Monthly Archives: July 2014

Daily Riches: Responding to Transcendence with Silence and Stillness (Robert Frost) *

Posted on by under Contemplation, Hurry Sickness, Silence, Stillness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment
“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
 .
“My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
 .
“He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.” –
 “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” –  Robert Frost
.
“Oh, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest!
I would fly far away to the quiet of the wilderness.”  Psalm 55:6,7
.
Moving From the Heart to the Head
  • Have you ever experienced something this profound and beautiful in nature? Where? How long ago? Did you seek it out, or did it “just happen” like in this poem?
  • Is it the horse or the driver that “thinks it’s queer” to stop near these dark woods? Is there “some mistake?” How often do you find yourself unable to stop and really experience something special because you have “miles to go before [you] sleep?”
  • As the speaker hurries on to keep his promises, what are we to imagine he is feeling? What is the take-away message of the poem?
  • The horse “gives his harness bells a shake”, and the driver moves on. What does it take to convince you to move on and attend to business when you’re experiencing some kind of transcendence? What does your answer say about you?
“Lord, help me to do one thing at a time today, without rushing or hurrying. Help me to savor the sacred in all I do …empower me to pause today as I move from one activity to the next.” – Peter Scazzero

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For More: Poetry: A Pocket Anthology by R. S. Gwynn

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“Then suddenly it happened, I lost every dime, but I’m richer by far, with a satisfied mind.” (“Satisfied Mind”, lyrics by Red Hayes and Jack Rhodes) Often it’s in our most painful losses that we find what really matters, and the satisfaction found in God alone. I hope that Daily Riches will help you to be “richer by far” as you grow in such satisfaction. Thanks for reading and sharing Daily Riches!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: True Greatness as Great Humility (William Law) *

Posted on by under Humility, Learning Your Proper Place, True Greatness

“Condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow-creatures, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their virtues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate their distress, receive their friendship, overlook their unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do the lowest offices to the lowest of mankind.”    William Law

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness and patience.
Bear with each other and forgive one another
if any of you has a grievance against someone.
Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
And over all these virtues put on love,
which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
Colossians 3:12-14

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,
not looking to your own interests
but each of you to the interests of the others.”
Philippians 2:3-4

“For it is the one who is least among you all
who is the greatest.”
Jesus, in Luke 9:48

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • If you were to name three truly great people, who would they be? What would your criteria be? Would any of them be those whom Jesus calls “the least?”
  • Slowly and prayerfully read over Law’s list again. These are difficult words, but they really only restate in some way what the Bible already calls us to do. What is your response?
  • Are you willing to live by this kind of counter-cultural set of values? In what specific way could you begin to do so, or to do so more than you do already? Can you ask God to show you now?

Abba, I resist giving up my rights and dislike condescending to others. Like the disciples, I’m afraid I’m more interested in honor than humility. Help me to take the more difficult, more honorable, more loving road this day. Let me begin in some small but concrete way.

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For More: A Call To A Devout and Holy Life by William Law

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Thomas Merton’s goal is his writing is the same as mine in this blog: “The purpose of a book of meditations is to teach you how to think and not to do your thinking for you. Consequently if you pick up such a book and simply read it through, you are wasting your time. As soon as any thought stimulates your mind or your heart you can put the book down because your meditation has begun.” I’m not Thomas Merton (!), yet I hope these Daily Riches will lead you into much life-enriching mediation. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Love in Practice, Love in Dreams (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) *

Posted on by under Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, True Greatness

“Early in The Brothers Karamazov, a wealthy woman asks Staretz Zosima how she can really know that God exists. The Staretz tells her that no explanation or argument can achieve this, only the practice of “active love.” He assures her that really there is no other way to know God in reality rather than God as an idea. The woman confesses that sometimes she dreams about a life of loving service to others — she thinks perhaps she will become a Sister of Mercy, live in holy poverty and serve the poor in the humblest way. …But then it crosses her mind how ungrateful some of the people she is serving are likely to be. They will probably complain that the soup she is serving isn’t hot enough or that the bread isn’t fresh enough or the bed is too hard and the covers too thin. She confesses to Staretz Zosima that she couldn’t bear such ingratitude — and so her dreams about serving others vanish, and once again she finds herself wondering if there really is a God. To this the Staretz responds with the words, ‘Love in practice is a hard and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.’” [1]

