Love Life Word Work

I found a new web app called Write or Die. It “encourages” you to keep on writing and not stop. Here’s what I wrote on it:

Yeah, I think it’s time for me to stop messing around and start writing. That’s the way I’ve been feeling lately. This is an app that forces you to do that if you want to be forced.
I think I might want to be forced.
Now for some writing.
Now for some writing.
Once in a lifetime a person arrives at the point of now. Now is the time that has arrived at this point in time and no other. It is a very exclusive point in time because no other point is it exactly.
Although it is exclusive it is also common because every other point in time is like it. Maybe exactly the same in generic quality. But different in content. I see it’s quite a punishment that comes your way - first the color of the bg changes, then the sounds start. The babies crying.

Here’s the site:

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lab.drwicked.com

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In our early morning study-prayer group we have been working on this little book for more than a year now. We take a couple pages each week, reading and discussing and talking about our lives, praying for each other before we leave.

The book is TrueFaced written by the team of Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. I love this book. We all do. Rob Frazier, our group leader, recommends it highly. Even though it’s written by three men, it doesn’t seem like it came from a committee. It is a very personal book written for personal people.

The sub-title of the book is “trust God and others with who you really are”, which is the one of the essences of love. How can we love and be loved if we can’t trust enough to allow others to see beneath our mask? A quote from Shakespeare adorns the cover below the sub-title: “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”

These are the masks, the personal covers, that keep us from lives of grace, hope and love. This book is a comfortable refuge in which we can get used to the fact that there is an alternative to this lonely, frustrating thing we call “doing the best we can”.

The authors write in the first chapter,

We wrote TrueFaced for those who pant for a life worth living… for those who have tasted of their destiny, but have lost its flavor in brokenhearted disappointment… for those suffocating under hope-stiffling masks… for those longing to see their God with eyes no longer filtered with fear, self-disgust, and desperate proving.

I found a home in this book. It’s a great place to live for a while and be reminded daily of these freeing truths.

Chapter two is entitled “To Please or to Trust”. It uses the metaphor of “the room of good intentions” as contrasted with “the room of grace.” Attempting to please God by acting on good intentions - we have all tried it and know how frustrating and ineffective it is. But the room of grace is the way of trusting God with who we are, allowing Him to accept us. It does take some getting used to. We are prone to return to the old ways. But the room of grace is always there for our good if we receive it.
And it is the only way to please God after all. Trust = faith. And faith is, after all, our justification in the sight of God.

In Chapter three, speaking of our sin issues, the grace and acceptance of God is shown to be the practical means of dealing with sin problem.

The environment of grace provides me with truth, acceptance, healing, safety, perspective, freedom, and power that I did not before know; these realities are foundational to resolving my sin issues.

On the other hand, good intentions and the stiving associated with them do nothing but “suck grace—and therefore power—right out of the room.”

There is one chapter each on the gifts of grace love, repentance and forgiveness. Repentance is treated in a refreshing way. The grace-filled gift of repentance is contrasted with the striving, ineffective willpower-based intention we all have gotten caught up in many times. True repentance is a gracious meeting with God and other people in which love and grace is showered upon us. It is a room with a warm hearth. It is a homecoming.

When I was a child I went with my family to a performance of Scottish highland music and dance. I liked it just fine but I kept thinking, when are they going to do the sword dance? I was all ready to see the guys come out and swing swords around, dancing around and swashbuckling with them - but no. They just gently laid two swords down flatways on the floor and proceeded to do fancy footwork around the sword blades. It was alright - it obviously meant a lot to them, but, to be truthful, I was disappointed. There was no danger, no threat of violence. I was underawed. They never even came close to getting cut on those things, assuming they were even real swords.
But I am not underawed concerning our real-life sword dance. How can I be? In the realm of actuality the art of the dance is not symbolic, it’s for keeps. We dance not because we choose, but because we have no choice. We dance under threat of violence, in the overwhelming fear of the unknown, for our life or our death and the separate but equal dread of them both. We dance spontaneously, not according to a prescribed set of steps (however well-meant that preset plan might be). And we dance not in the spaces between the flats, but right on the sharp edge of the freshly-honed blade. Extreme sword dancing, we can call it.
But maybe that metaphor is a little extreme. Maybe that picture of life is over-the-top. I don’t think so. Consider the bad dreams that wake us up in the night. Those ought provide a clue, or a key, to the dread and anxiety that baseline our reality. So dancing on the edge of the sword? I think it’s a great metaphor. Just let’s wear some good strong-soled shoes and let’s look to the master of the dance —the Lord of the Dance. He ought to be able to help.

Open your picture in Irfanview and resize it to at most 400 pixels wide, if it’s larger than that. If it’s smaller do not resize it.)
To do this

• click in the horizontal menu “Image” then “Resize/Resample”.
• Then in the dialog box that popped up make sure the “Set new size” button is selected.
• Also make sure the “Units” “pixels” button is selected.
• Then change the width to 400 pixels or less. I say this because often a larger picture will get the Wordpress page out of alignment.
• When you set the width you should see the height adjust itself in proportion. If it doesn’t
• Check the box below that says “Preserve aspect ratio”
• Hit “OK” You should see the picture shrink.
• Now go to “File” then “Save as”.
• Name your picture with a descriptive name like “autumnleaves400px”. That tells you what it is when you are looking for it and tells you it is 400 pixels wide. (You’ll thank me for this advice later.) Be sure to save it in a folder that you can find when looking for it later, like “My Pictures/picsforblog” or some such.

Now you are ready to log into Wordpress.

• Logged in, start a new post (or edit a pre-existing post or page) and decide where you want to place your pictures in the post. If you want text above the picture then type your text first.
• Look below the text box and click where it says “Upload”, then click “Browse”. That will give you a browse box to find the picture on your hard disc.
• Find the picture you save earlier, select it and click “OK”
• Then type a descriptive name for the picture in the “Title” area and a more descriptive phrase in the “description” area.
• Click “Upload” and wait.
• Now you should see a small version of your picture. If you don’t click “Browse” or “Browse All”.
• Where it says “Show” click “Full size”. If you want the Title you entered to show then click “Title” also.
• Where it says “Link” click “none”.
• Now click “Send to editor”.

Continue typing below the picture and go on till you want another picture, then repeat the process.