Eternity in One Single Moment

“But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.”

~Benjamin Disraeli.

Not good news for the depressed. But it is great news for the person wanting to extract the last pinprick from life. The fact is the weary know this truth more than most—for their moments drag ineluctably. Each hour hangs eternally on the wall—3,600 long seconds every one. There is just as powerful a positive:

The Positive Power of a Million Different ‘Eternities’

Though God’s placed us into the quantum realm of time there is before us great evidence of the infinity of eternity. This is known never more practically than via the vastness in the range of human and situational response variables.

Hang with me.

In other words, the eternal DNA in a single moment means the immediate future cannot be predicted. There are too many possibilities.

Any divisible second sees us able to choose thousands of ways to act or react.

Time is not the constraint. Our imaginations, and things like physics, are the only limit. Time only dictates the span—how long we have.

How is it that we can waste inordinate chunks of time and still have plenty left to do what we need to do? For one person this doesn’t apply to there are ten it does. (And still, these things are robbed from the few—only to confound us.) There are many second chances of practical grace available for the slow learner in us; we all tend to be a bit slow to learn life lessons.

A person can decide to about-face their lives any moment they choose. That’s power you can’t buy. Actually following through with the decision is where life gets tough.

Magnifying Each Minute

What is exhausting is equally exhilarating. Either perspective is viewable.

There’s no sense in being swept away in exhaustion; it’s best to find enough restful instants and come at life as fresh as can be. Those enlivened flashes of eternity are laid captive by God-blessed choice.

Each minute can then be perfect—it comes down to mere perception. What use is there in seeing anything reduced to waste? It’s better to see the purpose in even the darkest second. There’s no point to thought otherwise. Why regret if it’s not taking us somewhere positive; to a learned objective?

For every experience known to life there is an accounting. This is an echo in eternity. It can be seen as ‘judgment’ if we want a negative view. Turning it around, everything’s meaningful. Nothing is wasted. Life is lived live. There’s nothing pretentious.

As reflective effort is added to life there are myriads of different attributions for one single action. That alone is a diverse mystery.

This life is thick with meaning and much of it is totally beyond us. And that’s okay.

The minutes are magnified whether we like it or not, and if we can just see that, we can gain so much more for life.

As far as understanding’s concerned, this is not even the start of it.

But one thing remains: the world is yours, my friend!

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Committing to Live with Reverent Passion

At times of inner and external complaint it pays to consider there are millions who would gladly swap with us. We’re inclined to forget this. Re-committing to live afresh with reverent passion is one way to live thankfully for today and all days.

And we need to be reminded every day.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Living at passion and reverently so,

Is a bit like an attempt at baking kneaded dough,

For growing the joy that emits rippled bliss,

Is just like a case of fear gone amiss.

As light engendered burns out the dark,

Life now finds us with a glint and a spark,

Rolls us down heaven’s grand lane,

Far enough away from hellish disdain.

Passion absorbed that powers us on,

Golden strides never seem gone for long,

Thankfulness churned and nothing felt rotten,

A humble good life never so forgotten.

Wise it is now to steady the gait,

A wondrous and stately closely matched mate,

Now it is with a reverent passion,

Teeth no longer experience past gnashing.

So we come now to a place that’s best,

A time that’s good for succeeding our test,

Willingness’s there and openness too,

Holds us sway for times held true.

Shining inner light bright as a beacon,

Complaints and fussing we’re no longer seeking,

Positive energy we shallowly wade,

Preciousness, precociousness we’ve now put paid.

Reverent passion now nothing else,

Brings us to joy if not nothing but stealth,

Focused, engorged, the life goads within,

We know now, it seems, how life’s to spin.

As we conclude this merry modest jaunt,

Passion and reverence—a holy little haunt,

Basic, intrepid, lost to the muse,

A battered reed we’ll no longer to bruise.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The idea is to live so passionately that positivity drowns out the negative; for the main part anyway. Notwithstanding low times that bear themselves over our lives, we have the opportunity to grace our days with a more consistent power to live the good life.

More Reverent Passion, Less Fear

The joy enraptured in pure thanks squeezes out fear; they simply cannot co-exist. The more light beckons upon our lives the less the darkness is able to take hold. Then we’re found with a quiet, assured confidence that’s weighed accurately to humility, which is based in the fear of the Lord—which is the only power beyond fear itself.

