shoulds and oughts

Often -- too too often -- I am yipped and yapped at by should's and ought's. I am the problem...on some days my 'rose-colored' glasses are streaked with grim and smudged as I rub them with grimmier fingers. Yesterday as I scanned the horizon of life -- not just my life, but life as far and wide as I could see -- I saw patterns of things that should not be the way they are, things that ought to have come through change to good and settled by now. It is weariness to me. I can quote the answers but they come out ~ on days like those ~ as trite, heartless syllogisms: true in point of fact, but without heart and devoid of life. I know the power that ought to course through the Body of Christ ~ the dynamic miracle, the cutting edge creativity, the unshakable integrity...and I see my'self' and see that in these and in so soooooo many areas I stand 'the chief of all sinners'. Yes, 4 fingers pointed back at me and 1 pointed out at situation after situation, every direction I look.

The field of view is not devoid of good and beauty and for that I am grateful -- grateful like a man gasping for air and grateful for breath as he rises from the bottom of the ocean. I have a friend who has come from disillusionment and near despair -- standing on the edge of turning from God -- and who stands now passionately in love with Christ and who is now resold-out to the gospel, the King, and the Kingdom. I have another friend (yes, you guys know who you are) who is living a dream so suited to his heart and life and family that work, and creativity, and beauty braid together seamlessly. My children are unending beacons of hope and joy to me...so I guess I will have to take the glasses off and live nearsightedly.

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