Picking Up the Pieces When Life is Broken

Not everyone, sure, but some have such brokenness, there are massive pieces strewn over the campus of their lives that, if picked up, contribute to a miracle of God’s grace to resurrect.  For one it’s their own personal problems.  For another it’s a dysfunctional family to recover from.  From a third, it’s the pivotal betrayal of a spouse.

But everyone, at some time, has to pick up the pieces of what feels like a broken shell of a life, and God will save the person who surrenders to Him through such a purifying experience.

It’s how faith in God works.

First we endure the shock of a circumstance we’re called to embrace.  Then we plan our way through — stepping in faith buoyed by hope, even as hope seems vanquished.  Finally, we believe, especially in the darkest times, that God is very near and very much with us.  And He is, as much as we believe.  That very belief, don’t underestimate it, gets us through some tenuous ‘giving up’ moments.

***

Picking up the pieces teaches us we can do it.

Picking up the broken pieces of our lives shows us how we put ourselves together again.

There is no more beautiful a human being as one who is beautifully cracked and perfectly broken.

When we first come to collect those shattered fragments we see scattered on the floor, we’re so discouraged, but the attitude that picks them up cheerfully anyway is what redeems us in Jesus’ name.

If we can pick up the pieces when we’re down, we can do anything when we’re up.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

When All Your Life Can Say is, “I’m Thankful”

WRIGGLING about in bed at 7.30am, huddled up, three warm bodies — spouse, child, and mine — is a blessing tantamount to heaven on earth.  It’s not just the act of snuggling in bed.  It’s the feeling that accompanies such a treasured experience.  It’s knowing that this stage won’t last, that it needs to be indwelt with the fullest possible consciousness.  Having children in their twenties, having enjoyed the same experience with them, I know that the time’s fleeting.

When we recognise that certain experiences don’t last, that they’re scarce, these very experiences become as valuable as all the gold on earth.

That thought imbues a precious grace — the gift of God — that is known in feelings bestowed of His Spirit in gratitude, which tips into the gorgeous grace of thankfulness.

Experience is a privileged learning as God bequeaths a wisdom that can be learned no other way.

Not all days can I say all my life can say right now is, I’m thankful.  For no particular reason.  For a renewed sense for hope, perhaps.  For a parchment of humility to embrace a hard thing or two, maybe.  But thankfulness is never vouchsafed in anything one does not already have.

Thankfulness is pregnant, full term, with the possession of gratitude, ready in hope to birth a beloved sense of irrepressible faith.

Thankfulness indwells hope like a hot air balloon carrying the basket’s occupants international.

Thankfulness is never a small thing.  It breaks forth as love led by the Holy Spirit.  Nothing we can contain.

***

When all you’ve got to say is “I’m thankful” you have a heart rich and poised to bless others.

Thankfulness is a flower in full bloom, at its very best, yet ready to die for others.

The greatest of experienced paradoxes is in this: the deeper we’re scourged, the deeper does go our sense for thankfulness.  But only by the Holy Spirit!

Be blessed to be thankful.  Be thankful and that blessing is eternally yours!

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Church Community As God’s Answer of Love for His World

God’s holy church gets a lot of stick these days, which is not a new concept.  Such ‘popular’ thought has rumbled through the minds of many learned persons and into the public square since Christendom was first challenged by modernism (1850s – 1940s) and ultimately overthrown by postmodernism (1950s – present).

But, for all its foibles, the church really is the only ultimate answer for a hurting world.

It’s the only answer, because it’s God’s answer, from time immemorial.

This article cannot, by its brevity, be a definitive exposé.  But it can be a contribution for thought: church is the doxology of God on earth.

Church is the answer the hurting person needs, because it’s a community response in the character of God’s love.  God designed us to live in community, but we only survive in safety and thrive on opportunity.  Church offers acceptance and purpose.

Church exists to see the lost saved, the hurting healed, the disciple grown, the devoted servant serving, the evangelist preaching the good news.  Church exists so that all God’s creations would be found, receive forgiveness, find purpose within God’s Kingdom, to make every life count.

Church meets every individual at every stage of life’s journey.  It endeavours to bring a portent of heaven to earth through human beings enabled by the Holy Spirit.