Even though there are days when our passion evaporates, fear never gets the upper hand for long. And as we look back over these horrendous days we’re thankful that the passion for good living returned so smartly.

With the Right Preparation...

We could complete that sentence with... we can achieve anything.

A reverent passion has compelled us to a place where we have two integrated virtues: preparation has delivered us an unexplained confidence in the surety of the good way, and we’re ready as we can be for testing; which is always coming. We have power for the day so we can live safely for truth. And our truth vanquishes fear.

With the right preparation the mind’s able to sidestep more effectively the temptations to fear and sin that come into all our lives.

Management of this modus operandi is controlled from within. Some days people see us interact these ways and they want to know how. Every searcher wants spiritual composure.

The Reverently Passionate Thankful Person Cannot Harm or Be Harmed

“... a bruised reed he [or she] will not break.”

~Isaiah 42:3a (NRSV).

According to this prophesy of Isaiah—which can be seen as pointed at Jesus, the Christian viewpoint—there is a manner of living that neither harms nor is harmed.

Jesus might have been ‘harmed’ on the cross—and as a man almost certainly—but it can be seen by Jesus’ responses to taunts, beatings and universal shame, that he resisted with perfect effect any hurt bound for him.

Jesus was better than that hurt.

The wonderful confidence in this is, underpinning thankfulness—engendered by a commitment to live with reverent passion—can resist all temptations of complaint, submission to fear, and weakness. This cogent truth only needs to be experienced once and we’re under way.

We can then employ and re-employ this method any time we choose.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: Rugged Elegant Inspiration Network (2004). Website: http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com/a/002610.html.

Chasing the Happiness Drug

“... once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”

~Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love.

There’s a school of thought about that derides the passion for happiness, but surely it’s a common human need and good desire to be fulfilled. This doesn’t contend against the opposite school; what’s to be learned from suffering. Suffering gives meaning to happiness. Its overthrown urges are vindicated by it.

Happiness is an elusive thing.

The more it’s sought the more it runs the other way. But there’s a middle ground in seeking and finding, as there’s a skill in retaining that which many find impossible to embrace with any durable confidence.

A Cherished Prize and Happiness ‘the Choice’

When happiness eludes, can it be willed or chosen for? Some think so. It depends, of course, on hope. The repealing presence of fear finds itself (paradoxically) at the receiving end of joy. Hope produces joy. It extinguishes fear.

It’s hard to feel hopeful when you’re not. No brainer really.

I’m not sure happiness can be willed—simply a choice. This is even more reason it’s to be prized, per the Gilbert quote.

There we go; just proved correct those suffering contempt at happiness’s mocking hand. And those are many! Despite the most proximal wish many are those who cannot secure a sense of lasting happiness.

Even more is it to be prized. Against the naysayers, happiness, the drug for life, is to be grasped and held tight enough not to be easily lost, whilst loosely enough we don’t strangle it.

Can we frustrate ourselves by becoming polarised by it? Sure.

Being Gentle with Ourselves

When thought is given to great works on happiness it’s hard to go past Max Ehrmann’s, The Desiderata.

These last three lines offer up the overall mood:

“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

This ode reeks of acceptance. Happiness can only be assured at the behest of a place of greatest personal protection.

Being gentle with ourselves no matter what happens is the skill of humility—a hard-earned character trait. Happiness and self-pity cannot coexist. Instead of kicking against the pricks of life it’s best to project to oneself copious portions of self-understanding for whatever transpires. And there are so many traps!

The happy medium (pardon the pun) is being thankful for times of happiness whilst investing for it when it’s scarce. That takes courage—to resist a flimsy coping mechanism for the bravery of embracing the fear unhappy times bring.

Then again the Gilbert advice—whilst we’re happy—is good advice.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Desiderata in full is available here.

Signs of Salvation

Doubled over at the burden of things in the past,

Brought to a precipice emptied and alone,

Thought for confusion – life’s end at last,

Ushered forth is a heartbroken moan.

Hard to believe now this is it,

The throbbing presence of struggle and hurt,

When at a sober moment all can be done is sit,

Reliving a life that rests in the dirt.

