Oh Happy Day

God knows what we need.  I needed a bath.  No, I don't have bad hygiene, I just LOVE taking baths.  If I had to chose between a bath and a shower...or a bath and food...it would be a tough decision.  At the hotel we are staying at all week for our Wycliffe Americas meetings, I found THIS in my bathroom and took a picture it was so exciting.  This is a very uncommon sight in Latin America, and a big present for me from God.

A Room with a View

My view at the Wycliffe International Americas Area meetings in Heredia, Costa Rica

An answer in the desert

Photo: Mexican mountains from the air

A friend recommended these daily meditation emails from Richard Rohr and I’m really enjoying them.  Today’s remind me of the 3 1/2 years of my life when it felt like I was walking the Desert.  During those years I came face-to-face with myself and God in a way that I had never experienced before.  In “regular” life, I’m sometimes tempted to fill up every moment with busyness...and have wondered if what I’m really doing is trying to avoid being alone.  Here are a couple of Richard’s comments on this topic:

Do you know what the answer for deep loneliness is?  Solitude!  No one would have ever imagined it, but I promise you it is true.

In solitude, we are able to let Reality/God define us from the inside out.  We stop looking outside of ourselves for diversions, entertainment, or real satisfaction.  It is the birth of the soul. When we keep looking outside of ourselves, we always and forever need another and then another diversion.

....If we’ve never lived in the realm of pure presence without any need for achieving and performing, we don’t know how to breathe there at first.  It is like living on a different planet.  But eventually, we allow ourselves to be defined by relationship itself instead of by the good or bad—or even the holy—things we’ve done.  And now it is relationship with everything, the rocks at our feet, the air that we breathe consciously, the little animals and birds, the God who is now obvious and praiseworthy in all things.  Solitude, ironically and surprisingly, can connect us to everything else.  Who would have thought?