Some Thoughts on Living...

By -
Back in April 2009, I was enjoying my morning walk around "la cancha de futbol" near our home in Santa Catarina, and the following thoughts began to come to me.  I had been thinking about how to avoid the mis-steps and stumbles of days, weeks, months and years past.  As I contemplated why I had made mistakes in the past, what I had been thinking...and NOT thinking, these 'guiding points' began to come to me.  While I've not been entirely faithful to them, I do return to them again and again...and when I have been faithful, I have been able to avoid a lot of pain, wasted energy, emotional/spiritual 'skinned knees'...and I've been able to make good decisions with positive results--even though others knew nothing of it.  Here goes:

  • A life of love is the most important thing
  • Live today - in today, for today
  • Do not make quick decisions
  • Only act rashly in love (agape)
  • Take a walk...and talk with the Lord
  • Big plans often grow from big egos
  • An idea to be flouted is probably an idea to be avoided
  • Strive for simplicity - of form, of action, of thought
  • God works through the small, everyday, ordinary
  • Live with levity - don't take it all too seriously

Perhaps someone else on the road of life can use these to help life slow down and to make better decisions....

~Jon~
September 2012

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lunch in the Park

By -
Image
I’ve started taking my lunch in Retama Park on Maple Avenue.  It’s a three minute walk from my office…and few people are ever there in the middle of day.  This park has become a delightful escape from the technology, air-conditioning, and straight lines of the office. Today, as in other days, I sit on a bench towards the center of the park, the only bench that’s actually in the shade.   A large water-oak spreads it limbs to block the harsh south Texas sun.  In the shade, the constant breezes making their way from the Gulf make the spot perfect for reading, thinking…or dozing. I’m reading a novel—Tony Hillerman ( The Walking Wind ).  Out of the corner of my eye, a person comes into view…a boy…a young boy…a BIG boy…maybe 10-years-old?  He has his basketball.  He makes his way onto the concrete courts where the netting is half torn away from the baskets.  He begins to dribble and shoot—duip, duip, duip, duip….plunk!...duip, duip, duip…. I return to my novel.  Short
Read more

Simple Joys

By -
Image
An empty cup sits before me, a gift from friends…given to me when I was in Prague, Czech Republic, in October 2008, a small token of remembrance on my birthday while I was away from home. That cup is now my espresso cup, filled and drained daily…much to my mind’s content. I keep learning that the greatest joy and contentment usually comes from the simple things in life. I think back to the really expensive gifts I’ve received or even the expensive things I’ve bought…and I struggle to bring them to mind; they’re all but forgotten. But those simple things that brought and bring such joy? They are there at the mere thought: My espresso cup. A small fire on a cool, Fall evening. Sitting on a beach, shore or rocky edge overlooking a bay or the sea. The smell of cookies in the oven. Reading through “The Sermon on the Mount”…again. My old copies of Orthodoxy (G.K. Chesterton) and Mere Christianity (C.S.Lewis). My children laughing together as they tell a tale from days past.
Read more

Smart Phones - Not So Smart

By -
Image
Technology and innovation seem like positive if not innocuous words. By advances in these areas, we've seen illnesses cured, wars thwarted, and standards of living rise. Yet, we've also seen entire cultures become 'couch-potatoes,' a rise in cancer and nutrition related diseases. For all of the so-called “labor-saving devices” that have been developed, we now see a host of health issues that arise in our increasingly sedentary life-styles—obesity, prostate cancer, heart disease, etc. What looked good in the beginning has turned out to be a growing threat to our very lives. The “Smart Phone” will be numbered among those great technological innovations that seemed like a good idea at the time. These phones seem helpful enough, but peel back the layers, and we find a device that should worry any thinking, smart person! The “smart phone” is making us dumber. Rather than actually having to know or remember things anymore, we can rely on our smart phone
Read more