One Opportunity You Don't Want to Miss
by Cory MacNeil

As a pastor, I'm always looking to take things to the next level.  The looming question is, "what can I do to improve this situation, relationship, infrastructure, etc?  The problem is it's so easy to get caught up in progress that we fail to do one important thing.

The fact you are reading this post indicates your interest in getting the most out of life.  But when is the last time you took time to celebrate your accomplishments?  What happens is that things in motion, have a tendency to stay in motion.  While you're busy getting slimmer, wiser, savy, and more spiritual, don't miss the plot.  Take the opportunity to reflect and appreciate your hard work.

"All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy."
"All work and no play, makes Jill a dull girl."

Rainy days can be an overachiever's worst enemy or their best friend.  Why?  Because they derail progress for the day (or can).  Or, you can use them to do something you ordinarily wouldn't.

Last night I went to bed an hour early.  This morning I got up an hour late and drove the length of Lake George.  I bought a cup of coffee from Stewarts.  Once home, I walked barefoot in the yard on the wet grass.  I talked with my one remaining chicken for a few minutes.  Her name is Peaches, in case you were wondering.  I put out the recycling and trash cans.  I stood back and looked at my half- painted house from a distance.  I caught up on social media and email.  And now I'm taking a few minutes to write.

So when is the last time you ditched your routine for awhile and smelled the coffee?  It may sound ironic, but sometimes less is more.  Less sawing and a little sharpening makes for more cut wood.  It's SO easy to keep hacking with a dull ax when it only takes a little bit of time to resharpen and refocus.  This principle applies to all areas of life, not just wood chopping.

A few moments or hours of reflection can take you farther than a years worth of work.

During your downtime, you can watch your children play- study their motions, watch them swim.

Reread a small piece of your manuscript and make a few corrections.

Watch the wind make the flowers, grass and trees in your yard dance.

Study some ants on your sidewalk for twenty minutes.

Walk your yard and check out the details.

Write a poem.

Pen a love letter to your spouse.

There is a difference between working for a living and living for work.  Work is wonderful, I don't know where I'd be without it. But it's also wonderful to stand back and appreciate our work and be thankful.

How about you?  I know you work hard, and I know you want to keep moving forward.  But you exist to do more than work.  If it's been awhile since you took sometime to reflect, what better time to start than TODAY!  Better yet carve out some time in your daily routine to rest and refuel.

#38- The Point Is?
by Cory MacNeil

All I remember is one minute there was a man standing over a wagon hitch and the next minute he had dropped the hitch on his foot!!!!!

They brought the man into my Grandmother's house and took his shoe off.  There was lots of blood.  He sat in the chair my Great Grandmother always sat in when I tied her shoes for her.

What ever happened to the man, I'll never know.  I vaguely recollect someone saying he died an early death which isn't very surprising considering his previous track record.

I'm 100 percent positive this story happened, but I have no physical proof.  I'm sure it wasn't a dream, but again, I'm not 100 percent sure how I know that I'm 100 percent sure.

How about you?  Do you have any recollections like this?

I assure you I had no particular bible story in mind when telling this story.  It's just a story that I've  replayed in my mind for years and I just wanted to get it off my chest.  Funny how the mind and memory works isn't it?  

What are your thoughts?  Happy Friday, I'd love to hear from you.

The point of this post?  My motivation for writing it?  Fun!

Today, may you write a poem with your words and actions.  May you take time to wrestle with your mystery and history until the break of dawn.  May you get the world moving in a new direction.  May you love better than you did yesterday.  Be blessed!

#36- Ghost Post
by Cory MacNeil

It's three thirty a.m and I'm sitting in the parking lot of Grace Fellowship Church in Latham, waiting to pick my oldest daughter up from a field trip to Pennsylvania.  Most of the other cars have their lights off.  A couple have parking lights on (presumably new car owners who don't want to incur dents or a full on collision).  A few are texting.  One lady has her interior lights on (probably reading my blog....or not.  Ooops!  The bus just arrived.  Be back in a few.

I've decided to write this morning, because I believe I'm experiencing something holy.  This morning I'm part of a group in process.  Many times, life seems circular and repetitive.  Today it feels linear....like this is all going somewhere.  It's not that it's not going forward all the time, it just doesn't feel that way sometimes.  Sometimes it's just plain hard.

The moment the bus pulls in is always a joy!  You get out of the car and walk through the dark toward the light and YOUR amazing person walks back into your life.  It's like you're meeting them again for the first time.  You realize you don't know who was driving the bus and they could have ran the thing off the road and killed everyone.  You can't wait to hear her story.

