A Labyrinthine Journey: Soon Coming in 3-D

In a previous post (quite a while ago, I’m sorry to say) I began reflecting on the three temptations of Christ as recorded in Matthew 4. I see the core issue we face is the temptation to do Whatever it Takes to bring us what we feel is missing in our lives. I also see the three temptations connecting with the three main energy centers of both the Enneagram and the writings of Thomas Keating.

I started with the hunger of Christ and the temptation to turn stones into bread as our fear of survival leading us to use whatever it takes to ensure our safety and security.

What about the next temptation?

Temptation 2: Caught by Angels

The scene is the top of the top of the Temple. The center of the life of the people, a place always occupied with people looking to affirm and celebrate the work of God. “Jump,” the Tempter says, “won’t those guardian angels prove your value to God by saving you before you hit the ground?”

In this case, the temptation is to do whatever it takes to receive the attention and esteem of others.

One of my oldest fears is the fear of being ignored or forgotten. I can’t even begin to count how many nightmares and small anxiety attacks involve this fear of being lost and passed by. Even though I am introverted by nature, I willingly step right into the middle of a crowd to demand attention, to preach, or at least to tell a bad joke, just so people will know I’m there. And the more I feel ignored, the sillier my actions become. Just ask my family.

“Look at me.”

From watching what is going on in society, I don’t think I am any different from pretty much everyone around me. We have this basic need for attention and affection; to know that people like us. It also goes deeper than that, if I am seen then I am real in some way and I am important somehow.

This importance we want to extend into the future also as a way to affirm our existence. Think of all the monuments created and monuments destroyed as various attempts to ensure that our names and memories continue to point to our existence, or to erase the future/present from our enemies.

“Look at me, I exist, I’m here.”

On the Enneagram, the Heart Center focuses on being seen as a success, as valued for the things we accomplish. The 3 Enneatype seeks success at any price, the 2 Enneatype is willing to give themselves away to be seen as loving and worthy of receiving love, and the 4 Enneatype demonstrates to the world how creative and wonderful they are. Keating talks about our basic need for affection and esteem.

We live in a society today that is very much prone to this temptation. We are in awe of the spectacular, with “reality” television and the growing sources of 24 hour news feeds (television and internet). And that doesn’t count how easy it is to set up a blog somewhere and write something expecting people to read it (and how we track our hits and our twitter followers and our Facebook friends almost religiously). Do I have status? Is it up (Alright!) or down (Woe is me!)? Do people know who I am? Do people talk about me? Our adulation of celebrities doesn’t even hide as we have so many different kinds of Idols in our world. And it doesn’t even matter how you get your 15 minutes of fame, the only bad press nowadays is no press.

“Look at me. Notice me. Know my name.”

That is the invitation of the Tempter to Jesus. Here is the place where any kind of miraculous stunt would be assured to be on everyone’s lips within days if not hours. And there would be no question about how spectacular this event would be. Jesus could just coast through the rest of his life and have all the adulation and esteem he would ever want. And his enemies would not be able to question the sign, it was in their own front yard.

Jesus’ response? “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Matthew 4:7) Remember the basic fear behind this temptation? That one would be forgotten and in being forgotten be seen as not existing or not being valued. To me the response of Jesus is a challenge to the idea that we need to prove our worth. In our society we feel we have to do Whatever it Takes to prove ourselves worhty of attention and affirmation because of what we do and how spectacularly or perfectly we do it. If someone doesn’t see our caring or giving it doesn’t matter. We have to always be testing others to remember that we are real.

“We are created in and by love.”

In the Enneagram, the core of the Heart Center is the invitation to Hope. I see that hope being based on the grace of God already valuing us and continuing to create us in God’s Image. The image of God we are granted include the ability to be creators ourselves, with creativity and great compassion. The pathway away from the temptation is to accept with assurance that God, the Creator and Maker of all things embraces us in this wondrous way. We not only have a future, but we have a present. And that is one of the givens of Grace. No demonstration by God or ourselves can prove this promise. We return to faith. We are invited to trust in the unseen but very real hope we have in the living presence of God. That presence is the true source of the need to exist and be valued.

Last week for Ash Wednesday, I wanted to try to help my Confirmation students understand Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness. Last year I started working with my own version of Confirmation that links up with the Enneagram and some of the process perspectives that offers me. So it didn’t take much for me to see a link between the three temptations of Jesus and the 3 energy centers of the Enneagram (also the three energy centers of Thomas Keating).