***

Church is God’s answer to a broken world asking the hardest questions of life.  Church doesn’t offer flippant or packaged answers, but it attests to broken realities, transcending them through love itself, accepting many questions are unanswerable, moving on in love beyond the questions to the heart of human need.

It’s love the world wants.  Love is the answer.  Love is the healing all crave.

And love is found in community.

Church knows it’s not answers a hurting world wants.  It’s love the world needs.

God’s love, living and active through His Word, empowered by His Holy Spirit, reaches out through His Church.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

OBCASIO – A Reflection About Moments and Occasions

Through the changing fortunes of life,

As the divergent challenges mingle with fleeting celebrations,

When days endured long ago seem easier than now,

Understand that “now” is that terrifying concept called “reality,”

That no moment can be predicted,

And no reality can be said to be an easy prospect to deal with.

Live in time pregnant with possibility and gravid of opportunity,

That compels vulnerability to the elements of reality,

More than any would ever like to admit,

But do care enough to share.

Special times give the distinct sense they cannot be captured,

And horrendous instances are a gaping reminder,

That all moments on earth are a mystery,

None can own even one iota of them.

People come and inhabit and grow into life,

And are always taken for granted,

Which is no excuse not to make all of life about relationships.

All of life is about the here and now,

The learned past, and wonders to come.

Stay patient when you have the urge to bust out of the moment,

Have the poise to understand the size of God in your midst,

Knowing that He who loves His creation never lets go,

And He who authored peace out of the pen of love,

Compels the stillness of serenity by His Presence.

Realise that terror is as much wondrous as is excitement,

Though do not wish terror on a single soul.

Praise God whilst there is the chance,

Spend time and make effort with family,

Make the most of now,

And brace the moment of possibility within its own sacred reality.

(Obcasio is Latin for chance, moment, occasion, opportunity.)

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Forgiveness – Cheque, Savings, or Credit

Dealing with conflict can be as simple as thinking through how to pay for the trouble conflict brings.  We might think, “Why should I need to pay?  I did nothing to create this mess I’m in.”  Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant — this situation of conflict is what it is, and there’s no skirting around it as if we could pretend it wasn’t there.  It’s there, and it’s up to us to sort it out.  If we won’t nobody else will do it for us.

Here are three ways we can journey toward forgiveness as a way of moving forward past bitterness and resentment; three ways of ‘paying’ for our journey to a better place:

1.      Cheque – using our cheque account is a daily way to ensure we spend the money we have to spend on something we need.  Using the cheque method acknowledges there’s a daily duty along the journey of forgiveness — to pray daily, to surrender hurt to God, to think good thoughts of the party we’re forgiving.  They, like us, are a child of God, made in His image; loved and treasured by God as much as we are.

2.      Savings – the next best account to use is our savings account.  Perhaps we haven’t got much money in our cheque account.  In other words, we’re not committed to being frugal enough to commit to forgiving on a daily basis.  We need to draw on our savings to pay for this journey.  When we don’t engage with the journey of forgiveness we find we dip into our savings, and we may end up feeling further depleted.  We might get to forgiveness, but it costs us a lot — our precious savings.

3.      Credit – this is the worst account to draw from, because we ultimately need to pay the money back — money we don’t have.  We take the journey, but the journey’s not actually been paid for yet.  Our creditors give us the money in advance, because they believe in our integrity to pay back the money advanced to us.  If we use our credit or overdraft account to pay for the journey of forgiveness, we may find we take such an indirect route that we can’t possibly repay what we’ve spent, and we may feel constantly depleted, which affects our hope.  We may lose faith in forgiveness and give up along the journey, still needing to repay so much, and worst of all, we remain entrenched in bitterness and resentment.  Worse still, using credit might mean we’re investing in resentment more than forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a journey along a miry estuary toward a river teeming with life.  How we make that journey, our success along the way, depends on how we pay.

Cheque, savings or credit — how will we pay for the journey from bitterness to healing?

The only viable way forgiveness occurs is via a daily journey of prayer and surrender.  Daily we keep the costs of forgiveness down.  Daily we experience the rewards of letting go.  Paying for the journey of forgiveness on a daily basis takes the responsibility on we can take.  And we do need to take it.

Forgiveness costs us our pride.  We learn to let go of that which we shouldn’t hold onto in the first place.

