"Locomotion..........................."

Our visit to the Youth Detention Center Sunday morning found just Tony and me risking the weather to make the trip. Reports of snow and icy roads discouraged the ladies; and I can’t say I blame them. A drive around my immediate area convinced me it was safe, at least at the moment; but, depending on what television station one chose, conflicting reports made it appear possible that returning home might not be under similar conditions. As it turned out, we ministered to about twenty young adults and, while the temperatures never did give us much relief, the sun at least supplied us enough warmth to avoid all else. In truth, for an old man who retired last June for the third time, neither winter nor much of anything else has slowed this old man down for too long. The church school is beginning to utilize me more, the possibility there for a potential vacancy lasting several weeks. The rescue mission is just a monthly event, but part of my schedule. Watching my grandsons play basketball has another week or so chalked out on my calendar; and, with our granddaughter being a regular overnight guest, she keeps me busy with hunger runs to White Castle’s or Wendy’s, drama practice or shopping with her grandmother. Fill in any gaps with a good book, a crossword puzzle, or merely my thoughts set loose on paper. Henri Nouwen, in “Reaching Out”, speaks of prayer as a gift, describing it as “God’s breathing in us, by which we become part of the intimacy of His inner life and, by which, we are born anew.” He goes on to say that “We cannot plan, organize, or manipulate God; but without a careful discipline, we cannot receive Him either.” I believe such premise. “Merger” is a matter accomplished at that point when the heart is first surrendered to Christ. An inner well is restored to which we may return again and again. Communion, though, is not a sacrament we dictate, but an affair maintained in our daily existence, one wherein our thirst and hunger to know Him keeps encounter just around the corner where all we need do is surrender ourselves unto His grace. In the middle of “life”, there can His peace, His promise, and His presence waiting for us in the next step……