But even that didn’t lead me to connect well with the students because the needs of the three centers are basic needs for life. What makes them traps for us is when we go to the extremes with the importance of or the means to achieve our needs. The common thread with all the temptations of Jesus was the temptation to do “Whatever it takes.”

Temptation 1: Turning Stones to Bread

We all have the basic desire for survival, to not be hungry. We like to feel safe and secure with all of our needs met and our fears taken care of.One of the things we really don’t like is that feeling of emptiness and it doesn’t matter if the emptiness is in our stomachs, the noise level around us, our bank accounts, our schedules, our understanding of life, or our inner spirit. We just don’t like it. In US society we loath emptiness so much we overindulge and hoard just about everything. We have fallen into the trap of confusing what we want with what we truly need all in the service of preventing us experiencing even the hint of being less. On the Enneagram this would correlate with the Head corner of the 6-5-7.

So Jesus in the wilderness after 40 days of no food sits in a place that we actively avoid. My confirmation students thought the idea of going 4 hours without food was ghastly enough let alone 40 days. So Jesus is set up for the first Whatever it Takes temptation. He was famished, and I can imagine that emptiness raising weakness and fear that he might not survive this time and the wilderness would be the end of his journey even before it really got started. So the temptation is to not believe that God will really take care of him, that the Spirit left him out here to die in the wilderness, so if Jesus wanted to survive, he would have to take care of it himself.

Both Jesus and Satan knew that Jesus had the power to make it happen and besides who would know. Jesus would know. And the truth he would know was that in the end he wasn’t able to trust God to care for him with even his basic needs, so he had to step in and fill the void of God’s activity in his life.

Whoa. That raises a lot of questions for me about all the things we do to “insure” that we will succeed in surviving our life. I will leave any personal reflections up to your living conversation with God’s Spirit.

But I find this temptation causing me to wonder how many survival programs for struggling churches are all based on the idea that God hasn’t stepped up to save you yet, so you need to do Whatever it Takes to make sure you have your needs as a church met. I’m all for hoping the Church of God continues (my income is a vested interest in that endeavor). However, I think we have lost sight of the idea that the Church is the Body of Christ and that the God who creates us and forms us together as a people is also desiring for us to live abundantly.

Where is the Trust that God holds the future and is faithful to us?

In many books and programs that come through my email and inbox the trust seems to lie instead on how we are processing the metrics of “successful” churches to “insure” our survival as a congregation or as a denomination.

Are we as the church being seduced by the Surviving by Whatever It Takes temptation? I’m afraid we are more than we would like to admit.

OK, this ended up being longer than I expected, so I will break it up into 3 parts and take each of the other two temptations.

Feel free to comment below.

Yesterday’s post about my initial responses to Ephesians 2 was a strange one for me to write. It as one of those let’s get the words down raw and let them just sit there as they are. I don’t think I will preach that passage in just that way. And for me it was a risk to write it that way, but it was a choice.

A choice of voice.

In my study of the enneagram I continue to see myself as a Type 8. If you do any kind of looking at the Enneagram types the 8 is the more strong willed, in your face, powerful leader. I am learning to see where I do intimidate people, and I am learning to accept that as my type energy at work. Yet, I have spent years not liking the commonly expected voice of the Enneagram 8, what I am thinking of as the Confrontation Voice.

Before I knew of the Enneagram, I had observed some very clear examples of that Confrontation Voice from church leaders. I saw the harm those harsh words had on my life and on the lives of others. So as I was seeking my own voice as a preacher and a leader I intentionally sought a different voice. It was those years of cultivating a non-confrontational and peacemaking voice that led me first to see my Enneagram Type as a 9. I was content with that.

So one of my struggles with the Enneagram has been accepting that I do have that Confrontational Energy and voice within me. Part of that acceptance is to find healthy ways to practice it. And practice is the operative word there. I am clumsy with my Enneagram 8 energy and voice. It is a shift of years of practice to become open to an important part of how God made me.

So yesterday’s post was a practice exercise in that more Confrontational Voice that is one of my authentic voices.

My preferred preaching voice? Invitational. And I can see how that can be just as bold and clear of a type 8 voice as the more confrontational one can be.