Forgiveness is about our health, just as it’s about their honour.  And in that way it’s about our honour, and their health.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Forgiveness: as Simple as Forgetting About Right and Wrong

Some time ago I learned a painful but fruitful lesson — people, all people, are sinners, and I cannot expect perfection from any of them, even of those who are mature in the faith.  I cannot even expect them to behave ‘morally’ (it’s impossible to settle on an ethic that could be fairly and agreeably applied).  We’re all corrupt.  And this is wonderful news; we’re all benefactors of God’s gracious forgiveness as an example of the forgiveness we’re to graciously bestow.

Holding people up to a holier-than-normal standard (i.e. something better than “sinner”) reveals self-righteousness, and a dangerous form of legalism.  Yet, this is exactly what we do when we refuse to forgive someone who has sinned, against us.

We ought not to be afraid of sin’s signs and symptoms in our lives or in the lives of others.  We ought more to celebrate the fact that all of us need the grace and forgiveness of God more than we even know.  But we certainly shouldn’t judge sin — that’s God’s job.

Our judgment of others’ sin
is the worst sin we commit.

To judge another’s sin
— to withhold our forgiveness —
is to hold ourselves up
as an example of someone without sin. 
That’s the biggest of lies.

The key to being a forgiving person is being constantly aware of the plank in our own eye.  We therefore cannot see the speck in theirs, nor are we interested in nit-picking.

Forgiveness is about forgetting about right and wrong — remember that sin blurs justice; all are wrong.  In conflict we may be less wrong or more wrong, but we’re still somewhat wrong.  Even if we’ve done nothing wrong in the conflict, to withhold our forgiveness is the most onerous sin — from righteousness to self-righteous hypocrisy at light speed.

It’s feeling wronged that causes us
to struggle with forgiveness.

When we finally comprehend the limitations in all people, ourselves included, grace abounds and compassion abides.

When we forget about right and wrong in conflict, we see issues with great clarity, because the log is removed from our eye.

The best thing we can do when we feel wronged, and are struggling to forgive, is to connect with God’s forgiveness that continues to forgive our wrongs.

Of which there are so many…

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Forgiveness Within a Broken World

FROM where we’ve come from, we’ve spoken a lot about forgiveness being an act of obedience over justice, that it’s not about justice at all, and yet that it’s all about justice.  Those three previous articles have presumed that forgiveness is an-easy-to-understand transaction.  To a point, it needs to be.  Forgiveness needs to be about obeying God, and not haggling about justice.

But that’s not the whole story as far as God’s concerned.

God knows, as our intuitiveness tells us, that there’s something more primary to our obedience — something that must be in place for our obedience to work.

The Lord looks to the heart.

The Bible tells us that God cannot ignore the person who has acknowledged their truth; who has dug down deeply into what they did wrong, and who’ve owned that historical fact.  God cannot ignore someone who’s taken Him seriously, who’s not simply settled for an outward ‘sacrifice’ for having sinned, but has made an inner sacrament of their contrition.

As far as forgiveness is concerned, it helps enormously if we’ve dug down deeply into what we could have done better or differently.  But deeper than that even, we must reflect again on our own brokenness.  If someone has transgressed us, the closest we can come to understanding them is to understand ourselves.

God does a miracle of healing in us, by His Spirit and by His grace, when we take matters deeper that mere outward contrition.

The value of sin is only in its admission.  Only when we admit our sin does God have the permission He needs to dig down deeply into us, to cleanse, heal and restore us.

***

If our contrition isn’t met with their contrition, when we’re looking for it, true forgiveness and understanding is unlikely.  But if our contrition makes theirs superfluous, given that God cannot ignore us when we’re contrite, He pours out His mercy over us.  Trust this.  It works.

Our contrition should not depend on theirs.  Our contrition is enough, and, in taking God seriously, He takes us seriously.  Forgiveness is between us and God.

Would we rather do our heart work and forget about what ‘they need to do’, and be blessed, or fight tooth and nail for what ‘they should do’, and end frustrated?

***

Forgiveness is hard because we live in a broken world.  Forgiveness is made easier when we admit our brokenness and live for God.

God gives us a heart of mercy when we understand His grace, and forgiveness requires a merciful heart of understanding and grace.