“If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body …
if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:3

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • We often think of “God” and “love” in comforting ways. Dostoyevsky suggests that love is “a hard and dreadful thing” and that without such love, we’ll fail to know God as more than “an idea.”
  • Have you even known God only “as an idea” – believing all the right things but not practicing this hard love which is God’s signature?
  • You don’t have to join a convent or monastery to practice “hard love.” Who around you needs such love from you today?

Abba, I like easy not hard, superficial not real, and peace not conflict. Apparently, I also prefer illusion to reality. Lord, teach me to love.

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Suicide Dives, Collision Courses … and Sabbath (Mark Buchanan)

Posted on by under Awareness, Busyness, Contemplation, Daily Office, Hurry Sickness, Sabbath Rhythms

“There’s an exercise that some pilots go through late in their flight training. The student pilot gets the plane airborne, at cruising altitude. Then the instructor places a loose-fitting, thick-woven sack over the student’s head, so the student can see nothing. The instructor takes the controls and starts stunt-piloting. He loops the loop. He pushes the plane, Turkish-headache-style, skyward, then flips belly-up and swoops earthward. He rollicks and spirals, careens and nosedives, tailspins and wing-tilts. He gets the student utterly discombobulated. Then he puts the plane in a suicide dive, plucks the bag off the student’s head, and hands him the controls. His job: to get the plane back under control. The exercise is called Recovering From an Unusual Attitude. To keep Sabbath, most of us have to recover from an unusual attitude. We find ourselves disoriented, in vertigo. We’re dizzy with all our busyness and on a collision course.” Mark Buchanan

“When salvation comes to your house [like it did with Zacchaeus in Luke 19], first you think differently, then you act differently. First you shift the imagination with which you perceive this world, and then you enact gestures with which you honor it.” Buchanan

“But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord!
Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor,
and if I have cheated anybody out of anything,
I will pay back four times the amount.’”
Luke 19:8

“The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,
but the folly of fools is deception.”
Proverbs 14:8

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you “dizzy” with your busyness? Are you on a “collision course” with reality? Are you too busy for deep thought but wide open to “deception.” (self-deception)
  • Have you “enacted gestures” for your days to allow you to “shift your imagination” and “give thought” to your ways? (e.g., practicing something like the Daily Office, the examen)
  • Have you enacted gestures for your weeks, to allow you to “recover from an unusual attitude” that may be spiritually suicidal? (e.g., keeping a weekly sabbath)

Abba, help me as I embrace new rhythms that create space for me to contemplate my course, your ways, and the foolishness of my noisy world. Deliver me from an unexamined life.

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For More: The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan

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“There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.” (Marie Antionette) , and thus “Men more often require to be reminded than informed.”  (Samuel Johnson) The purpose of Daily Riches is to return again and again to a list of critical concepts at the core of the spiritual life. “Therefore, I will always remind you about these things—even though you [may] already know them and are standing firm in the truth you have been taught.” (2 Peter 1:12)  I appreciate your interest! When you find this helpful, please share! – Bill

Daily Riches: The Life of Silence and the “Secret Vice” of Solitude (Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges and Ann Morrow Lindberg)

Posted on by under Contemplation, Silence, Solitude

“Retirement is the laboratory of the spirit; interior solitude and silence are its two wings. All great works were prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night.” Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges

“As far as the search for silence and solitude is concerned, we live in a negative atmosphere, as invisible, as all pervasive and as enervating as high humidity in an August afternoon. The world does not understand today, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. How inexplicable it seems! Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time will be accepted as inviolable. But if one says, ‘I cannot come because it is my hour to be alone’, one is considered rude, egotistical, or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices solitude – like a secret vice.”   Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“After [Jesus] had dismissed them,
he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.
Later that night, he was there alone …”
Matthew 14:23

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you experienced the kind of loneliness and silence that is the preparation for “all great works?” Is there any sense in which your life is a “life of silence?”
  • Do you understand the “need to be alone?” Do you practice solitude? If so, do you have to hide it from others like a “secret vice?”
  • It’s a “commentary on our civilization” that making time to be alone to care for yourself and seek out God should be considered “rude, egotistical or strange.” Are you determined to decide for yourself and leave the crowd behind if necessary?

