Juxtaposed

This is what God feels like today.

Last night I received the terrible news that someone I knew and loved had died.  For the sake of grief and time and a thousand private thoughts, I'm refraining from sharing overly much here.  But I will say that it is loss of family in the 'walking-around life' of a close friend. I am feeling this from all sides. 

More Themselves Than Ever

"When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”

- C.S. Lewis

Messy

Summer for this teacher was wonderful. 
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. 

I found the magical things that refreshed me, and bound up the ways I had been unraveled in the spring.  And then, after all of the big and small things in that season, I found myself back at school. 

Life this week is everything I used to do in the spring, but it's fresh again.  Without fail this week is fresh bulletin boards and long meetings and pencils and copies and protocol.  And don't forget the crazy nightmares about losing control entirely.  (I hear you always have those, no matter how old you get.)  But in one said meeting today, our speaker said this.

'Teaching is messy.'