Instead now, for a moment, the mind’s caused to turn,

Feels the whisper of Spirit’s warm embrace,

Just when inner world was ready torched to burn,

Knowledge is known of prompt and tender grace.

“Open up!” calls the Spirit – winding up the shutters,

Startled at the difference the soul now attends,

Coursing through the veins Spirit’s power flutters,

Power for the healing, how the Spirit mends!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The best way to salvation is at the old life’s end. So many have found it that way. Jesus is the friend of all, but most poignant he’s the lover of the battler’s soul.

No matter our redemption story, Jesus knew us from the beginning. Even at a person’s height—with every sense of accomplishment ordered to their self-satisfied glee—Jesus knows the brokenness within that can call the person home to account at any time.

It’s such a blessing to know the inherent basis of our individual brokenness. Important beginnings can only be made at the behest of critical endings.

The Very Event of Salvation

What is made manifest by the third and fourth stanzas is all too real to the millions who’ve come to know the Christ of their hearts at the stark admission of their weaknesses and their dire dependence on God to get through.

The turn home is made.

Quickly then the Spirit gets to work on renovating the inner vestiges—those narrow halls and sinews of spiritual muscle facilitating new life, symbolised by a better hope than the false hopes of before; those ‘hopes’ that got us to hell in the first place.

Salvation isn’t always (for everyone) a one-off event. It may occur twice, a few times, even repeatedly. Indeed, some might say that it occurs any time we repent!

The signs of salvation feature as the urgent and unrelenting Presence of the Lord flushed through a solitary life—one human being. Whether it’s an event or a series of events from initial salvation or both is irrelevant.

The subject is just thankful for the difference God can make: the best sign of salvation.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Acknowledgement: to Michael W. Smith’s song, Signs, a pivotal song in my redemption story.

If Today Finds You ‘Past’ Your Hope...

Ending vacations or high times lifts the degree of difficulty of life; the drone of the humdrum life intervenes. Approaching the end of much anticipated periods brings mini-grief—the challenge to accept that life must return to normal.

Cherished times, especially those with family, are much vaunted. Too many expectations for these times raise our hopes beyond their probable actualisation.

Managing the Moments = Momentary Wisdom

Our problem is we’re allowing the little season we’re in to dictate to us instead of taking the moment on its own terms. Each moment can be enjoyed. It doesn’t matter where we are or aren’t, who we’re with or not with, or what we’re doing or not doing (or have to do). What matters is the approach.

Breaking down life by managing the moment means expectations are squeezed out of the equation, for expectations are the things that hurt us. They can be thought of as hopes gone to town. There’s nothing wrong with having hopes but they have to be checked in truth. That’s wisdom.

But the truth is we all lose the basis of our hopes with expectations run astray.

So, if thought of expectation can be disciplined to the situation, wisdom is sourced.

A Source of Real Hope

We forget that life is sprinkled with high times and low times.

For instance, unless people choose to work more hours, everyone gets a ‘weekend’ even if that happens mid-week. Or another, cycles of family time come and go—whether we arrange them or not.

Life’s full of cycles. Where we get frustrated is in wanting to manipulate life to finer tolerances than life will allow. There are plenty of good times to fill our bag of hopes with.

When we consider this a truth to live by we’ll have no problem looking a little further over the horizon. Real hope’s adept at seeing the indelible light at the end of the tunnel. It focuses on those things that are more certain than our dreamy expectations.

So, the things to focus on are the real hopes that remain for tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. Whilst peripheral vision is kept on these, the moments tend to manage themselves, for there is no mental noise in the head causing unnecessary reflection over what good things have recently gone.

Let’s not allow the present time to ransom our joy because of incorrect vision and misplaced expectations. Hope is the key. Find the tangible hope and focus on it.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

The Pilgrim’s Progress

The pilgrim and their passage throughout the days,

Is synonymous with the calm ebb of progress,

Though they cannot help but find it a maze,

Pushed indelibly forward are they by the process.

Overwhelmed at joy or stilted in sorrow,

As the days attend each their way,

Cast is mind ever forward to the morrow,

Despite the feat and heartbreak that lay.

Reflective sighs for better days before,

Suddenly pause’s made along life’s evolving path,

For times when things involved thrills galore,

When memory contained thought to laugh.

Then there are those hesitating to reflect,

Scared to obstruct journeying for despair,

Damage aforementioned – abuse and neglect,

Still, theirs is the passage – their task to bear.