Abba, teach me to nourish my spirit in the laboratory of the spirit which is solitude.

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For More: Gift From the Sea by Ann Morrow Lindberg

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Thomas Merton expresses my heart for Daily Riches: “If I dare, in these few words, to ask you some direct and personal questions, it is because I address them as much to myself as to you. It is because I am still able to hope that a civil exchange of ideas can take place between two persons — that we have not yet reached the stage where we are all hermetically sealed, each one in the collective arrogance and despair of his own herd.” I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: Hospitality to the Spirit Within (David G. Benner)

Posted on by under Awareness, Faith and Doubt, God's Grace, Loving Union with God, Spiritual Formation, Stillness

“If transformation is not an accomplishment and is something that must come from beyond the small self that we presently are, where does it come from? I have no better answer than that it comes from God. God, who is both within and beyond us, constantly calls us to be more than we are. All growth, healing and transformation are mediated by this outpouring of the Divine Self. They come to us as gifts, but there is something we must do to accept them. That something is responding to life with a “YES” of openness, acceptance and gratitude and then living with the inner stillness and presence that is part of being a good host to the Spirit of God who dwells within. In a word, it is faith. But remember – faith is much, much more than beliefs. Faith as belief – this being how it has commonly been understood in Christianity since the Enlightenment – is far too weak to transform anything. However, faith involves much more than giving cognitive assent to propositions. It is a whole-person orientation of trusting openness. Faith in God is leaning into life with openness and trust. This is why genuine openness to life is openness to God – and openness to God is openness to life.” David G. Benner

“…let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” Romans 12 2

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does your faith in God include responding to him and to life “with a ‘YES’ of openness, acceptance and gratitude?” Consider each of these three traits.
  • Are you “living with the inner stillness and presence that is part of being a good host to the Spirit of God who dwells within?”
  • Is your approach to the Christian life working for you? Is it more and more a moving from “head to heart?” an entering into a kind of spaciousness?

Abba,  I will stop and look for your gracious work of transformation in me and my world today. Help me to move from my head to my heart. Help me to live in openness to you and to life.

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For More: Spirituality and the Awakening Self by David G. Benner

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Thomas Merton expresses my heart for Daily Riches: “If I dare, in these few words, to ask you some direct and personal questions, it is because I address them as much to myself as to you. It is because I am still able to hope that a civil exchange of ideas can take place between two persons — that we have not yet reached the stage where we are all hermetically sealed, each one in the collective arrogance and despair of his own herd.” I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

 

Daily Riches: Seeing Solitude as Intolerable (Blaise Pascal and Friedrich Nietzsche) *

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he faces his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. And at once there well up from the depths of his soul boredom, gloom, depression, chagrin, resentment, despair.” Blaise Pascal

“When we are quiet and alone, we fear that something will be whispered in our ears,
and so we hate the quiet, and dull our senses in society.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” Psalm 102:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find it “intolerable” when you’re alone with nothing to do and nothing to distract you?  to be “in a state of complete rest?” Do you “dull your senses in society?”
  • This experience seems pretty unpleasant, sometimes even dangerous (“despair”), and yet, isn’t Pascal commending it to us, and Nietzsche warning us about what we do? Why do you suppose that is?
  • Are you willing to face your “nullity [nothingness], loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, [and] emptiness … in a state of complete rest?” What plan can you make to begin to try that? Who do you know who can help guide or encourage you?

Abba, I want to own my neediness and helplessness before you, and not dull my senses with vain distractions. Teach me to come into your presence and be at rest.

