Quiet House

Everyone is asleep, except me. I have an office across from the main bathroom, which is where our big fluffy cat sleeps every night. We have to shut the door, so she won't come and scratch on various bedroom doors as we are sleeping. Usually when she hears me up, she pounds on the bathroom door to be let out. No noise, so Gracie must be sleeping.

It also seems very quiet these days because my youngest daughter, 17 year old MJ is away on work crew at Laity Lodge Youth Camp in Leakey, TX. She left last Friday, and I miss her. This is giving me a taste of an "empty nest." I cannot call or email her, which I'll be able to do when she goes away to college. So this adjustment to her being gone is much more extreme than it will be when she goes off to college, except that this will END in one month.

When I worried that she would be unduly influenced by the many fundamentalists at Laity Lodge, MJ reassured me that she did not believe that Jesus is the only way to God. I'm glad she can believe that God is greater than Christianity or any other religion. We try to box God in, but that is impossible. God's loving creation continues to expand and include us all as we are invited to join in the way God is connecting us to life and everything in life, including people who look different or think differently. Please open our hearts so we can see YOU in each person and so will love you in them. As I used to hear on an AA tape, "Let the God in me reach out to the God in you. . . ."

In the way of God,

thoughts count very little.

Love does it all.

by Brother Lawrence