Up

I'll write some other time about marathons and how wanting to quit, call it perseverance or idiocy, is the opposite of quitting. It applies to the whole of my life. More interesting to me now is the movie "Up." Our whole family loves it. We have to skip over the parts that make it a PG; Kelsie insists and we comply. They're scary to us too, but we find the core of the movie's message so perfect for us now. "It's the boring parts of life I like the best." says Russell to Carl, or something like that. Amen. Maybe that's the whole point of adventure: to get us in the right frame of mind to appreciate boring evenings together as a family. They are the best. They are life. These days I dream of reading more, running more, and, yes, disappearing into the beautiful, wasteful smallness of serving God wherever and however He calls, but most of all, boring times together with people I love who actually want me to love them. (The definition of love is not that someone loves me, but that someone lets me love them.) This is what Jesus did when he went away to "lonely places" all the time. He left the shallow, lifeless excitement of miraculous Messianic ministry for "boring" times alone with Dad. Jesus is so wise.

Up, indeed.