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For More: Pensees by Blaise Pascal

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These Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others as we seek to find our satisfaction in our unfailingly loving God. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: Obscurity and Intimacy with God (Richard Foster and Thomas Merton) *

Posted on by under applause, approval addiction, Ego Issues, Obscurity and Secrecy, Spiritual Formation

“Because our daily tasks afford us constant opportunity to engage in the ministry of small things it is through this work that we become most intimately acquainted with God. …Small things are the genuinely big things in the kingdom of God. It is here we truly face the issues of obedience and discipleship. It is not hard to be a model disciple amid camera lights and press releases. But in the small corners of life, in those areas of service that will never be newsworthy or gain us any recognition we must hammer out the meaning of obedience. Amid the obscurity of family and friends, neighbors, and work associates, we find God.” Richard Foster

“It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God.” Thomas Merton

“Who dares despise the day of small things …” Zechariah 4:10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • The small daily opportunities we have to obey and serve – doing little things that garner us no applause  – God uses to make us “most intimately acquainted” with him.
  • Are you willing to do without the applause? to purposely choose to stay out of the spotlight? to be relatively invisible? Is God’s approval enough for you? What do your answers say about you?
  • We’re really talking about our inner lives with God and the battle being fought there. What change can you make to what you regularly do, to allow secrecy and obscurity to shape you?

Abba, as much as I hate to admit it, I love the sound of applause. Help me, whether I choose obscurity or have it thrust upon me, to submit myself to its good work in my life.

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For More: The Challenge of the Disciplined Life by Richard Foster

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Thomas Merton’s goal is his writing is the same as mine in this blog: “The purpose of a book of meditations is to teach you how to think and not to do your thinking for you. Consequently if you pick up such a book and simply read it through, you are wasting your time. As soon as any thought stimulates your mind or your heart you can put the book down because your meditation has begun.” I’m not Thomas Merton (!), yet I hope these Daily Riches will lead you into much life-enriching mediation. – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

Daily Riches: Patriotism and Speaking Prophetically to America (Brennan Manning) *

Posted on by under Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice

“A critique of our culture in the light of the gospel is imperative if the church of Jesus Christ is to preserve a coherent sense of itself in a world that is torn and tearing. …A chastened patriotism is indispensable for the survival of the nation as well as of the church. …I see three areas where the American Dream is counter-evangelical – that is, in direct opposition to the message of Jesus and a life endorsed with the signature of Jesus. Our culture, as John Kavanaugh observed, ‘fosters and sustains a functional trinitarian god of consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism. Made in the image and likeness of such a god, we are committed to lives of possessiveness, pleasure, and domination.'” Brennan Manning

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.” James 5:1-6

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • How much pull does the “trinitarian god of consumerism, hedonism, and nationalism” have in your life? Do any of these forces dull your desire to see justice for others? Take a moment to think about each one.
  • Are you sensitive to our national “need” for domination? Does you faith ever cause you to demur? Is it even imaginable that you would ever hear a loving but negative critique of our nation’s “trinitarian god” in your church? If not, how do you feel about that?
  • We’re considerably more gentle towards the rich than the Bible is (cf. James, the Psalms, etc.) Are you rich? (Don’t answer too quickly.) Are your riches the result of God’s blessing? (Again, don’t answer too quickly.) Can you see how riches are negatively impacting others you know? your church? your family?

Abba, I confess with dismay my regular, explicit and subtle, allegiance to the trinitarian god of my nation. Please help me to sort out my allegiances in a way that justice will be a bigger part of my life.

