Today's clog, er, blog

Houston, we have a clogger.

This morning Mary called so delightfully up from the bottom floor, "Billy, you put a plate full of grease into the sink and now it has clogged up the pipes."

Now, I won't go into why we had a plate full of grease because I don't know. But I know that putting it into the sink was a bad thing, and if I did that (and the jury needs evidence, my friends) I did a bad thing.

So our plumbing is stopped up. My plumbing has been stopped up for a while, but that's another issue for another day.

While I'm sitting here, the dog is barking at the back door to be let in and the alarm clock is going off, which since I'm sitting here typing is a superfulous thing in the first place.

Breakfast is being cooked and the wonderful aroma of bacon is crawling up the stairs to snare me.

It is another morning, another try at a day.

The Bible speaks of this: From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?

I awoke this morning and tried a technique described by the wonderful Tony Campolo in a conference I attended this past weekend. I lay there, essentially staring at my ceiling (which needs painting by the way) and tried to force all thoughts but Jesus out of my head. It's called a centering prayer and the wonderfulness of its description suggests all should try. But all I got, frankly was sleepier.

My world, the world in which my Jesus lives, is not a world in which no thought but Jesus resides. My world, the world in which I praise my God from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, is a world in which I put plates full of grease (theoretically, not a confession) into the sink and it gets washed down the old pipes and the old pipes groan in protest and stop working and water backs up into a sink of dishes I should have washed late last night when the evening was done and my last basketball story was written and I fell into bed a tired old man.

That's my world, the world in which my Jesus not only lives but brings a peace that surpasses all understanding in. See, if Jesus only gave me peace when all thoughts but Jesus were erased somehow, that wouldn't be the world I, or we, live in.

I need Jesus when the tires go flat. I need Jesus when death occurs. I need Jesus when sickness and fear creeps in. I need Jesus when the money to buy the bacon that smells so wonderful doesn't exist any longer.

I praise Jesus in the morning, love him at noontime, and cherish him at the end of the day. That will have to be enough.