and tweak intimacy. There's a difference betwee...
Post a Comment
Read more