Up and down on my toes.

It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to your Name, O Most High. To tell of your loving-kindness early in the morning and of your faithfulness in the night season; for as it was in the beginning, it is now and it evermore shall be. Alleluia. Psalm 92:1-2; Gloria

I’m thanking you, GOD, from a full heart, I’m writing the book on Your wonders. I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I’m singing Your song, High God. Psalm 9:1, The Message

We can only offer forgiveness if we have stood under the constant waterfall of forgiveness ourselves. And only hour-by-hour gratitude is strong enough to overcome all temptations to resentment. Richard Rohr

 Well, it’s a familiar prayer, my Wednesday fixed prayer for myself: May I not lean on my own strength and understanding, but in all my ways I will acknowledge you and have a heart of thanksgiving and be filled with Your wisdom and grace.  And may I live in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

And I have been praying this for a long time, but I cannot say that I am whistling, laughing and jumping for joy, singing His song.

Well, sometimes I jump. Up and down on my toes. A little off-kilter, but jumping.

And Psalm 19 promises many good things to those whose hearts are inclined to the LORD and His statues: wisdom for the innocent, a rejoiced heart, light to the eyes, enlightenment and for me, what I long for most, a revived soul.

But I have a pretty good idea that the laughing and jumping, and well, really whistling? Is a pretty concrete measure of how much serenity has settled down around my soul.

Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.

And I feel like in so many ways I stand before one of those cartoonish swirling signposts, spinning in every direction like a whirling dervish.

But I watched Nicole make her decisions these past few days. I watched her again and again face a choice, pause, quiet and in that stillness ask God which way. Every decision. Like whether she should strap cowboy boots onto her already overloaded backpack. And He said, “Yes.”

And His answers were not always my answers. I lean much more heavily on the Keep it Simple Stupid mantra. But we already know His ways are not my ways.

Let go and let God.

In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say: 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.'"  - AA

Incline my heart, O God, to your ways.

I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged

It is a good thing to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to your Name, O Most High; To tell of your loving-kindness early in the morning and of your faithfulness in the night season. Psalm 92:1-2

He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for His Name’s sake. Psalm 23:3

I sure as heck have no idea what lies ahead.

But I have a heart full of images of Jesus breaking the bread and lifting His eyes to heaven and giving thanks before He offers it up to His followers. Before the miracle of provision.

And sometimes the night seasons are long. And last night I sat outside and let bits of an almost rainstorm splatter me as I read Dickens A Tale of Two Cities: Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.

And I am not sure why I went further into the melancholic mood first established with Saturday’s Les Miz, because of course Dickens builds upon it, brick by brick, with the sorrows of mankind. But there is light gleaming his each of his carefully hefted words, just as hope echoes in the wordless tunes of dreaming of dreams that now form the soundtrack against the stillness.

And there is great mercy found in the Dickens’ cry for justice: A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!

Every human creature. And Our Shepherd knows each our names and sees the secret longing of our hearts. For we are Your people and the sheep of Your pasture.

And in this let me give praise for Your lovingkindness in the morning. For in Thee do I trust.

For we are your people and the sheep of your pasture; we will give you thanks for ever and show forth your praise from age to age.

Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee.

Deliver me; Teach me to do Thy will. Quicken me, Oh LORD. I lift up my soul unto Thee.

And even if I do not know for what I ask, Your Spirit within me does. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.

Almighty God, give me grace that I may always most thankfully receive.