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DIG OF THE DAY … Protect the new generation; do not let them grow up into emptiness and nothingness, to the avoidance of good hard work, to introspection and analysis without deeds, or to mechanical actions without thought and consideration. Guide them away from the harmful chase after outer things and the damaging passion for distraction.… I would educate human beings who with their feet stand rooted in God’s earth, whose heads reach even into heaven and there behold truth, in whose hearts are united both earth and heaven.

Source: Daily Dig for August 22, Friedrich Fröbel, Their Name Is Today.

So … who … specifically and personally … are you encouraging?

Image by Lorraine Cormier from Pixabay
8/22/20

QUOTE OF THE DAY … “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” – Ray Bradbury

Image from NeedPix

DIG OF THE DAY … It is when things go wrong, when the good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly. There is no such thing as belief without doubt or struggle.

Source: Daily Dig for August 24, Madeleine L’Engle, Two-Part Invention

Hebrews 12:11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

What lessons is life teaching you today … the hard way?

Can you trace backwards from consequences to causes?

If you don’t like what you are reaping, you may wish to reconsider what you are sowing ….

Image: Wikimedia, Title: With the children on Sundays, through eye-gate, and ear-gate into the city of child-soulYear: 1911 (1910s)Authors: Stall, Sylvanus, 1847-1915

DIG OF THE DAY … God is not looking for heroic figures, wonderful people who captivate others with their charisma. It must have been quite baffling to the educated world when Jesus pronounced, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Blessed are the simple and those with limited education who do not want to understand everything with their intellect. Blessed are they who do not always think they have to put themselves forward to show how smart they are. Blessed are they who do not theorize about heavenly things. Blessed are they who keep to the way that is shown them, whatever life brings.

Source: Daily Dig for August 26, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Action in Waiting.

I WOULD PREFER TO BE THE SUPERSTAR, the center of everyone’s attention because of my brilliant thoughts and my mighty deeds, and everything else that shows that I am the hero of the show, the powerful worker of miracles and changed hearts. I would prefer, in other words, to be a celebrity.When I consider my ability, however, to be the star, I am actually very thankful that what I am asked to do is to follow Jesus. And pray. Because He is the star, the hero, the miracle worker and the catalyst for changed lives.

I’m just His servant, and that’s enough.

Or I can affirm … I’m good, but I’m not that good.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

HISTORY OF THE DAY … from the Writer’s Almanac for today, 8/24/20:

On this date in 1873, the St. Louis, Missouri, school board authorized the first public kindergarten in the United States. The driving force behind the kindergarten was Susan Blow. She was a highly intelligent but mostly self-educated woman who had grown up in a wealthy St. Louis family. When she took a trip to Germany after the American Civil War, she was impressed by the work of Friedrich Froebel. Froebel had developed what he dubbed a “kindergarten” — a garden of children, with teachers as the “gardeners.” Blow saw that in Froebel’s kindergartens, young children were learning language, math, and science concepts through play. She began studying everything she could get her hands on, intending to bring the kindergarten concept to the United States. “If we can make children love intellectual effort,” she wrote, “we shall prolong habits of study beyond school years.”
Blow’s father approached Dr. William Torrey Harris, the St. Louis school superintendent, about opening an experimental kindergarten. He agreed, and sent Susan Blow to New York to study for a year. She offered to direct the kindergarten for free, if the school board would provide her with a classroom and a teacher. She set up a bright, colorful classroom with kid-sized tables and benches. The kindergarten was a rousing success. Blow directed the kindergarten for 11 years, at her own expense and at the cost of her health; when she retired, the St. Louis schools were serving 9,000 kindergarteners. And by the time she died in 1916, more than 400 cities offered public kindergarten in their schools.

Image: woodleywonderworks, “kindergarten, in session” via Flickr

I wonder if churches need something like kindergarten, with “soul gardeners” to help people move on from spiritual infancy to spiritual learning …

DIG OF THE DAY … It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty, bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do. And mostly, against all odds they’re enough.

Source: Daily Dig for August 27, Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.

What’s in your toolbox? What’s missing that you need?

(Image from Maxpixel)

QUOTE OF THE DAY … “The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished. Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished.” – St. Francis de Sales

GTD Mentor David Allen points out: A foolproof way to create resistance to stretching into new and wonderful places for you is to maintain a sense of over-commitment. And one of the surest ways to allow that feeling is to lose track of what your commitments are. … Knowing how overcommitted you are really is very different than being afraid of how overcommitted you are!
So, take control of your focus and ignore for today everything did you feel that you have to do from now till the end of time. Then open a little window in your mind and allow what you need to do right now to be noticed. Then do that.

(Image “Overwhelmed farm building” by Julian Paren via Geograph. org .UK)

QUOTE OF THE DAY, from the Writer’s Almanac for today:

Today is the birthday of British physicist Ernest Rutherford, born in Brightwater, New Zealand (1871). His parents moved to New Zealand, they said, “to raise a little flax and a lot of children,” and he grew up on the family farm with his 11 brothers and sisters. They were poor, and Rutherford later said that his motto was:

“We haven’t the money, so we’ve got to think.”

Happy thinking!

(Image from PickPik.)