Linear fashion is the pilgrimage’s nature,

Minute acceding to minute, time ticking on,

Participant’s vision provides their stature,

Braced to endure and matters to overcome.

Year upon pleading year breath is breathed,

Lengthening the journey is the pilgrim’s aim,

Until call is made, life to be relieved,

Making the most of the God-selected game.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Commentary on the Poem

Life is a pilgrimage that requires progress; a rejection for growth just breeds misery. But whether we’re forwards or backwards in mode—growing or receding—life is a mystery... the whys and wherefores.

Each day along the pilgrimage brings unexpected challenges and joys. We never quite know what we’ll get. Still, tomorrow is pilgrimage’s horizon and hopes intercede powering our means—the manner of going on.

For the many, life never quite matches what’s gone before. The ‘good old days’ wither in nostalgic grief as they’re honoured in our memories... if only we could redeem sense of them.

Countless thousands have their stories of developmental horror. Whether abuse or neglect; there’s an instinctive and understandable reticence to revisit sore times.

The linear fashion of the pilgrimage makes at least that one part predictable. This helps. With it we plan and against that backdrop hopes mount and joy features as an occasional friend.

No matter how hard life’s been or is, the myriad majority are clinging to it—rarely are the ones (though there are millions too many) perjuring life for suicide. Everybody else it seems wants to live as long as they can, and those that do suicide found it momentarily too hard.

Parting Caveat

Beyond the expanse of a solitary person’s thought there’s so much within the scope of pilgrimage. Only so much can be handled in one chunk. The essence of this message is that we’re to marvel at the creative enigma that is one person’s life.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Times for the Cave

Comes times in all lives when to bunker down and batten the hatches is both wisdom and serene peace—a period for escaping the prying, temptuous world’s gaze.

The day comes without warning, just as the moment intercedes and worry confines the spirit, yes, beyond even light of hope. As the comforting darkness of that cavernous dwelling beckons, God’s Presence is felt—sanctuary is afforded as the gate pass is relinquished and ingress is made.

Importance is gleaned over the reality that God’s grace remits this time of retreat.

Always is it essential that God is pleased and it’s a funny sort of faith that allows this time. It’s about riding out the turbulence. For a moment or two, a day or a week even—and via a plethora of vehicles to it—the cave helps the retention of balance.

Timing’s everything, including when to enter into the period of rest, how and under what circumstances. Wisdom drives the right discerning taste. Flushed with right-sized humility, the tread of foot is perfect for the moment, even if things are tenuous.

The Idea of Peace

It’s more an introverted idea but for whatever reason there’s a close God-connection established when all’s home and nothing’s lost out at sea.

Hiding’s the feature of momentary self-interest, and God sponsors it. This is not something that’s to be repented from like occasions when the pity party’s rolled out for anyone to attend with a warming shoulder for us to cry on. It’s a mandatory time for recovery is this. It is God’s intended cool relief.

Peace is the place that’s extended to the heart wise enough to find the pleasantness of the cave without fear of retribution or condemnation. Then it’s just rest. What one single night can do to restore the spirit; reminds of Psalm 30:5:

“Weeping may linger for the night,

but joy comes with the morning.”

~Psalm 30:5b (NRSV).

Come unto the healing Presence of the Almighty. Many tears breeding exhaustion, and a solid night’s sleep, and wonders are performed at the stead of the Spirit. And the key to it: honesty before God—the pleading not of one’s circumstance, but of one’s lack without God.

Out of the Cave and Into the World

The whole idea of sanctuary is rejuvenation and revival. Not only is God raising up nations in revival, but the reviving of Spirits is the Lord’s specialty.

As cognisance is taken for a newfound confidence—the swaggering spirit—chance upon life is grasped and out into the sunshine we go!

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: http://www.collegenews.org/x7504.xml.

Enjoy Quality – Challenge Quantity

The numbers cut it, don’t they? What a cheap joke that the devil plays on all of us fooled to that account. Sure, I’ve coveted the numbers and owned the slogan ‘too much is never enough,’ but it’s a pure folly when we reach the end of ourselves. And that time comes to the blessed.

Life is mastered in that still, quiet spirit of contentment for quality—the simple, little thing full of life’s cogent majesty!