The story is not all that long, but AMAZING!  She shares it in bits and pieces.  "Philadelphia was really cool!"  At Sights and Sounds Theatre, while watching the Joseph story from the bible, "they lifted him up above the stage during the dream parts by wire".  O.k, not long stories, but pretty incredible coming from a teenager who normally has to be prodded.

In the car you talk and ride through the darkness.  Everything bright and beautiful is punctuated in the darkness.  She falls asleep in the passenger seat after a twenty four hour day.  It feels amazing to be of service in a special way.  As a bonus, there are a couple of deer mulling around on a lawn in the middle of the city- someplace you'd normally never see them in the daylight hours.  

A car goes whizzing by very fast.  What?  A lone soul is walking the streets.  Are they heavy hearted?  Working toward a dream?  Sad? ______________?

On the highway a car goes by doing about ninety miles per hour.  Is this an epidemic?  What's the hurry? You roll down the window, but rather than shouting profanities, you listen to birdsong.

You decide to get off the highway and take the slow way home.  You decide to drive past your first apartment and your first home.  What a blessing to be able to revisit two such important mile markers on Memory Lane.

As you pull off the highway, the firmament (fancy name for sky from the bible in Genesis chapter 1) is amazing like Philadelphia.  You decide it would make a great scene in the movie you've been wanting to make.  It's Charles Dickensian behind the stark outlines of the new Schenectady Community College Dorms, if that's a word.  If not, who cares?

Pretty soon it will be 7:00 in the morning- your routine wake up time.  Pretty soon it will be time to rerise, put the coffee on and lace up your running shoes.  Part of you thinks about ditching the routine for the day, given your mid night excursion, but you decide not to.

You decide to run because lately you feel amazing.  You run because you're more alive then you've ever been.  You run because everything is going in the right direction and it feels good to battle the oncoming traffic of life.  For the first time in a long time you have PEACE.  For the first time in a long time something tells you everything is going to be more than fine.  For the first time in a long time you're not wondering if you're going to get a flat tire today or die of a stroke at 50.

We pull into the drive way and park.  I tell my daughter WE'RE HOME.  She forgoes a bowl of cereal before crashing.

Today, may you find joy in ordinary occurrences.  May you inflate your routine with something wonderful and sugary to your soul.  May you take time to reflect and renew.  May you rerise a thousand times today.  May you be a blessing to someone who least deserves it.  May you have a ....GOOD MORNING!

#19- A Recipe for Unhappiness

One of the surprises after 40 for me has been an increased appreciation of life.  When I was younger I would have told you I was happy, but in actuality my journey was one of unmet expectations: the more I achieved the more I wanted to achieve; the more I made, the more I wanted to make.  You get the idea.  Harmless, you may say: it’s human nature to be unappreciative of what we have.  Human nature, yes.  But harmless?  No.

In fact, a mindset of scarcity can lead you on a marathon in pursuit of God knows what.  It might mean the unnecessary pursuit of professional degrees: get one and you want more.  Or else, you may go through an army of mates and lose ‘the one’ in the meantime.  Other folks end up frozen to death at the top of Mount Everest in their pursuits.  However you add it up, we’re talking about the disease of MORE.  

There’s nothing sadder than the fact that some people are never satisfied with what they have, right up until their dying day!

The golden years do not come when we are retired and lacking in health.  The golden years are now.  We each have only 24 precious hours a day and it’s up to each one of us to decide how we’ll spend them.  Let’s be honest, it’s amazing how long the seasons of discontent in our lives can last if we let them.  Decide to be happy now.  Sometimes our unhappiness is the result of an endless pursuit of the unattainable.  Maybe the best time to execute your plan is today.  Don’t wait until all of the stars are perfectly aligned and all of the lights in the universe are green at the same time- it’s not going to happen!  

Let’s face it, when we wait to celebrate later when there’s more time, we often miss out. In reality, our children will never be this old again; we’ll never pass exactly this way, and today’s date will only be a historical event come tomorrow.  The only thing we have right now is the PRESENT!

So, what will you do with your present today?  Are you going to continue looking forward to the future and miss out on now?  Why not make the choice to savor what you do have?  Enjoy the now.  It’s like a friend of mine once said: “Wherever you are, be all there!” 

Wherever you are, I hope and pray that you will make the most of today.  Rejoice now, don’t wait until you’ve got IT altogether, whatever IT may be.  Sit and have a cup of coffee with your spouse- the dirty laundry will still be there ten minutes from now.  Take an extra long walk.  Spend some time looking at old photo albums.  Take a nap.  You get the idea: most of us are over achievers who just need to take it easy once in awhile.  When's the last time you went for a joy ride without an actual destination in mind?  Sometimes making the most of today means taking it easy.

Please be sure to comment if this post has resonated with you  today!