To me, the Bible is a collection of God’s loving invitations to us. Invitations to live a life aligned with the righteousness and love that God showed us in creating us, tending us, redeeming us, and transforming us. One of my pastors said once that God does not break into our lives to invade us, that is evil’s modus operandi. God knocks gently and persistently on the doors of our hearts inviting us to open and welcome in the Essence of the Divine. We can choose to ignore the invitation and we can refuse it, and God’s grace will respect that choice.

Yet, God will keep on offering the invitation. As long as we have life in our bodies God will keep on offering that invitation. And I’m even open to the idea that not even death will stop God from that extended grace (can we say purgatory?).

Even in the Ephesians 2 and Acts 10 passages, I can just as easily see God reaching out in love to Us and reaching out in love to Them and then looking at each of us with those sparkling/piercing eyes of grace and saying,…

“Shall we dance together?”

That’s a great invitation.

I come to the last of 4 posts as an introduction to my thinking of the Enneagram through the images of the 4 elemental images of the Ancient Western World. Please heed the note at the bottom. I really do want feedback.

Element 4: Fire. This element offers a couple benefits: light and energy or heat, so the images will be broader than the last 2. You will also note, that while I begin with the more positive sides of the images, the impact of either too much or too little of the element are notes when we move Out of Essence (my phrase for living a perceived disconnection from the Divine Essence)

• Ones: Refiner’s Fire and pure light. Out of Essence the One is either blinded or is blinding to those around them. And woe to you if you are the slag in the refiner’s fire.
• Twos: Both images relate to the hospitality nature of the Two. First we have the baking oven, especially after a loaf of bread of tray of cookies is taken from it. The other is the light in the window offering a place in the darkness. Of course the Out of Essence images offer the cold shoulder of inhospitality.
• Threes: The kiln/forge and the projector. On the one hand we have the poles of industry and inactivity. On the other hand we have the power of illusion and image.
• Fours: I see the bonfire and the firework. Fire and light at its most dramatic. Too much? we have the burn zone of the wildfire.
• Fives: The search light and the incubator. These fire images provide the place to hold and then hatch wisdom and life as well as the one searching in the darkness for truth.
• Sixes: I see the hearth and campfire. They provide light and heat as a circle of security for the gathering of companions, yet the shadows lurk just beyond the reach of that circle.
• Sevens: At first I had the firework here, but instead I have the living flow the gas fueled flame, and the full spectrum of the rainbow. Rainbows are great, but it is hard to find definition with them. And the gas line can become over filtered and the flame is lost
• Eights: I kept returning to the living rock of magma and of our Sun. Lots of heat and needed at the core, but beware the eruption of the volcano. And while we need the light of the Sun to reveal life, it is not meant to be gazed upon or to come too close to.
• Nines: Without the fire of the Nine we have the darkness of sleep and the void before creation. I see the glowing light of the Golden Hour just before sunrise and just after sunset. I also see the simple and peaceful light of the candle flame.

I hope soon to take these ideas and approach them from each Enneatype as a way to provide a fuller picture of each type.

Note: I Welcome your help! These are ideas and possibilities for images in understanding and exploring the Enneagram. These are all Tentative, and might/will need further development. You can help by commenting on what you think works and what you think will work better. Thank you, David

Continuing with Part 3 of a 4 part introduction unfolding my thoughts on how the different Enneagram types might be connected with the 4 elements of the Ancient Western World. I do need to repeat that these are preliminary ideas with minimal explanation. I want to expand on these in the near future.

Element 3: Earth. Included are images related to gardens and growing. I think this would be a place to consider the 5th element of the East, Metal. (future possibilities).