When we understand that God understands us, and we understand His forgiveness, we understand the need to forgive.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Why Forgiveness Is All About Justice

FROM where we left off (Why Forgiveness Isn’t About Justice At All) this article takes the mirror image view — forgiveness is all about justice, and nothing else.

Because God forgave humankind, showing bearers of His glorious image how to interrelate, we ought to respond in kind.

Because God offers forgiveness unconditionally — no matter what sins we’ve committed — it stands that we ought to forgive any and all sin done against us.  For, in the first case, the sins that God has forgiven were and are against Him and Him alone.  In the second case, the sins done against us are against Him, too, just like the sins we do against others — yes, we transgress, too — are done against Him.

Some sins are done against us.  Some sins, against others.  Yet, all sins offend God.

All sin is done against God, yet God has forgiven all sin.

Not all sin is done against us, yet we do all types of sin.

We do all types of sin, against a sinless God, who has forgiven us, and yet we do not forgive others.

Can we see a problem with that?  I can see, in myself, a very pernicious sin for the many times I’ve withheld my forgiveness of others, because, despite my hurt, I had no right to withhold my mercy.  Again, I repent.

***

There is the reader who reads this with sceptic forlornness.  They feel that without vindication they cannot move forward.  Yet that vindication may never come.  Besides, are they so willing to make vindication to God for their own sin?  They cannot, ever.  It brings them into a fresh reflection.  Their honesty bequeaths a blessed humility, able to see and believe from their heart, “God, Glorious; and me, a humble sinner.”

Whoever sees a problem within themselves will allow the existence of the same problem in others.  Whoever is forgiven much will find much that is forgivable in another.

If we wish to be more forgiving, we need to be honest about our need of forgiveness.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Why Forgiveness Isn’t About Justice At All

RATIONALITY has nothing to do with how life in relationships work.

Relationships do not work on principles that can be weighed.  There is rarely the point of right or wrong in relationships.  There is no black and white in relationships, only myriad shades of grey.

It’s because of perceptions… and points of view… which are all different… and differing values mean we apply differing weights of importance to the same matters.

So why do we consider that someone else should suffer the indignity of being humbled when we won’t?  Why is another person to forgive us when we don’t feel led to forgive them or another person or people?

Forgiveness is not about justice any more than justice is about reality.  Justice is about right and wrong, whereas forgiveness is about reconciliation, and there’s not much justice in this broken world of ours.

Disconnecting forgiveness from justice eases all our impossible expectations.

Someone does us ‘wrong’ and then we become imprisoned in our hurt until we get an apology.  What if it never comes?  It would have been better not to think of what they did as right or wrong, just or unjust.

Just as God’s forgiveness had nothing to do with justice — us getting our just desserts — God’s grace, through mercy, is free to all who accept the gospel truth, doing nothing else, adding nothing else to it, and acknowledging their sin, and by engaging in the regular practice of repentance, to live the abundant life, through a relationship with Jesus.

Just as God’s forgiveness had nothing to do with justice, God’s grace, through mercy, ought to be extended to others, regardless of how they treat us.  This is the entire gospel wisdom; the rules with which God engages us, which are the rules with which we’re to engage others — especially Christians.

***

For Christians, forgiveness is not connected to justice.  Connecting forgiveness and justice is more a worldly construct of thought.

We received God’s forgiveness when we didn’t deserve it, so we show others that same mercy when we think they don’t deserve it.

A simple way of thinking about forgiveness:

It’s for God — because of the mercy we received from Him, that — we give mercy.

Using the words “for” and “give,” we give mercy for God, because of the mercy we experience.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Why is Forgiveness So Hard?

LIFE teaches us various lessons, and it’s in our best interest, albeit it’s an inconvenient truth, that those lessons aren’t learned easily.  The best lessons are tough lessons.

Forgiveness is a perfect illustration of one of those poignant lessons.  True forgiveness is one of the hardest things we’ll learn.  And we can only learn it by applying it, though understanding why we ought to forgive underpins the genuineness of the forgiving act.

To say that forgiveness is a process is an understatement, but that won’t earn us any reprieve when we stand spiritually naked before God.  Our Saviour has commanded us to throw our life away in order that we would save our life, and what better way is there to prove we’re really surrendered to our Lord?

