Albert Schweitzer on the unexpected secret to happiness

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know. The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve."

Sometimes It's Hard to Say Thanks

The surgeon lifts his knife, lowers the blade, makes his incision, which is trailed by a red ribbon of blood. Were you not anesthetized, you would most certainly feel the pain. Tissue splits under the scalpel's razor edge. There is nothing natural about this experience. If we knew nothing of it, if we had no trust in the medical procedure, we would be horrified. We walk into a brightly illuminated room. A sinister, masked figure hunches over a body. He is surrounded by accomplices as he bends to the task. You see the blood and realize with horror that he's slicing someone open. What good could possibly come of this?

Yet, knowing what we know, instead of being horrified, we are thankful. Instead of thinking the man a criminal, we find him good. What appears to be a game of death is instead an exercise in health. We know the man's purpose and we trust his skill.

What we observe has not changed, but the perspective has, and that makes all the difference. Is it really surprising, then, that God might be able to bring good out of circumstances that right now appear to be so bad?

© 2005

Give Away the Feeling

How does it feel when someone treats you like a friend? How does it feel when someone is kind to you without expecting anything in return? How does it feel to be loved? Picture that feeling. Then realize: this is a feeling you can give away.

God is invisible. But you can show people exactly what he looks like. All you have to do is love.

© 2005

G.K. Chesterton on Art

"Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal."

We Should Still Be Writing Psalms

There are two books of the Bible which, in one sense at least, should never be complete. One is the Book of Acts, which chronicles the birth of the Church. We keep writing that story of the ever-expanding kingdom of God, a story we write with our lives.

The other book we continue to write is Psalms, which relates our human experience to God, and God to our human experience. This is what makes the Psalms a book of such deeply felt worship, as well as a book we each must write in our own experience, if not also in our words.

© 2005

The Hands of Time, The Arms of God

My watch measures time by the tick. It clicks off seconds, minutes, hours. The date changes in the small window on the watch face. Twenty-four hours, another day gone.

The sun marks time, too. Day and night. Season and year.

I watch the sky. Stars cartwheel through space, the gears of time in perfect sync. The moon changes its face as the months come and go.

Leaves show green, then golden. They fall, leaving naked branches behind to catch and sift the snowfall. The earth warms. Buds form and burst open. Seasons come, seasons go -- birth, life, death, birth, life, death -- measured by all creation.

Dreams also measure the march of time. An idea formed. A desire born. A goal established. A plan executed. A fulfillment. A disappointment. A success. A failure.

Sooner or later the hands of time strangle us, the final measure of a lifespan. But the arms of God enfold us, embrace us, hold us secure in the now that never ends.

© 2005