Forty-three

Bits and Pieces
Bits and Pieces

People. People important to you, people unimportant to you cross your life, touch it with love and carelessness and move on. There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of relief and wonder why you ever came into contact with them. There are people who leave you and you breathe a sigh of remorse and wonder why they had to go away and leave such a gaping hole. Children leave parents; friends leave friends. Acquaintances move on. People change homes. People grow apart. Enemies hate and move on. Friends love and move on. You think on the many who have moved into your hazy memory. You look on those present and wonder.

I believe in God's master plan in lives. He moves people in and out of each other's lives, and each leaves his mark on the other. You find you are made up of bits and pieces of all who ever touched your life, and you are more because of it, and you would be less if they had not touched you.

Pray God that you accept the bits and pieces in humility and wonder, and never question, and never regret.

Bits and Pieces
Bits and Pieces

Note: this is the very first passage I heard from this book. It was in the first few days of my freshman year in college.

Twenty

"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy
sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer."

If it were just a matter of the mouth,
I wouldn't have so much trouble,

but it isn't,

and I do.

Eighty-four

I knelt and said,
"But I am one, only one."

And the world is so large. And the evil is so strong. There are so few who care. There are so few who sense.
"But I am one, only one."

The machines of organization roll on, crushing the individual into a part of the mass. The hopelessness of the world-wrought minds spreads and smothers the hope of the lonely individuals.
"But I am one, only one."

Entire cities have been destroyed. Entire nations have reaped their seeds of distrust and lie writhing in the in their death throes.
"But I am one, only one."

While I eat my fill, hundreds die in hunger. While I close my door in careless safety, hundreds watch doors in fear and resignation.
"But I am one, only one."

The powers of mind and thought and measurement reduce the world to calculated probabilities.
"But I am one, only one."

And even that one walks in fear and stumbling, discontent, and lack of strength.
"And I am so one, only one."

And he said,
"Stand up,
I choose you."

And I stood up and the earth trembled,
And that is the beginning to which there
is no end,
Except in God.

Thirty-four

"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kindom of heaven."

I guess the worst thing about growing up is that fun and amazement drift into sporadic entertainment and forced, ritualized behavior. The glow of vocation slips into the monotony of procedure. The exhaustion that comes from playing too hard becomes more effort than it is worth. Comfort is more yearned for than the experience of reading or talking away the night. Joy becomes a matter of observing and reflecting on the almost grotesquely carefee child.

Christ spoke several times of children and his attraction to them. He thought we needed to be like them, in some ways.

I pray that I never mistake atrophy of imagination for maturity. I pray that I never approach Christ so solemnly and so full of cynicism of years and doubts that I find him distracted while I whine to him. I pray I never see his eyes wander from me as he searches for a child lost in play.