Letter 4482

Day by day, the items I arranged so carefully have fallen out of place. One by one, a shelf of tidy objects meets disarray. At some point, if I am honest when looking about my rooms, I must say they are disordered.

This is the point at which I most need you, Lord.

❖

The placement of objects will not in itself doom nor save me. They reflect my inner life.

Lead my thinking, Lord, out of disorder into order, from chaos into peace.

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Consider:

Can I allow my thoughts to be guided?

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Reading:

❖ “Order is Heaven’s first law.” — Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

❖ “First, keep thyself in peace, and then thou shalt be able to keep peace among others.” — Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

❖ “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” — Romans 12:2 (KJV)

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Letter 4481

Building a stone wall to divide one field from another. Will my neighbors praise the careful work? Will they see my industry?

All ephemeral. The labor and responses will fade into mist. When we are all dust, the wall will remain.

Will history show it to be a pile of rocks, or will it stand straight? Will future walkers rest on it?

❖

Lord, let me work for the ages.

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Consider:

Can I work for history today?

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Reading:

❖ “Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for.” — John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

❖ “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” — Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

❖ “If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.” — 1 Corinthians 3:14 (KJV)

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Letter 4480

I saw no way to get from there to here. I was in a box canyon.

Yet opened a way I had not expected. Now I stand astride a high peak.

Now, how shall I return? I see no way from here to there.

❖

Let me be open to another unexpected way-opening.

This has happened before.

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Consider:

Can I be open to surprising possibilities?

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Reading:

❖ “It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard, Journals, 1843

❖ “To come to the knowledge you have not you must go by a way in which you know not.” — John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel

❖ “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” — Isaiah 43:19 (KJV)

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Letter 4479

I have a neighbor.

Watching him repair a wall, I realized I did not know if his prior day had been heavy or light. We have occupied these lands side by side for years and my world has mostly been within my own fence line.

There is infinite sunshine; your kingdom’s arithmetic does not require decrease for another’s growth. Let me look less upon my own doings and take interest in my neighbor, and my neighbor’s neighbor.

❖

Let me wash others’ feet, one by one.

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Consider:

Can I look up from my own occupations today?

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Reading:

❖ “What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?” — George Eliot, Middlemarch

❖ “Community cannot feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them — unknown and undiscovered brothers.” — Howard Thurman, The Search for Common Ground

❖ “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” — Philippians 2:4 (KJV)

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Thank you for for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.