Then, when we actually forgive someone who hurt us, especially an unrepentant person, we find out what a tussle it is.  It can seem to get harder with time, not easier.  ‘Forgiveness’ seems easy when the personal costs are low.  But sooner or later the stakes are raised, and we really do then have to make a choice — how important is obeying the Lord?

***

Forgiveness isn’t forgiveness until it’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done.  Then we learn something of what it cost God when He forgave us.  Forgiveness isn’t cheap.  It costs.

Forgiveness is always more about obedience than it is about justice.  When we understand this, finally we’ve understood the cost of obedience.

God’s forgiveness of us through Christ was about Jesus’ obedience, and not about justice.  If God’s forgiveness was about justice, we would never have been forgiven.

Forgiveness is only hard when we think about justice.  When we focus on obedience, forgiveness is easier.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

Living Faithfully In An Upside Down World

DRIVING along at the speed limit and then in the rear view mirror a white object comes quickly into view, far too close to the rear of your vehicle, the driver gesturing.  This is the world where you can be in trouble for driving safely.

Then there’s the time when you ran that red light and in going straight through the intersection and you just miss another car.  This is the world where you do get away with many near-misses.

Excitement enters your life in the form of a positive pregnancy test.  You never thought you’d actually conceive.  You and your partner are ecstatic.  All the scans are fine, the baby’s growing, all going well, when suddenly one night there are contractions and bleeding.  This is the world where grief enters life at the moment of loss when minutes earlier there was only excited hope, when loss had no role in our lives.  Everything changes!

Smoking cigarettes was your passion once upon a time — you were a pack-a-day smoker.  You smoked for twelve years before you finally succeeded in giving the habit away!  Yet, it’s your workmate who’s never smoked in his life who gets terminal lung cancer and dies within twelve months of diagnosis.  This is the world where you can die from a disease having done the right thing all your life.  It’s a world where, in having done the wrong thing for a long time you sometimes get away with it.

Steady employment has been your way.  You’ve worked a few jobs for over five years on each occasion.  You’ve been regarded a dream employee.  The dream job comes up and you take the plunge.  In eighteen months you’re unemployed.  This is the world where dreams backfire sometimes.

***

It’s an upside down world, but the blessing still goes to the one who trusts God by faith.

Some days we ride our luck and thank God.  Other days we rise, not knowing if we have what it takes, but we do, and God helps.  Keep riding and keep rising.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

On Violating Important Relationships

This is a short and poignant article confessing remorse for the acts I’ve committed which were many as they were wrong.

There are many out there, many faces of people I see in my mind’s eye, who I’ve wronged.  Many in little inconsequential ways, but wrongs they were and that cannot be denied.  The trouble I have is I will continue to make mistakes, and deliver cutting transgressions, as we all inevitably do from time to time.

I have five men in mind.  There are others, too, but you men deserve an apology, first up, for the various wrongs I’ve committed against you at times over the length of our relationships.

What can I do?  I cannot take back what I’ve said and done.  I cannot make another attempt at serving you as God would’ve had me do in the first place.  Those times are done.  I understand that as well as you do.

But I can say I understand.  I can deliver you with the intent of doing better next time; from now on.  Some of our relationships are reconciled as good as we both are satisfied to leave them, but that doesn’t mean God can’t bridge that gap further.  I pray He does.

I could write here that I pray for your forgiveness, but in all sincerity it’s not what I deserve.  If you forgave me, that would be God’s mercy, but it cannot be my expectation.  Could I seek that your trust in me would be restored?  Again, I cannot and don’t expect that.  And are these words of a man with low self-esteem?  No, I don’t think so.  These are the words of a man who is duly contrite in accord only with the will of his God; a contrition that bears no glory to me, but does attest to God’s power to turn a person around through God’s glorious repentance; the blessing of reflection.

It’s a tragedy to transgress relationships so that remorse would endure.  But good are the blessings the burdened receive in confessing the truth.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

The Most Important Mother Alive

My mother is wonderful and always has been, but this article is not about her, or, if you’re an adult, your mother.  This article is about any mother that currently cares for the vulnerable child — the person who is a paragon of parenthood, even whether they’re a parent or not.  This article is about the situational mother.

