A friend posted this on Facebook a few days ago, and it resonated with me.  I think I’ve read it before, but it struck me again as deeply true. From Henri Nouwen, one of the most profound thinkers I’ve ever read:

To wait open-endedly is a radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our imaginings. So is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that He molds us according to His love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.

Why is it that our world is so concerned with control?  I struggle with this often myself, trying to plan out what will happen or what *should* happen, when I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m talking about.  But I still talk.  Maybe it’s time for me to be quiet and let someone else speak, eh?

Thanks for the well-wishes for Bob2. He’s survived the week, at least, despite the fact that the little rocks around his base? Yeah, they’re glued in. But never fear. I will find a way to water him. But not too much.

We hope.

I got more done last month than I thought I did, looking at numbers instead of feelings of moving forward, but that just goes to show that if I could actually get my brain to turn on every day, I’d get TONS done. So I feel less bad about completely wasting a month, because I didn’t, but I didn’t use the time all that well, either.

Today is a day for crossing things off my to-do list.

Good quote from Howard Thurman, American theologian, clergyman, and activist:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Abraham Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, in an address to Congress, 1959:

Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on Earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.

It intrigues me as much because of its truth in Lincoln’s case as because such a character, whether male or female, would be a worthwhile challenge to create.