• Ones: I can see here the path itself and a highway. The way to follow for righteousness. When the path is lost it is easy for a One to find themselves wandering aimlessly.
• Twos: The image that comes to my mind is the refuge. It can be a cave or just a sheltered place to be welcomed. Too much of this type can turn the refuge into the bondage of the dungeon.
• Threes: Building blocks and even steps. This is not only the idea of upward mobility and progress, but it is related to industry. However, when this type is Out of Essence, those blocks can become stumbling blocks and obstacles.
• Fours: I went to the creative side with this type: the potter’s clay and the sculptor’s marble. Great potential for expression of the Creative Essence. When this type fractures, we find piles of shards and rubble.
• Fives: As an Eight who has spent plenty of time in my Five stress point, I see this type as the deepness where roots can find foundation and nutrients. Wisdom is a deep earth image. The alternatives for the disconnected Five is either shallow hiding or so deep that one is disconnected from the seed and stem.
• Sixes: Here I see bedrock and foundation images. It can be a very strong place to base one’s life. However with fear, the images either crack apart along a fault-line or one’s life becomes anchorless and is blown around by the storms.
• Sevens: Here I see the fertile soil of a garden. Loose, fresh, and full of nutrition to grow a variety of food and beauty. However, when the seven is Out of Essence (disconnected from one’s inner process of the Divine) life becomes sterile.
• Eights: I image the spaciousness of the mountain and valley. Both images bring with them the idea of breadth and potential. However, they also become potential sites for avalanches.
• Nines: The basic soil and ground of being. Nines have an expansiveness to them, but also a commonness that doesn’t get in your face like the Eight. There is a dynamic to the basic ground, but left empty, we find life is stuck in stasis, ungrounded, and unplanted.

Next: Fire.

Note: I Welcome your help! These are ideas and possibilities for images in understanding and exploring the Enneagram. These are all Tentative, and might/will need further development. You can help by commenting on what you think works and what you think will work better. Thank you, David

Continuing the unfolding of images using the 4 Elements of the Ancient Western World and the Enneagram. Again, here are some initial ideas with minimal explanation. I want to expand on these in the near future

We continue with Water.

• Ones: I see pure and filtered water, well suited for cleansing purposes. When a One is Out of Essence, they either become very sensitive to pollution or they end up polluting with judgment.
• Twos: A couple images come to mind. One is the image of a lake. It is not too big to be overwhelming. A home for fish and a refuge for other wildlife. The other image is that of a Cup of Cold Water. It brings refreshment to others. When a lake becomes ingrown (like the self-focused Two) it becomes stagnant and is not healthy for life.
• Threes: One set of water images is that of a river or a canal. It is moving and ever changing. It makes canyons and can polish rocks. A related image is that of a dam or a levee as constructions that help to harness and direct the water. However, too much and the flow is blocked with excess control.
• Fours: I see a spring, an artesian well, or Jesus’ image of a well of living water. This links to the Holy Origin nature of the Four. The creative seeks to connect deep down with the source of creative life. Without this spring, we have wilderness, absence and longing.
• Fives: This one actually comes from Helen Palmer (and I lost the scrap of paper I wrote this on). The Five would be the undertow current in the sea. I would broaden that out to the deep ocean currents of which the undertow becomes a dangerous excess to those caught in its trap.
• Sixes: Rain. We need rain for life, just like we need faith, however too much of the fear/rain leads to dangerous storms and floods. Too little courage leads to drought.
• Sevens: The waterfall and the fountain. This is related to the spring of living water, but in a bubbly, effervescent way. You can’t help but be enlightened in the presence of a spraying fountain or a waterfall. However, too much can lead to an excess of chaos and life spins quickly out of control.
• Eights: If the Five is the undertow, the Eight is the Ocean Wave (again from Helen Palmer). I would expand this to the movement of the tides, powerful and broad movements in life. Too much? Tsunami.
• Nines: Here I imagined the mountain stream of the bubbling brook. Nothing over the top, but in the presence of the stream, I think peace and harmony. A brook without water is a dry creek bed. Nothing going on, but still holding potential. Waiting for the rain (the Six) and dreaming of being the river (the Three)

Next: Earth

Note: I Welcome your help! These are ideas and possibilities for images in understanding and exploring the Enneagram. These are all Tentative, and might/will need further development. You can help by commenting on what you think works and what you think will work better. Thank you, David

What might the Enneagram look like using the 4 elements of the Ancient Western World: Air, earth, water, and fire (Eastern world has 5 and adds Metal). For the last month or so, I have been playing with ideas. Here are some initial ideas with minimal explanation. I want to expand on these in the near future.

We begin with Air. In thinking of this set of images, I consider winds, and space and sounds and music.

