clockwatching

Things to remember, things to share.

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To sadness:

From some, a simple hug

From some, a sheepish smile

From some, a silent nod

 And then, there are some

Who draw the tears out from your dry eyes,

Calling to light what you’ve buried deep within.

I appreciate them:

Those who allow you to feel

What you’d rather not feel.

With them, you can be.

Their tears are comfort and reprieve.

Choking on your tears,

Your heart can finally breathe.

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A prayer to be near to the Lord. A prayer to have ears to hear.  A prayer to be a man after God’s own heart. 

A prayer to have eyes fixed on Christ, the founder and perfecter of faith. 

A prayer for faith, with which we overcome the world. 

A prayer for the Church, to be salt & light in this world. 

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It is better to forget about yourself altogether.

C.S. Lewis

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Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.

O. Chambers

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His Plan for Me

When I stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ And He shows His plan for me, The plan of my life as it might have been Had He had His way - and I see How I blocked Him here, and checked Him there, And I would not yield my will, Will there be grief in my Savior's eyes, Grief though He loves me still? Would He have me rich and I stand there poor, Stripped of all but His grace, While memory runs like a hunted thing, Down the paths I cannot retrace. Lord, of the years that are left to me I give them to Thy hand Take me and break me and mold me, To the pattern that Thou hast planned! -Author Unknown

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Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete. And Truth comes somewhere above all of them...

Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

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When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

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It’s light out, 

the day is heavy.  

Learning the exchange 

and the peace that follows. 

His yoke, His burden:

It’s easy, 

it’s light. 

It’s dark out,

the night is hopeful. 

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Keep On

The light's on.

The warm yellow welcome on the front porch.

It means someone's thinking of you,

someone's waiting for you.

A deep breath to let today's bygones be bygones.

The key is halfway in when—

the clicking of locks from the other side—

Home peers out at you

with the familiar scent of warmth and a busy stove top.

The weight of today sagging on your shoulder,

brushed off by the gentle fingers of Home.

The light clicks off—

moonlight settles in the front porch,

as a single light flickers on in your weary heart,

adding to the stars piercing through the thick night.

We've been waiting for you,

you belong.

Welcome home.

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Once we’ve stood in utter silence, captured by his god-ness, speechless with wonder and awe, filled with reverence and unmatched admiration for our Creator and Redeemer, then we’re ready to talk about holiness in the created and redeemed. And only then. How mind-numbing is it that this holy God not only stoops to pardon our sin, but also empowers us to share in his holiness? True to the word holy, it’s a reality that carries us beyond words.

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I believe that appreciation is a holy thing-that when we look for what's best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something sacred.

Fred Rogers

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Martin Luther has a great definition of sin. His definition of sin in Latin was, “homo incurvatus in se,” which means literally, “Sin is man curved in upon himself.” What Luther means by that (and this is absolutely right) is the Bible defines sin as always focusing on yourself, always choosing yourself over God or others, always placing yourself in the center. Always!

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KGZ

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Keep me in your grace today.

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Somewhere I would like to be, people I would like to see.

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Over the last four decades, there has been a profound shift in the relationship between the government and its citizens. In The Age of Responsibility, Yascha Mounk, a political theorist, writes that before the 1980s, the idea of “responsibility” was understood as something each American owed to the people around them, a national project to keep the most vulnerable from falling below basic subsistence. Even Richard Nixon, not exactly known for lifting up the downtrodden, proposed a national welfare benefit and a version of a guaranteed income. But under Ronald Reagan and then Bill Clinton, the meaning of “responsibility” changed. It became individualized, a duty to earn the benefits your country offered you.

Michael Hobbes