Enjoy Quality

Whatever is decorous is plain to our sight. It needs no improvement whatsoever as it stands as a thing admired. Why is it that sunsets and waves breaking on a shore pleasure the senses so?

Such things of unadorned splendour make for marvelling. A simple wonder is known for a bright bunch of flowers, for the wistful breeze with a reflective moment and a fly innocently walking along the arm tickling its follicles. The beauty of simplicity is defined individually, and that alone is proof of God—the veracity of unique perception.

What is plain to sight and sound is to be enjoyed. What use is life without it?

Challenge Quantity

In just about every area of life quantity is an aberration for success. It promises much but it’s hollow. What looks great on paper, especially by comparison, does nothing for the soul.

For this reason it’s appropriate to challenge all the quantity life offers... more money (less love), more employees (less time for each one), more work hours (less time at home), even more exegetical Bible study (less time experiencing the Presence of God) etc.

Too much of any good thing is too much.

More is no longer more. Less is the new more. Less gives more and promises more, because like the long following distance behind the car in front there is more vision than the person tail-gating gets. There’s a wide perspective afforded and it’s not a useless luxury; it’s a spiritual necessity.

Enjoying More with Less

Free from the material constraints of this world—and even beyond the physical things acquired—those enjoying more with less are living as God designed life to be lived.

Endless series’ of acquisitions, mergers, shuffling and sorting merely represent the mouse on its wheel, spinning to the droning rhythm of a fractious world pulling the puppet strings.

Enjoying the space of a will freed in doing just what is right to be done—with due diligence and no shirking—is the God-blessed life.

Eradicate the predilection for numbers.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Habit Changing via Air Flight

The story goes like this: A change of scenery is imagined and a trip envisaged, which is the desire for change. Planning goes into it: when, how, with whom, and the costs to be saved etc. This is the planning that goes into ensuring a solid life change that’s embarked upon. No expense of care is spared.

Embarking

Finally the day comes to trip-off. Nervous excitement fills expectation.

The airport is reached by taxi. As the driver is paid and way is made for the terminal, the luggage in tow comprises those items helping to bring about change; anything to support it.

Check-in is the matter of formalising the commitment for change. No turning back now. As security checks are made via x-ray, opportunities at travel are validated—pass with flying colours.

Sitting in the departure lounge before boarding and an array of thought ranges through the mind. What’s been and what’s to be done. Reflection is the way for nagging doubts or affirmations of strength—one or the other—designed to choice.

Boarding announcements are made; the walk aboard the aircraft brings a new environment. The change is officially embarked upon—‘moment one’ commenced.

The Flight

Pre-flight safety instruction is given and there’s vital cognisance to what’s being entered into. The fear of imminent failure is managed by courage.

As the aircraft takes-off down the runway at full thrust there’s equivalent trepidation in entering the phase of first real challenge—change’s set to get wind under its wings.

Initial views issue a sweaty-palmed mix of nervous excitement as the aircraft banks and climbs. Full reality is harnessed in the mind, scary as that moment seems.

Reaching cruising altitude occurs with quick ease; as does the change with days and the initial weeks safely negotiated. Auto-pilot can now be engaged, but only under standard flying conditions. We’re wary of inclement weather and mid-air turbulence, which are the sifting, shifting temptations that cause threat of plummeting to the ground. Otherwise auto-pilot is fine, that is, until the destination approaches and is reached.

For many the flight is long, and twisted are the airways to the hoped-for destination. With recourse to turbulence there is no giving up when the goal’s to be realised in the end.

Landing

The purpose of air-flight is to land safely at the other end.

The destination of life change is the attainment of the goal—the full incorporation of all the matters of change. This is the position of acceptance where there’s no want of return. There’s indeed an aversion against returning.

Many a landing’s negotiated with volatile wind-shear and this one’s good for it. So are changes implicit of struggle. The landing doesn’t need to be pretty, just effective.

Landing is the objective. Even with giving away addictive patterns there’s reached a place of settling. No more are there to be flights of fancy taken. Change is locked down, and with finality. The will has won and the Spirit’s power is added to it.

There’s no use in landing unless the destination brings a happy contentment with it. Safe ground is the idea for established change. Fresh air is found acceptable.

And then we go onto the next thing... plan for the next flight...

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.