• Ones: The north wind. The clarifying and cold air of winter. The clean lines from Scandinavia. Frozen anger. Music: the melody line. That line of notes that defines and divides the composition as it moves from beginning to end.
• Twos: The West Wind. A soft, gentle, warm breeze that moves from spring into summer. Music: harmonizing voices. voices joining the melody to bring richness and fullness to the music. When the Two is out of essence, disharmony and clashing chords result.
• Threes: Wind-filled sails. The prevailing winds that move and energize commerce and explorations of life. However, the winds can blow in any direction, so need a rudder. Also, the winds can leave us dead in the water. Music: the String section. To many, these are the orchestra leaders.
• Fours: Horizon-gazing. The gazing and longing is important, seeking something yet to be. Without the landmarks of the horizon it is easy to become disoriented and lost. Music: the mournful and longing sound of the Saxophone.
• Fives: The openness and distance of Deep Space. I image a vacuum waiting to be filled. The Five can exert a lot of energy trying to fill that space. Music: The Bass line. The deep bass line can provide the foundation that is needed. This can be either the melodic bass for the boom of the bass drum beat.
• Sixes: The south wind. These are the height of summer into fall storms. Great warmth and comfort, but also great storms that come out of nowhere. Music: Drums and percussion (aside from the bass drum above). In many cultures the drums can be either a call to gather, or a sound of warning.
• Sevens: The East Wind. This wind is mischievous and ever changing. It blows fresh. Without it the air can easily become stagnant and stale. Music: The flutes. These instruments lighten up the composition with bright, high tones.
• Eights: I see the Jet stream and other strong air currents. There is power there that is often hard to reach. They can move storm systems away, they can also bring them in. Music: trumpets and horns. I imagine fanfares that announce and proclaim. Yet, they also can blast away at life (in your face).
• Nines: Wide open sky and oxygen. The backdrop of life. I imagine lying on one’s back just looking up at the expanse of sky simply breathing. Music: the basic vibration of sound especially as they all work together to provide the harmonics that might even go beyond hearing. The purring of a cat, barely heard yet still felt.

Next: Water

Note: I Welcome your help! These are ideas and possibilities for images in understanding and exploring the Enneagram. These are all Tentative, and might/will need further development. You can help by commenting on what you think works and what you think will work better. Thank you, David

When I first started becoming aware of the presence of depression in my life, I would describe it as a void of emotion. At one level, the emptiness felt like a nothingness. I would look inside and would not find feelings or words. Even now as I see signs of burn out and even acedia in my inner landscape it would appear to be life/God forsaken.

One of the things I have been learning over the years is my experience of emptiness is more akin to overload. Instead of not feeling, I am over-feeling and my soul clicks a switch to protect itself from self-destruct. This remembering does help calm the fear and soothe the guilt which amplifies the emotional overload and keeps the breaker switch tripped.

While the image of the desert does come from time to time, the prevailing image for me is that of dense fog or overgrown swamp. It isn’t so much that I can’t find feelings to feel, it is a matter of I can’t sort through all that are there.

For example, there are many times when I feel like I have no strength at all and I am tempted to run away and not come out until I feel all better. Yet, as I continue to explore and accept my 8 Enneatype, I recognize that deep strength and energy are at the core of my essence. I learn to look for the ways I have lost sight of that essential connection with my core. And that core is really there all the time.

Another example is the bad thought of acedia (my Enneatype 9 wing), which is at its base an uncaring. In the grip of that thought I don’t care. I can’t care for myself, I can’t care for my family, my ministry, or anyone/anything. So I just sit unmoving. But Essence comes to me and bothers me. I find myself caring that I don’t care. I remember that I am a caring person, and if I feel uncaring, I have lost sight of that essential connection to my core (yes, I just repeated myself from above). Caring deeply for life and others (including myself) is part of how God made each of us and I need to believe that Essence is not lost even when I have lost the sight of the connection.

Usually, when I rediscover the connection, it is because I have too much. I am lost in the everything unable to focus on the lines and threads of life’s Essence.

I feel the same way with my longing and yearning to write. I have a growing folder of random pieces of paper that represent thoughts and ideas to reflect further on and write to share with others. Some of those become the source of my blog posts (the purpose of this nice technology for me) in a more raw form. I don’t do much editing with my blog posts (you can probably tell) by choice. Someone I read suggested that the raw nature of the medium provides some way to slip thoughts past my very active internal critic. The only critic I engage is the one that assesses whether the words will bring harm to others especially my family.

I talk about grace and compassion a lot. Part of the reason for that is that I find myself needing to practice that grace and compassion with myself as well. To not only invite my inner critic to have compassion upon me, but to have compassion on the inner critic part of me as well.

