I hear America singing, by Walt Witman

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck; 5
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs. 10

70 or 80 years

Gotta see the irony in preaching Psalm 90 tomorrow and Pete's mother being in the hospital today. She's 80 years old and not in the best health. Psalm 90 contains the phrase, "we've been given 70 years, if we're lucky 80." And the hope of the psalmist is that we would learn how to number our days that we would gain a wise heart.

How do we number our days? How do we measure a year (as the song asks?)

I say relationships, I say love, I say risks, I say hard conversations, I say honest answers, I say every breath easily taken because of faith and hope. Count 'em up - that's living.

Chimidunchik

I'm reading a fantastic book called Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser, the founder of the Omega Institute. One chapter tells this fantastic story -

There is this man on a train, a crowded train and the man asks another if he would move the bag next to him. The man does nothing. It's a polish joke, or maybe a Russian joke... but an old joke and the old word for baggage was chimidunchik. The man asks again, and is once again ignored. More people enter the train. The man asks again and is ignored again and he gets so frustrated that he just starts yelling, "move your chimidunchik, move your chimidunchik..." He gets so angry that he picks up the bag and throws it out the window. He looks at the seatmate and says, "what are you going to do?" The man says, "nothing. it wasn't my chimidunchik."

Everyone has their own chimidunchik... and only we can carry it.

thoughts on Philippians 4

But prayer is not just passive, we can’t just offer this to God, and assume God will take care of it all… we must both extract negative thoughts from our minds and replace them with good thoughts.

What’s with good thoughts? How do good thoughts work?

In college, my roommate and I would do this little exercise if we were having a really bad day. We would force each other to think of three things for which we were thankful.

It may sound easy, but not if you’re really focused on bad things. It’s hard but it works.

Can we go back to science for a bit?

There have been studies that show the affects of thoughts like shame, guilt, apathy, despair, fear, anger. These thoughts actually create weakness in us physically.

On the flip side – thoughts of love, peace, joy, acceptance, willingness make us stronger.

A pic to go with article below