The First of the Next Generation in our Family

Here is baby Adrian with his grampa, my brother Bill. Thanks be to God for his safe arrival, for his dad Ben, and his mom Lisa.

The Difference between Wishing and Hoping

Eugene Peterson, in Living the Message, Daily Help for Living the God-Centered Life (p. 290, Harper One, 1996), makes a really helpful distinction between wishing and hoping. "Wishing grows out of our egos; hope grows out of our faith. Hope is oriented toward what God is doing; wishing is oriented toward what we are doing...Wishing is our will projected into the future, and hope is God's will coming out of the future. Picture it in your mind: wishing is a line that comes out of me, with an arrow pointing into the future. Hoping is a line that comes out of God from the future, with an arrow pointing toward me."

In talking with Jen, our resident bridge between the worlds of faith and science, I have begun to see this at work in creation. In God, there is really no time. For us limited finite creatures, we experience God at the beginning giving the push that began all of creation. We experience God in the midst of creation as the incarnated presence redeeming creation and as the Spirit who touches us with grace. And we experience God pulling us towards the fulfillment of all creation, which for us is in the future, though for God, it exists now and eternally.

While it may not seem to make much difference to our everyday, practical lives, it actually makes an incredible difference. How we live and experience the present moment is very different when we are hoping that things could or would be better rather than living in expectation, "anticipation of what God is going to do next."

This is a part of why my prayer is not for God to bless what I am doing, but that I may be a part of what God is blessing, since that is actually a part of the pull of the fullness of creation in God.

Mickey Morris

Today, October 9, would have been my father's 80th birthday. What can I say about my champion?

He was the youngest of three children of Wallace Elmer Morris & Marie Hauerwas. He was a devoted husband and father. For several years he had to travel a great deal for work. It was hard on all of us, but it was very important to him that later we knew, especially my brother, he had always been faithful to my mother when he was away.

He delighted in finding gifts for my mother. He would buy them almost all year long, and wrap each one of them up for Christmas. He would pick up the presents from under the tree and very gently weigh it, rock it and see if he knew what it was.

I remember speech lessons with my father. I had had recurring tonsilitis from very early (6 weeks old) until they were removed when I was about 3 or 4. Evidently this problem had caused some difficulty with pronouncing certain sounds. I can remember one of these speech lessons quite clearly. I had come in from playing outside and asked if I could have a "piece of tate" (cake). I didn't get my piece of cake, or go back out to play for quite some time. I sat on the footstool between my father's knees as he taught me to pronounce words correctly. He wasn't harsh, just firm.

In the Fall of 1990, when my older son was just a baby, Daddy was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease. It is a terrible affliction. Normally, those who suffer from ALS die 3-5 years after diagnosis, but Daddy died only 21 months later.

Some Mickey-isms:
--If you don't ask, you only have one answer.
--To screw a lid, or a faucet cap on, start by screwing it backwards until it finds its groove, then it will go on easily.
--Use your elbow grease when you sweep (or do any chore).
--If I ever stop being a boy, I will be dead.

Thanks be to God for Mickey Morris!