Birthday party and stitches

Life is a blur, is it not?! As Eugene Peterson describes it:

We look around, and we are struck by the sheer profusion of life--a rose in blossom, a red-tailed hawk in flight, a cat on the prowl. White oak and blue whale, amoeba and giraffe give fresh and eloquent witness to a mystery that ever eludes us but never, if we take the time for it, fails to put us on our knees in adoration. This is especially the case with human life. Every time a baby is born the gospel is preached. The virgin birth of Jesus provides the kerygmatic center to all this world of experience in which we receive the revelation of God as Christ plays in creation.

I am awestruck by the mystery revealed in a daughter who turned 8 on Saturday. The birthday party was Strawberry Shortcake blessed. What an amazing journey of being Daddy to Mackenzie Grace. May she be blessed at school today.

I am awestruck by the mystery revealed in five year old Jansen who found himself in the emergency room for stitches for the second time in less than a year. He fell at the playground yesterday and busted his chin. What is this mystery of trust, love, and bonding that pulls us together as we sit in the E.R. room and he asks me bravely, how many shots, how many stitches, will it hurt. We bond as the tears well up in his eyes, we hug, and then he bravely lays down and lets the doctor talk him through the shot, the weaving of thread through skin.

I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events take place.
---Rufus Jones

P.S. Check out some pictures from our Church Retreat at Black Rock. Under The Commons (right column)--my pictures.