Near. . . . . . . .far!

I often times lead with my heart. Except when there is food involved, then I lead with my stomach. Regardless, either way the brain disconnects. It really serves no purpose whatsoever in my life choices except to confuse me at the most inopportune moments when I think about things waaaaaay too much.

On my deathbed my only foreseeable regret will be that I wasn't as reckless as I feel that I should have been. But it is hard when you have a wife and little people depending on you. There are societal standards and state standards and federal standards and of course no one wants there kids to hate them because they caused them to live in poverty or something worse (although the word "worse" can also be used to described keeping up with the Jones' or striving to be rich or something sick like that).

I imagine that there is a balance to things; I just can't find that balance. It's stinky really! I know that I (and my family) am out of balance, and honestly, until I had a conversation recently with some friends I didn't realize that I didn't even know where to begin looking for balance. OK, so I knew where to begin, what I didn't know was what to ask for.

Now I do! Ha! Or at least I did. What I didn't expect was an answer so soon. I don't think that I spent twenty minutes praying and meditating on things when I got an e-mail from my good friend in Lewiston, and *poof* there was the answer.

Funny how God works.            

The funny thing is that it wasn't the first time that I had received this revelation, and it was the repetitiveness of it that caused it to sink in. That and now I actually knew what I was asking for!

It all makes me think about Damien's blog about Wolfgang Simpson's ideas about the church needing to grow smaller. I think that he really is right (Simpson), and so is Damien. Accountability is important, and there is so much that gets watered down when we extend ourselves too much. And there is one of the blessings and curses of technology today – it is way too easy to over extend and reach out to people far too removed from our Oikos.

Bringing Damien's blog into line with my thoughts here: allowing work (or our wives work) to draw us away from the people in our neighborhoods or our immediate circle of friends is a drain on closeness and smallness. Not that we shouldn't have long distance relationships (both in space and time), but we should manage them wisely so as not to be a detriment to our immediate world.