food stamps from heaven

I've been reading Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz lately and it is, in the truest sense of the word, interesting. It has me thinking, and for that, Don Miller, thank you. I don't know if I agree with everything he's saying (frankly I don't expect, or even to be really honest, intend, to agree with everything he's saying) but I'm thinking about it. So for me, he has succeeded as an author. One of the chapters I was reading last night talks about a lady Don saw using food stamps in a grocery store and how the thought hit him that he is not above God's charity.

That stopped me in my tracks. I am not above God's charity.

There is never a day or even a moment when I can truly say "it's okay God, I've got this one". It's all, this whole life, so completely beyond my capabilities that it is ridiculous. But I wonder how often are we, am I, tempted to think "this one's on me"? Morally, intellectually, emotionally, and most of all spiritually I am an urchin in the street crying out for bread crumbs. But God does more than give me food stamps from heaven, he gathers me in his arms, he gives me a name, he brings me home and he lets me call him Daddy.

homesick for floating

I was reading this article on Wired about commercial zero gravity flights and the author talks about the experience of floating feeling so natural and at the same time so much like a dream. I've always wanted to be able to fly. I can remember as a Kindergartener spending my afternoons running down the slight slope in our front yard, leaping into the air and flapping my arms like crazy. I flew. It didn't last as long as I'd like, but I flew and all the cut and paste and stories of mornings at school just couldn't compare with it. In the article the author quotes Buzz Aldrin as saying that he Scuba dives a lot because he found he got "homeseick for floating". I can relate.