Only that personal and divine grace will bring clarifying light to the fear-filled fog/darkness/swamp/whatever in my life. And a big part of that grace is not to give up on myself or the work of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” –Mark 8:34, NRSV

Okay, I confess I have struggles with ideas such as surrender, denying myself, and even following. So today’s reading from Sacred Space was a bit soul rattling. It isn’t an earth-shaking concept at all. I just struggle with it. Part of the struggle comes from being an Enneagram 8 which is very much afraid of others controlling our lives. Yet, I think this is a struggle we all have as we work out of and through our sinful, self important orientation to life.

Face it, we all go through life trying to get everyone and everything to serve our best interests. We become masters of manipulation. We mold our image and the situation so we become the winner. We have even found ways to make doing good things for others into a way that we get payback. Control is a major issue for all points in the enneagram not just the Eights where we excel at it.

Right now, the hot zone is my spirituality. I say that is a good thing because that signals me that there is where my growing is most active and part of me doesn’t want to budge. I haven’t been able to name that part yet, and may never identify the persona inside me that is leading the resistance. I don’t need to be able to understand what is happening in order to proceed with the growing and healing. (seeking to understand is the control issue for the Enneatype 5, my stress point)

Back to denying. One of the fears of the call of Jesus in Mark 8 is that it opens up life to vulnerability, to weakness, to loss, even to emptiness. For quite a while, John 10:10 has been a calling point for me: the gift of life abundant. But here Jesus lays out a different path of life and growth, one of lessening not abundance. I have naively associated abundance and the fullness of God’s presence with the image of the rich feast where all our hearts desires (as we define them) are laid out for our joy.

However, lately, the experience of the abounding presence of God has been more desert then lush forest. It’s been about emptiness and sparseness than rich color and luxury. So the invitation to a life of denial is another string of this surprising path God has been leading me on.

The surprise has been enlightening.Once I get past the initial reaction of ache to the void and emptiness that seems to surround and fill me I find more there than I expected. The clutter and the noise recedes and instead of nothingness there is everythingness. Last year, I set as my personal Purpose statement to “Behold the ab0unding Presence of God.” I am discovering that as I move into this spaciousness of grace within that this Gloriousness is more visible. When I turn off the noise and allow the many voices to quiet and recede that it is becoming easier to hear the whispers of the Beloved. And my protests of fear and control and success and judgement and “look at me, look at me” now show themselves to be my small attempts to fill the void thinking It was what I truly feared when the Lover found in that space is truly my heart’s desire.

A struggle yes. Yet, I am soo far along the path to turn back now and I find myself actually more intrigued the further I walk along this desert path. Besides if I try to retrace my path, I can’t. The desert winds have blown away my track. I have little choice but to follow the pillar of glory that is changing it all.

Every few weeks I have the privilege of writing a column for the church page of our local newspaper. Below is this week’s submission. They don’t know it, but I will tell you that it is based on the 9 points of the Enneagram. (beginning with 1 going all the way to 9). I hope you like it.

Welcome to 09! With a new year, we are reminded of the invitation that is always there to choose new attitudes and new directions for our life. In honor of the Ninth year of this new Millennium, I want to offer 9 ways toward wholeness and holiness.

• Look for and honor the God-given good in others, thus freeing yourself and them from the weight of judgment and resentment.
• Be more compassionate to yourself just as you are compassionate toward others. Remember that it is a good thing to allow others (and even yourself) to care for you.
• Accept that your life is worth the world to God (John 3:16-17). Because of God’s promise of grace look forward to each new day with hope and anticipation.
• Take some time to listen for God’s dreams in your life. Find the way for God to create those great things in and through you.
• Be more open to how others can help you as well as how God uses you to help others. Remember the equation of love: the more you are open to give, the more you are open to gather.
• Accept the promise of God to love you abundantly (John 10:10). With courage, face the hard times of life with God’s presence and strength that supports, holds, and guides you.
• Make time each day for laughter and play with others: family members, old friends, and hopefully new friends.
• Be more generous and merciful toward those nearest you who are sometimes the hardest ones to me generous and merciful toward: family, friends, and neighbors. Because Jesus is generous and merciful to you, you are able to share freely.
• Accept the promise that God loves you (John 15:9). Spend more time each day nurturing that love relationship with God.

Remember that any day of the year can be the start of a new life with God’s love.