"How To.........................."

Six days into Summer Break and, to be honest, it feels strange having no obligations as to being anywhere in particular and knowing that, for the most part, there are still about nine more weeks of the same in front of me. My upcoming visit to Veterans carries with it the possibility of more trips to Veterans. It is, therefore, the unknown that holds me in this state of limbo. Nonetheless, I am far from bored, looking forward to midweek Bible class tonight, and yet feasting on our time spent with the kids at the Detention Center this past Sunday. Gordon Livingston, a psychiatrist and the author of one of the books presently holding my attention, wrote that “The most secure prisons are those we construct for ourselves”, adding “Before we can do anything, we must first be able to imagine it.” The latter reminds me of the old Rene Descartes misquote “Cogito; ergo sum” (I think; therefore I am), not that he didn’t express himself in such terms, only that, rather than claiming we exist only in our thoughts, what he really suggested was that we progressively become the person we mentally make ourselves to be. I believe that to be true in more ways than one. Our attitudes and our character are both born of the journey thus far, our reasoning created out of our history; and that which we build spiritually, even as in the physical realm, cannot be so concrete that an earthquake can reduce it to rubble, so flimsy that the first strong wind blows it to kingdom come. Sand beneath the foundation isn’t the only weakness to sound structure. It takes the Holy Ghost, alive in me, an on-going correction in my thinking, the mortar applied between the bricks, the nuts and bolts holding this all together. I am reminded of my grandfather laying block for the basement of our future home, troweling “mud” as needed and proceeding at a pace that had my dad following in his footsteps carefully adjusting each addition. Likewise, this old man is glad for the Master Architect, a tangible presence in whatever each day brings to me….