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For More: The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

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I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Reading the Human Story Beneath the Frightened Face (Brennan Manning) *

Posted on by under Awareness, Loving Well, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“Compassion for others is not a simple virtue because it avoids snap judgments of right or wrong, good or bad, hero or villain: It seeks truth in all it’s complexity. Genuine compassion means that in empathizing with the failed plans and uncertain loves of the other person we send out the vibration, ‘Yes, ragamuffin, I understand. I’ve been there, too.’ … Judgment depends on what we see, how deeply we look at the other, how honestly we face ourselves, how willing we are to read the human story beneath the frightened face.” Brennan Manning

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
1 John 4:7-9

Moving from the Head to the Heart

  • Do you often make “snap judgments of right or wrong, good or bad, hero or villain?”
  • Do you categorize people with labels (“lame”,”lazy”, “needy”) or amateur diagnoses (“low functioning”, “compulsive”, “addicted”) or plainly insulting terms (“clueless”,”hopeless”, “loser”)? How about when you’re driving? looking around at church? scanning the crowd at your kids concert or ball game? Can we agree that it’s easy not to love well?
  • Manning suggest we will judge less, and love more, if we look deeply within ourselves for explanations, and if we look beyond the surface (“deeply”) at others – “to read the human story beneath the frightened face.” Will you join me in working on that?

Abba, I desperately want to read the human story behind the frightened face. Help me to learn a new way of looking at people – to look deeply beyond the fears and defenses, the disguises and the masks. Help me to breathe in your love, and breathe it out as your and my gift to the world.

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For More: The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brannon Manning

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Finding God’s “Real Presence” Everywhere (Ruth Haley Barton and Richard Rohr) *

Posted on by under Awareness, Mindfulness, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“Discernment is first of all a habit, a way of seeing that eventually permeates our whole life. It is the journey from spiritual blindness (not seeing God anywhere or seeing him only where we expect to see him) to spiritual sight (finding God everywhere especially where we least expect it.)”  Ruth Haley Barton

“Most of Jesus’ contemporaries missed the ‘Real Presence’ that was right in their midst, and most of them were religiously observant people ….They were looking for religion, and he was just a human being.” Richard Rohr

“He came into the very world he created,
but the world didn’t recognize him.
He came to his own people,
and even they rejected him.”
John 1:10,11

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you agree that we can find God everywhere? (Don’t forget that old dusty doctrine of the “omnipresence” or “ubiquity” of God – that he is “everywhere present.” Don’t forget how the creation speaks of him (Psalm 19:1-4), how Jesus appears in the poor and marginalized, and how every person bears God’s image.)
  • Which of Barton’s three categories describe you – unaware of God, looking for him in expected places, or expecting him everywhere? Do you want to “expect him everywhere?”
  •  Imagine all the people who saw and listened to Jesus when he walked the earth – God in their very midst – who “didn’t recognize him” and even “rejected him.” How often do we fail to recognize him in our day? What discipline can you begin to practice today to help you be more aware of the presence of God all around you?

Abba, help me to really “stop, look and listen” as I go through my day. Teach me to be more present to myself, to others and to you.

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For More: Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The Limitations of Love (Henri Nouwen) *

Posted on by under Embracing Losses and Limits, Forgiveness, Loving Well

“Forgiveness is to allow the other person not to be God. Forgiveness says, ‘I know you love me, but you don’t have to love me unconditionally, because no human being can do that…’ To forgive other people for being able to give us only a little love–that is a hard discipline. To keep asking others for forgiveness because we can only give a little love–that is a hard discipline…. If we can forgive that another person cannot give us what only God can give, then we can celebrate that person’s gift. Then we can see the love that person is giving us as a reflection of God’s great, unconditional love.” Henri Nouwen

“A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you,
so you must love one another.”
John 13:34

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • The love of Jesus for us was and is unconditional. He isn’t deterred in his love for me “however undeserving I am” (Teresa of Avila). We’re called to love that way, but “it’s a hard discipline.”
  • Can you forgive others for “not being God” – for failing to give you “what only God can give?” Can you do this with your spouse? family members? people at church? your pastor?
  • Can you forgive yourself for “not being God” to others – for failing to give them “what only God can give?”
  • What can you do to keep these limits before you, so you remember them when you or others fall short in loving well?

Abba, forgiving and loving well is a hard discipline. May my often feeble attempts to forgive and love point beyond themselves, even in their limitations, to your perfect forgiveness and love.

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For More: A Spirituality of Living by Henri Nouwen

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in about 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)