Is This Heaven? It's Omaha.

There is this life and there is the next. But the "and" misleads us. We think that there will be a moment when we die that we go from this body trapped in time to a mind out of time. But from everlasting to everlasting we must move, as though jumping from one river flowing downhill to another flowing up the mountain. There is this life and it is full, getting and spending, late and soon, of lunches and dinners, diapers and dishes, but then there's, glory, transfiguration, eternity. But what about an eternity of dishes of getting out damn spots and not hating it? What if this and every moment is a chance to move from one slipstream into another?

When I was a kid, we would on special occasions, usually around the holidays, build a fire in the wood stove. It was at one end of the frontroom and would heat up the whole room with its calming, often soporific warmth. Sitting anywhere near it might mean nodding off right there on the floor, pillow or no. But when we had to go to bed upstairs, the open stairway would allow the heat from the fireplace only up to the point where the ceiling of the first floor stopped. Like a plane rising above the clouds, as soon as we stepped up to the level of the second floor, we stepped out of the stove's heat and had a very cool bed to look forward to or endure, depending on your perspective. It's like that other level, with its refreshing cool or comforting warm, is always just above or below us. We can raise our heads and see clear sky or stay below under the cloud cover.

Sometimes, though, the light dazzles the eye too much. We see the vision, the glory, the curtain parts and we glimpse the eternal but can't take it all in. We have to move back into the life of the commute, alarm clock and daily shaving to feel the touch of this material world. Like a terrier terrified of the storm, we need our thunder shirt to feel safe again. But then the shirt becomes too confining, or vision narrows to a point too fine and we must lift ourselves up again.

Music does this, art does this, creating allows us to see visions. Can we live both lives, though? Can we drive to work like its an act of worship? Can we send an email that is sacred as prayer? Can we burn sacrifices as we make popcorn for family movie night? Can these two sides of the coin not rest on the table heads up or down but spinning, alternating like AC power though the many connections between us and world at the tip of our fingers or tongues? What might we do to access that kind of everyday holiness? How does the divine meet the quotidian?

It might be somewhere in Deuteronomy 6, where we are to take God's commands and fix them to our heads or hands, teach them with vigor to our children, make them our thought on waking or sleeping and when stepping out the door or coming home. That seems a good place to start, when you allow God's word to inhabit your world like the refrain of a song stuck in your head, you get to see with clearer eyes more and more. You hear his voice, see his hand at work, know him a little more.

God is one. His bride is one. Seeing us as the church, as a communion of saints, not just "the church," but a body of believers is a powerful vision, a potent truth, not to be taken lightly. The body can only function well if all its parts are in accord and no one is fancying itself better than the rest. We must deal in realities and see the realities of unseen things, graced with the sensitivity to hear wisdom and feel mercy, to deal justly and do good. There is the bride satisfying the vows of her marriage. There we can be at home with the groom and not be ashamed.

Thanks to the The Hollands for coming to church today and bringing a little heaven with them.

Work **~~whip-crack--** Work

Work takes over. Work carries a pocket watch that it pulls out by its long fob, thumbs the top button, springs the door open and checks, hands a blur across its face or hands stopped against the crystal in a pantomime of surprise. Who me? What was I doing? Can you open the window of this glass box I'm in? I've a transparent trap that's captured my hands and holds them down pat.

The notebook has two sides, face-en-face, a personal side on the left and work side on the right. If all goes well, if the life can walk that tightrope of appointments and tasks and fancies and larks, hobbies and have-to-dos, then they will end neck and neck. Lately, the dark horse of the daily grind has pulled away from its rival, has run laps around its loping competitor and finished without a photo-finish required. The little black spiral notebook does not judge the race, it merely records it, like the lanes of a track, the racers prints marking their wild gallop, their frantic final moments, the beginning steps of grand plans.

Don't let's start bemoaning our lot, begrudging our friends the time they've got, the loans they've not. We assumed that 4 careers in a lifetime might mean easy transition, like speeds on the transmission, from starting gear to passing, to cruising. The earthquakes of life changes, the waves that crash down, eroding the paint on the side of the house, tearing shingles of the roof, causing a lost tooth or two, these failed to make the warning cut. These are the surprises of a grinding gear, the gravel to pavement bump on bad springs, spilling the coffee, dropping the calls and taking a hot iron to that last throbbing backbone and giving it a good poke.

Students are idiots

At the 10th week of class, I think most of my students are idiots. Given that it's the 10th week, I'm probably the real idiot.

They have learned well.