Sitting here in the office on a sunday night, eating chocolate and drinkin' tea. In the sermon earlier there was this really nice story.

In his book, Run with the Horses, Eugene Peterson tells how he saw some birds teaching their young to fly. Three young swallows were perched on a dead branch that stretched out over a lake. "One adult swallow got alongside the chicks and started shoving them out toward the end of the branch—pushing, pushing, pushing. The end one fell off. Somewhere between the branch and the water below, the wings started working and the fledgling was off on his own. Then the second one. The third one, however, was not to be bullied. At the last possible moment, his grip on the branch loosened just enough so that he swung downward, then tightened again, bulldog tenacious. The parent pecked at the desperately clinging talons until it was more painful for the chick to hang on than risk the insecurities of flying. The grip was released and the wings began pumping. The mature swallow knew what the chick did not—that it would fly—that there was no danger in making it do what it was designed to do." Peterson writes, "Birds have feet and can walk. Birds have talons and can grasp a branch securely. They can walk; they can cling. But flying is their characteristic action and not until they fly are they living at their best, gracefully and beautifully. Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we were born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Some people try desperately to hold on to themselves, to live for self. They look so bedraggled and pathetic doing it, hanging on to the dead branch of selfishness and self-centeredness, afraid to risk themselves on the untried wings of giving. Yet many people don't think they can live generously because they have never tried." We were created to live generously by giving generously of our time, talents and finances. We were meant to soar.

Theres a saying that perhaps is true, that love is feeling all you ever lost returned to you. 

As long as you're alive, you have chances and choices. Small ones like making up with a friend or trying harder at a job. and huge ones like not just being born but living. not just seeing but loving. 

If you get a second chance at love or life, it'd be stupid not to throw your hat in.

A lot of times Christian churches will ask you to be baptized twice. Because the first time you didn't really know what you were doing, maybe you were young and just had an idea of the right thing. And it takes leaving and questioning, to really figure out what to believe.

I don't think the heart knows how to love unless there's cracks in the seams.
Not because it's broken but because it's growing.

"I want to get married, though. I want children – to me that's the ultimate thing. When you're old and on your death bed looking back at your life, it's not going to be the films you've made or what you've accomplished, it's the relationships you have.
You're survived by things that matter – the people you love and those who love you back." - Chris Evans / Captain America

Let's play a game, where all the lives we lead can change.
Nothing that we can see stay's the same. 

(click below to listen)

"The most important things are the hardest to say" Stephen King


“It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.” Raymond Carver

by dennis mchale:

"This is a world where nothing is solved --

where time is a flat circle

and everything we ever do, or have ever done,

we do over and over and over again."

"brunch is my favorite meal" 

-someone in the west village.