Spilt Wine

I just came to the realization that Christ does not require us to change. He requires us to grow.



Man, I have had it wrong all these years.

When all else is lost, while everything you have tried has failed, and it's the
darkest hour of night, there is still hope.

I hope…

What is hope? I hope all day long. I hope not to get caught speeding on the way to work. I hope that the Dodgers will win the World Series this year. I hope to one day visit France. I hope that Gracie grows up to be a strong, beautiful and gentle spirited person. I hope to get lucky tonight. I hope to get out of debt. I hope to get a big tax return this year.

I hope, hope, hope…..

What about hope within faith? Are they the same? Hope seems less certain than faith.
Could hope be a stepping stone towards faith?

I hope to win the lottery sounds pretty weak compared to saying I have faith I will win the lottery. I think I would rather be friends with the guy who knows he is going to win rather than the guy who just hopes to win.

What about the hope that arises in moments of despair? That seems to be a stronger hope than the hopes I listed above. There is almost something supernatural about that kind of hope. I don't think I have experienced a hope like that. Is it because our backs are against the wall in moments of despair and we have no other choice but to act on hope?

Is hope as simple as having a passion for what is possible?

A child’s heart
As I was driving to work this morning, a little girl who could not have been any older than 6 years old was walking with her mother. The little girl with a yellow rain jacket on and yellow rain boots was waving to a school bus. This was no normal wave; this was a wave of excitement, a wave that said I am happy to see you, a wave of joy. The same school bus, which gave the girl joy to see, was the same bus that was causing annoyance within me. The same school bus that was driving slower than the speed limit and causing me to be late to work. In this moment, who had the better heart?

Sleep eluded me like sheep running from a wolf. I wanted so badly to pounce on the little lamb. The chase lasted all night. When the lamb was caught, it would wrestle it’s self free, starting the chase all over again. Tossing and turning, waking every hour, starving for just one lamb. The ringside bell sounded at the end of this all night wrestling matching, declaring me the loser. Sheep laughing at me as I rolled out of the ring to my feet, stumbling all the way to the kitchen for my only hope to survive the day….coffee.

Reading the sports pages today, I read several articles about Baseball’s newest Hall of Famers, Wade Boggs, and Ryan Sandburg. The articles consistently spoke of the mediocrity of these two players. Actually, the mediocrity of the all of the base players in the 80's for all that matters. Were our baseball heroes of the 1980's really just average players? Or is that they are perceived as common players today because of the steroid enhanced stats that players are putting up now? Who are really the heroes of the diamond? Is it the big muscle and big bats of today’s players or the hard playing small ball players of our youth? Granted, there were some big bats of the 80's such as, Mike Schmitt and George Brett, but their numbers even seem small compared by some to today’s possibly steroid enhanced players.

They (people) are lonely. I’m not talking about lonely for a lover or friend. I mean lonely in the universal sense, lonely inside the understanding that we are tiny little people on a tiny little earth suspended in an endless void that echoes past stars and stars of stars. -Donald Miller, Blue like Jazz