Mothers don’t have to be people who have carried their infants to birth.  But mothers do need to be carers, because mothers are carers.  As the Father Heart of God is to love us in perfect accord to His flawless will, the Mother Heart of God is to provide the nurture crucial to all our human development, which is indispensable in early life.

This article is about the most important mother alive.  It’s not about the greater legacy that has been left by the mothers of yesteryear in their suffering for our grandparents’, our parents’, and our own good.  It’s about the mother in the midst of actually mothering.

***

A Prayer for the Most Important Mother Alive

Our Father,

In Your Wisdom You made the world to be sustained through fathers and mothers; of two persons biologically assigned and called to procreate, and without them both, all intelligent creation is ruined.  Glory is Yours, Lord, for Your way that sees humankind prosper on the earth.

Thank You, firstly Lord, for fathers.  Thank You for the image of servanthood that the male embodies in leading as Jesus would.  Thank You that a good father is a safe man, capable of leading his family as a helper, first and foremost, that they might have all his strength, because he submits ubiquitously to You.  Thank you, also, for all the women of past who’ve been mothers, and who’ve cared for children as a mother should.

We confess that we’ve not always been a blessing to our mothers.  Many times we’ve tried them and hurt them.  We humbly seek Your forgiveness, because in transgressing our mothers we’ve wronged them.  Let this confession and seeking of Your forgiveness be indicative of our heart that our mothers would be benefactors of Your imminent and interminable healing.

We pray now for the most important mother alive — that mother who is in the actual throes of parenting, caring for, and nurturing a vulnerable human being in her care.  We pray that You give her every good thing for the tasks she must now, today, complete; that she be encouraged emotionally and spiritually, underpinned by a centring knowledge of Your Presence, equipped with the strength of endurance not to give up.  Help her to hear Your voice that encourages her and urges her on when she doubts she can make even one more step.  Protect her and give her an exit for safety when she feels unsafe, and help her to trust You when she must wave her children bye.  Give her the blessing of the gifts of love that she doesn’t need to earn, but simply deserves.  Help her to know, of all the living angels of the earth, she, as mother, is the grandest of all.

Bless her in every good way, we ask,

In Jesus’ name,

AMEN.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.

This article is devoted to my wife, the finest mother in my sight, and to the mother of my daughters, who has given herself for love.

Because U Require Necessary Outages Until Termination

BURNOUT is a very real health risk; an outcome of a life lived too big.

Yet the irony of burnout is it’s usually because we’ve lived life too small that we end up there.  We’ve funnelled all our efforts, with such unmanageable intensity, within a narrow field of endeavour.  Sure, there are other things that have impinged on our time and energy, but essentially we’ve lost life perspective and life balance becomes a pipedream only others could ever attain.

I approached burnout in 2005 before taking a massive course correction.  I had to respond; my mind stopped working.  Since then I’ve had to be careful with how much load I place myself under.  Since then I’ve learned to rest and to work out of a position of rest.  Contemplation has had to become my way.

It’s because you require necessary outages until your life is terminated.

None of us can run at breakneck speed for months and years without it taking its toll.

Yet, it’s one thing to arrive at burnout, to recognise the signs and symptoms.  It’s another thing entirely to respond the right way, and to learn to live new, healthier rhythms of life.

To the acronym B.U.R.N.O.U.T. here are some strategies to consider:

BREAK:                take a break from all the existing insidious rhythms.  Let life go on without you.  Sure, it’ll be hard to feel you’re disappointing people, but something more important is at stake.

UNDO:                 the silly paces and unnecessary tasks of your life.  One by one undo everything that doesn’t support the goal of family.

REST:                   chances are you don’t know how.  There’s no easy way of saying it, but if you don’t rest, you may ultimately need to rest in peace!  You may die because of the frenetic pace of life and the stress you endure.

NEEDS:                connect with your real needs.  At the early stages of recovering from burnout it’s a case of relying on close, trusted and wise others to guide you.

OPEN UP:           learn to open up to people.  Learn resist making everything a task, and enter truly into relationships that ensure you remain opened up.

UTILISE:              the capacities you have that have been left dormant over the years.  This means embracing new things in gallant ways.

TRY LESS:          really.  Try less. 
When we try less we find we do more.

***

The more we rest between campaigns, the better are our campaigns of life.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.