Daily Compass

The flip side of the abundant, overflowing cornucopia is the trash barrel overstuffed and spilling garbage all over the street. Face it. Sometimes what we get in abundance are things we never wanted, from the tiny mental assaults of bad drivers to the devastating losses of dear ones to death. Sometimes there is just more grief and anger and frustration than we can contain and the effects spill over into the way we treat other people.

What helps you to keep from spilling your trash in the street when the hardships pile up?

“Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.”
—Eugene Peterson

What do you see when you clear away the clutter from your mind?

Not every blossom becomes a fruit. And a good thing, too, or the tree’s branches would all break from the load. Sometimes “working out” doesn’t look like the fully developed thing you had imagined.

When have you been grateful that something didn’t make it to fruition?

“Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.”
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

What talent do you enjoy sharing?

Nothing reminds us of the immensity of the universe as much as the sight of a sky full of stars, and the knowledge that we catch only a distant glimpse of uncountable worlds beyond our knowing. There is nothing bigger, nothing more grand—except when that immensity is doubled by a reflection.

What is the very biggest thing you feel a part of?